Though I generally don't like mechanistic comparisons between computers and human beings, I have found the following analogy to be useful in explaining these concepts, especially to employees and managers in high-tech companies. Biology is human hardware. The hardware can do only what it was built to do. It can do less but not more. This productivity takes place, however, within the confines of an operating system, which, in human terms, is culture.
Culture is the template, or operating sytem, that allows the software to run on the hardware.
Just as biology restricts what humans can do, culture restricts what humans allow themselves to do with the biology and development that we have. Thus, we see an example of mediated cross-cultural communication. They are speaking two different languages, not just in the linguistic sense, but in the broader cognitive sense as well. Of course, we are not doomed by predestination. As free agents, we can change our biology, our experiences, and our culture, but all three of these influences change very slowly.