Attitude to activity. There may be systematic cultural differences in willingness to act promptly, versus a preference for calm reflection. One culture's hot-headedness may be another culture's decisiveness. Sense of embeddedness in a social network, and acceptance of a network of responsibilities and obligations may run counter to the expatriate's cultural approach of rugged self-reliance. As indicated by the contrast between companies and pastoralists who able to negotiate with Indigenous communities in Australia and those who are not, there is considerable scope for improved cross-cultural understanding and communication within the country.
Research indicates considerable cultural discrimination in recruitment and promotion.
The continued problem of non-recognition of overseas qualifications, or the demand that qualifications be supplemented with work experience in Australia, were other manifestations of an Australian management failure to take account of the productivity and public relations effects of such exclusions. Within workplaces, productivity could be enhanced, safety improved, and absenteeism and turnover reduced, through a more systematic approach to workplace language and literacy, and to the need for multilingual supervisors. The management of retrenchments too has seen a disproportionate share fall on people whose retraining has not been addressed adequately because of language barriers. All these are well-known examples of practice in Australian workplaces, which do not create a particularly favourable image overseas. Frameworks for identifying Sources of Cross-Cultural Misunderstanding Kramar et al.