Indonesia Culture : Indonesia  

Indonesia Culture - Travel guide

Indonesia

Culture

Indonesian culture can be classified for two kind of major culture:

1. Inner Indonesia (Javanese culture) is consisted of Kejawen areas, Pasisir Barat, Pasisir Timur. Javanese culture emphasizes respect, which means that age and social status must be acknowledged. As a result, the society tends to be stratified. The important value is harmony (balance). In Javanese family, the presence of children is very important.3 Economically, the children will assist their families by involving subsistent economy activities, which generated family income.4 In Javanese family, parents are not ambitious to educate their children for taking initiative.
   
   
2. Outer Indonesia is consisted of Southern of West Java,Sumatera, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Papua which characterized by openness, adaptive, and responsiveness.6 In the outer culture, human being has autonomy and independency. Therefore, even though, they generally come from traditional society, they are able to move out by spirit of outward-looking and able to survive independently. In this culture, the status of the people is depended on the skill and capability, and not depended on the heredity (ascribed status system).

In the new order era, Inner Indonesia is a dominant culture. As a result, Indonesian culture is quite similar with Javanese culture.

The Culture Impact on Managerial Values, Systems, and Processes

Indonesian society is very stratified and hierarchical. As a result, decisions are made at the top and are respected by those not in authority but by consensus. 'Communality' is very important. Therefore, in management, togetherness is a basic value. Individuality is subservient to communal interests. All kinds of communal duties in the village or neighbourhood are done in collective solidarity or gotong-royong. Gotong-royong is a kind of enforced social solidarity of the village community. The good processes are not enough done well but also done by participation of the members. It means, involving the people is important value in every process of activities.

The Culture Impact on Styles of Communication

Due to Indonesian is stratified and hierarchical society; the style of communication refers to the level of the status. There are different style of communication between one person to each other depending on the status of the people. Therefore, the levels of language are generally used in Indonesian culture, especially, Javanese culture. The vertical dimension of social life, and of life in general, is the very backbone of the Javanese moral order and is actually the cardinal pillar of Javanese social life. That order is legitimized by the idea that superiors are closer to the truth than inferiors and thus deserve respect. This hierarchical ordering, with the parent-child relationship as its core, should provide the stability and continuity of social life. One should know one's place in the hierarchical ordering and behave accordingly. The Javanese are masters at controlling or hiding their true feelings. They smile often in all types of situations. It can be difficult to know what they are thinking or saying. This ambiguity on their part may be necessary to save face. They dislike saying "no" and will rather leave things unsaid or say "belum," which means "not yet." While it is important to understand how your Indonesian counterpart acts, it is equally important to be mindful of your behavior. Strong relationships are essential to successful business in Indonesia. Relationship are the basis for friendships, where understanding and caring are necessary ingredients to long-term success. Developing and building relationships are generally done through introductions. Nurturing and keeping the relationship over a long period calls for mutual respect and harmony . In Indonesia, lengthy discussions must occur in order to develop respect in relationship.

The Culture Impact on Leadership Styles

Indonesia is a paternalistic culture. Superiors are expected to know better, and to care for their subordinates or followers. The institutionalized separation between superiors and inferiors implies the danger of mutual isolation, of superiors becoming arrogant, of leaders becoming arbitrary, and of inferiors passively resisting. In Javanese vertical relations, it is very difficult to solve conflicts and problems on a direct way. It belongs to the privileges of leaders to take decisions with which subordinates are generally extremely reluctant to interfere. As long as subordinates feel to be dependent on their leaders' resources they will comply. There are, however, strong tendencies toward authoritarian leadership in which people will merely please the boss for the sake of saving their socio-economic positions. They will please the boss (Asal Bapak/Ibu Senang, ABIS-syndrome), but ABIS-behaviour does not necessarily imply a personal commitment to the work done. Often this apparent obedient behaviour is only formal role-behaviour and hides attitudes of indifference or apathy.

The Culture Impact on Gender Differences

Paternalistic culture tends to facilitate unequal treatment between men and women. Legally, Indonesian men and women are equal but culturally and socially are still different, especially, in rural area with lower education background, men tend to more superior than women and women tend to follow what the society constructed. The gender differences are generally influenced by social and cultural construction, which developed and maintained by society as the right values. Indonesian government tries to eliminate gender differences by designing gender mainstreaming program. Before launching this program, the government also develops the ministry of women participation, which encourages all development sectors to involve women on area of development. Even though, government efforts are serious enough, in 1997 the real Indonesian economic was collapsed. As a result, the gender differences are influenced, which indicated by decreasing Indonesian Gender Development Index (GDI) rank from 68/130 in 1995 to 92/146 in 2001.

The Culture Impact on Dealing with Power Differences, Time Orientation, Conflict in Organizations

Indonesian society is very stratified and hierarchical. Decisions are made at the top (but by consensus) and are respected by that not in authority. Family life is of utmost importance, and respect for elders and political or social superiors transcends into all areas of life. Superiors are called bapak (father) of ibu (mother). While organizational charts or anatomy of Indonesian business may appear standard to the Western eye, one must look beyond the structure of the organization to see how it really operates. This patriarchal and hierarchical mindset flows to organizational structure. Subordinates do not question their bosses, but offer great loyalty to them as those responsible for their jobs. It is difficult, yet very important, to understand the complex relationships in an organization. Beyond family, the power of community is essential to the Indonesian psyche. It underlies the diverse cultures of the sukus (ethnic groups) of Indonesia. Social obligation is very important in the community. Mutuality of help is a guiding principle, which enforces social stability. General welfare is at the core of government and business activities; profit never takes precedence. Ethnicity is as important as national identity and is the primary basis for establishing relationships in the social order. The ethnics culture in which an individual was raised functions as the basis for personal character. Most business will be done on Java with Javanese or ethnic Chinese, yet you should recognize differences between the various suku, as ethnic affiliations can cut across departments or organizations. Indonesia is a top-down society and some people characterize Indonesia as a a neo-feodalist society. Indonesian tend to see the lasting time and give a little attention to the future. In term of using time, Indonesians consider time as a limitless. It means, leisurely pace in walks of life. Indonesians do not hurry, but rather see hurrying as impolite. They are generally not punctual, but expect foreigners to be on time. Indonesian do what is achievable rather than follow rigid schedules. Therefeore, flexibility and patience are critical to success. Thing change with time, and nothing is predictable. The accepted code of behavior among people embraces mutual defence, restraint, politeness, discussion, and consensus in order to produce harmony. Therefore, conflict in organization is something must be avoided. If concfict happened unavoidly, the leader must solve smoothly (win-win solution approach) to maintain harmony.

Cultural Sensitivities in Indonesia

Conflict in multicultural society is commonly happened. Even though, ethnic, religion, race, and inter-group conflict must be avoided. It is socially and culturally very sensitive and quite dangerous, which commonly called as SARA. SARA conflicts, which happened in some areas, make some damages and traumatic effects for the culture and society. In some cases, SARA conflicts are very influence on unity of the nation, for instance: ethnic conflict such as in May tragedy 1998 and Madura-Dayak conflict in Sangau; and conflict based on religion, such as: Maluku conflict and Poso conflict. It means, SARA conflicts are crucial problem in Indonesia nation and society, especially in maintaining national unity and national integrity.

Cross Cultural Management: Issues and Challenges

Nations, in the process of holding together, also operate on the brink between national unity and horizontal conflict. Force and coercion in the name of holding a nation create hotbeds of human rights violation. “Holding Together” becomes a case of building and maintaining a base of values and commitments to which the people can look for strength and inspiration, This will avoid random conflict both of the vertical sense in which the state becomes an enemy of its people as well as horizontal conflict which confronts groups of people in human tragedies which we see all too often in the world and its history. The mechanism to finesse the dichotomy of unity and violence is the development of a civil society. By bringing people together in their daily social interaction, conflicts are resolved on a daily basis without accumulating pressure for a multi-year cycle of violence and political change. In that sense, the violence in Aceh and Ambon is not simply a matter of political failure but it rather signifies what the next millenium will bring for all of us. We are a multi-ethnic society facing new challenges and dealing with old problems. Early in its adolescence power supplanted common interest as the dominant force for national discipline. Social institutions had to be polarized with reference to the power structure, with Soeharto completely dominating the entire institutional framework for three decades. By the time his regime neared its end, Soeharto was the only institution, which worked in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government. The collapse of the Soeharto regime revealed the tragically weak condition of the remaining institutions. The continuing weakness of the political and economic systems has allowed corruption to go on and human rights violations to be left unaccountable. Frustration is high and idleness provides powder kegs ready to be ignited for instant combustion into horizontal conflict. The diversity of Indonesian culture caused Indonesian as a multiculturalism society. Therefore, cross-cultural management is very importance area for Indonesian development. Unfortunately, Indonesian (government official and volunteer) capacity in cross cultural management area is still lack of capacity. It is indicated by increased cohesiveness of group, ethnics, and religion, which weighted social conflict and accelerated national disintegration. In the future, Indonesian government gives more attention to cross-cultural management issues, which effectively influenced for national integration. Unfortunately, in practice, it is quite easy to identify the problems in cross-cultural management but very difficult to formulate alternative intervention for solving the cross-cultural management problems. Government holds some programs and activities to answer the multicultural problems, such as: kemah budaya (cultural camps), dialog budaya (cultural dialogs), dan pertukaran budaya (cultural exchanges). The end objectives of cross-cultural management in Indonesian case can be identified for two targets:

1. By maximizing cross-cultural management, the diversity of cultures, ethnics, races, and religions, which existed in Indonesia are able to interact, learn, and respect. Therefore, the culture diversity is a blessing in disguise for strengthening national identity.
   
   
2. By interaction and respect, the culture diversity can build mutual understanding, which encourages in developing trust and solidarity. Cultural trust and solidarity are able to bound people in national bounding and national togetherness, which are useful for national unity.