Culture Insights


Power Distance – How Does It Affect You at Work?

Recently, a multinational organization had an opportunity to close a huge deal with a chip manufacturing company from China. The negotiations were led by Fabian, a German national, who arranged a site visit for the management team from China with the hopes of acquainting them with the local processes. Due […]


5 Key Points to Consider When Making Conference Calls across Cultures

In the past, an international corporation’s Customer Inventory Planning was done separately by teams located in its respective regions. Recently, the company decided to merge its Asia Pacific and Japanese planning operations together. Senior advisers from both teams (a Malaysian named May and a Japanese named Kaori) arranged a conference call […]


Why Don’t Malaysians Like Asking for Help?

Katrina*, a Danish national, is here in Malaysia for a 2-year expat assignment to assist in standardizing the company’s policies and procedures on a global scale. After understanding how a particular process is done in Malaysia, Katrina explained how it is done on a Group level and provided suggestions on […]


3 Reasons Why Expats Need to Learn Some Malay

Sarah, an expat from Canada, was expecting a visit from her family during the upcoming week. She went to her usual supermarket located near her home to stock up on groceries and was in the midst of loading them all into a taxi when the driver unexpectedly drove off before […]


Ways Malaysians Say No

Wai Keat is busy at his desk when he hears a knock on his door. His American boss, Frederik, extends an invitation to his house for a barbeque this weekend. Wai Keat has made plans for the weekend, so he begins to say, “Ohh…err…I got something to do…” Frederik jumps […]


Implicit Leadership Theory – What Makes a Good Leader, to You?

Have you ever briefly interacted with someone new and deduced that the individual must be in some form of a leadership role? Even though you hardly know that person, you connect some of the attributes displayed by that individual to what you view as good leadership qualities. Such a phenomenon […]


What is Double-Voiced Discourse and How Does it Affect Us at the Workplace?

Double-voiced discourse is a phrase coined by the Russian philosopher and linguistic theorist named Mikhail Bakhtin. While we may not often speak of this term, some of our everyday actions would fall under its very definition. As opposed to single-voiced discourse (where a topic is expressed in a straightforward way), […]


CQ Self-Assessment Pro – Part 3 Benefits of the Assessment

In this final part of our CQ Self-Assessment Pro series, we will consider the benefits that result from participating in this cultural intelligence assessment. Designed to measure an individual’s capability for working and relating across cultures, the outcome will certainly prove to be useful insight for individuals and corporations looking […]


CQ Self-Assessment Pro – Part 1 Taking the Assessment

Culture Boleh Global Training PLT is licensed to administer and conduct debriefing for CQ Self-Assessment Pro, a cultural intelligence (CQ) assessment developed by Cultural Intelligence Center, LLC. As a part-time blogger for Culture Boleh, I was given the opportunity to take this assessment and am excited to be documenting my […]


The Concept of Saving Face in a Malaysian Cultural Context

As with many Asian countries, Malaysia is known to be a face saving culture. Although the term is not commonly used in everyday conversations among Malaysians, the concept is deeply ingrained in our cultural makeup and affects everything that we do. To save face means to preserve one’s reputation, credibility […]