Table 1 Key concepts of each stage in... | Emerald Publishing

Table 1

Key concepts of each stage in DMIS

Stages of experience	Key concepts
(1) Denial of cultural difference	“One's own culture is experienced as the only real one in this stage” (Bennett and Bennett, 2004) People would either intentionally neglect or be incapable of noticing the culture differences. Therefore, culture differences are not experienced during this stage
(2) Defense against cultural difference	People become more adept and start to recognize the difference of other cultures. However, feeling threatened by it, they degrade other culture and consider their own culture the most “evolved” one
(3) Minimization of cultural difference	In this stage, culture differences seem to be less significant compared with the view of physical universalism such as human's biological nature, needs or motivation and also transcendent universalism in certain religious, political or spiritual belief
(4) Acceptance of cultural difference	It is a stage where people not only see cultural differences but also start to appreciate them. In addition, one may be in the belief of cultural relativism, which means one culture is not better or worse than another Paige et al. (2003)
(5) Adaptation to cultural difference	People are able to experience a culture from the worldview of that culture. As suggested by Paige et al. (2003), there are two dimensions in the stage, empathy and pluralism. Empathy means being able to experiences certain feelings and behaviors from other cultures' perspectives, but meanwhile not losing one's primary cultural identity due to pluralism
(6) Integration of cultural difference into identity	It is a stage where people internalize more than one cultural worldview into their own. They construe their identity from the margin of many cultures, which is named as “Cultural marginality.” They will be able to accept the identity based on more than one culture and employ different culture frames in different contexts

Stages of experience	Key concepts
(1) Denial of cultural difference	“One's own culture is experienced as the only real one in this stage” (Bennett and Bennett, 2004) People would either intentionally neglect or be incapable of noticing the culture differences. Therefore, culture differences are not experienced during this stage
(2) Defense against cultural difference	People become more adept and start to recognize the difference of other cultures. However, feeling threatened by it, they degrade other culture and consider their own culture the most “evolved” one
(3) Minimization of cultural difference	In this stage, culture differences seem to be less significant compared with the view of physical universalism such as human's biological nature, needs or motivation and also transcendent universalism in certain religious, political or spiritual belief
(4) Acceptance of cultural difference	It is a stage where people not only see cultural differences but also start to appreciate them. In addition, one may be in the belief of cultural relativism, which means one culture is not better or worse than another Paige et al. (2003)
(5) Adaptation to cultural difference	People are able to experience a culture from the worldview of that culture. As suggested by Paige et al. (2003), there are two dimensions in the stage, empathy and pluralism. Empathy means being able to experiences certain feelings and behaviors from other cultures' perspectives, but meanwhile not losing one's primary cultural identity due to pluralism
(6) Integration of cultural difference into identity	It is a stage where people internalize more than one cultural worldview into their own. They construe their identity from the margin of many cultures, which is named as “Cultural marginality.” They will be able to accept the identity based on more than one culture and employ different culture frames in different contexts

Source(s): Bennett and Bennett (2004)