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Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Public personnel management needs to develop ways to understand global culture. Public sector personnel management must develop training so that all the personnel are able to deal with people of different cultures and races. “Culture is a set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional features shared by society or a social group. Culture encompasses language, communication patterns, lifestyles, practices, customs, a body of learned behaviors, value systems, traditions, shared beliefs, and views on roles and relationships” (Betancourt 2004, p. 53). Cultural competency involves the knowledge, awareness, sensitivity, attitudes, skills, and encounters by individuals in organizations and the respect for the cultural traditions of the clients and their communities (Farr 2005). In essence, cultural competency reflects the role culture plays in shaping an individual or group’s attitudes, values, and beliefs, which evolve through a long-time process of development (Cross et al. 1989). Cultural competency has been defined as a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that enable an agency, or the professionals within an agency, to work effectively in cross-cultural situations (Cross et al. 1989; Isaacs and Benjamin 1991). Cultural competency is the integration and transformation of knowledge about individuals and groups of people into specific standards, policies, practices, and attitudes used in appropriate cultural settings to increase the equality of services, thereby producing better outcomes (Davis 1997). Lindsey et al. (2003) have developed a “cultural proficiency continuum” to depict how public agencies respond to and react to “difference.” This continuum ranges from cultural distinctiveness to cultural proficiency: Cultural destructiveness: negating, disparaging, or purging cultures that are different. Cultural incapacity: emphasizing the superiority of one’s cultural values and beliefs and suppressing cultures that are different. Cultural blindness: ignoring differences among cultures and refusing to recognize any differences. Cultural pre-competence: recognizing the lack of knowledge, experience, and understanding of other cultures limiting the ability to interact with people from different background. Cultural competence: the ability to interact effectively with people from diverse background. Cultural proficiency: respecting the differences among cultures and recognizing the benefits of different cultures. (Roberts and Jones 2005).
