For those in Multinational Corporations (MNCs) or local companies servicing international clients, the first cross-cultural experience is through their overseas and onsite assignments. Typically, such instances of interaction either lead to culture shocks or cultural paradoxes. The former occurs when expectations and stereotypes of the expatriates towards local inhabitants are incongruent with what is actually experienced. Corporate cross-cultural sensitivity programs constantly forewarn employees of culture shocks and its various phases.

Cultural factors are responsible for differences among individuals, people and groups across countries, regions and communities. Culture defines socio-religious or moral values, attitudes, lifestyle, behaviors, mindset and even work norms of people. It is also responsible for maintenance of identities that are shared among people within a community or region.

Culture is learned. In fact, one is born into a culture that gets reasserted through incremental socialization or interaction with people over a period of time. Through this process, a repertoire of beliefs, norms and a series of formal and informal behavioral practices are developed that support cultural values. It may be argued that like human beings; animals too have their own culture or pattern of learned behavior. However, response is typically engendered by instinct in lower animals, while human beings implicitly learn cultural norms and subsume it into their identities.