A U-M researcher thinks that European Americans’ “blunt, say-it-like-it-is approach” in the business environment might be hurting U.S. corporations in multicultural business environments. He calls the belief that personal relationships and emotions are secondary to the job at hand in a work environment Protestant Relational Ideology, “an affliction related to the Protestant work ethic, characterized by the expectation that one should be more impersonal and emotionally detached at work than in social situations.”

> See UMPR: “Friendly at work? It’s a good thing.”