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Cross Cultural Communication

University: University of London

  • Unit No: 2
  • Level: High school
  • Pages: 22 / Words 5426
  • Paper Type: Assignment
  • Course Code: n/a
  • Downloads: 48
Question :
  • What is cross-cultural communication in a business context?
  • How does organizational culture influence employee behavior?
  • How does Maldives score on the Individualism vs. Collectivism dimension?
Answer :

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The culture of the organization is created by variety of factors which includes preferences and values along with the demands of the industry along with assumptions, goals and values. Culture is something that has been maintained with the help of attrition, attraction and selection along with onboarding of new employees, leadership as well as organizational reward systems. This report will provide the information related to the facets of culture, understanding the level and magnitudes of culture in business context along with ways of integration cultural quandaries. Get best assignment help from instant assignment.

INTRODUCTION

Cross cultural communication can be referred as any kind of interaction among people whether into verbal or non-verbal format from different nationalities. Into the context of business oriented approach, this illustrates as the ways through which people from dissimilar cultures interact within any business environment (Dumont, 2023). Organizational culture refers to the system of shared beliefs, values as well as assumptions that highlight the people related to appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. Such kind of behaviour have strong level of influence over the behaviour of employees as well as performance of the firm.

The aspects will be illustrated by choosing Velanna International airport as the company which is the main international airport in the Maldives. This is majorly connected with all airports across the world and serving as the main gateway into the Maldives for tourists. This report will elaborate the facets of culture, levels of culture cultural dimensions into business context along with ways of reconciling cultural dilemmas.  

MAIN BODY

1.1 Culture and its facets

Culture can be defined as the complete grouping of shared as well as learned values, beliefs and practices that helps to generate unity among the group. This is considered as the core concept among which the anthropologists work (Aboramadan and Kundi, 2022). There are many authors who believe that some parts of culture are visible while various different aspects of it are invisible as well among the companies. In order to elaborate this concept into detailed manner, the Hofstede introduced 4 dimensions of the culture that are based upon below mentioned details such as:

  • Power distance index: This element refers to the degree of inequality hat exists as well as accepted among people with and without the help of power. Having high level of PDI score highlights that the society accepts the inequality along with hierarchical distribution of power as well as people understand their place while into the system. On the other side, having low level of PDI illustrates that the power is shared and widely discrete along with the members of society do not accept conditions at which the power has been distributed. In context of Maldives, the companies are having generally flatter organizations and the employees as well as supervisors are considered almost equal.    
  • Individualism versus collectivism: This denotes the strength of the ties that people is having for others among the similar kind of community. High IDV score indicates that weak level of interpersonal connections among the people who are not part of the core family. Into this, people take least accountabilities for others outcomes as well as actions. Into collectivist society, people are supposed to be loyal towards their group from which they belong as the groups are generally larger and people take responsibilities for one another. On the other hand, the low IDV elaborates that people work for intrinsic rewards and maintain harmony among group members over other moral issues (Sheeran and et.al., 2023). In the Maldives, the country is having high level of individualism verses collectivism as the people over there put great amount of value to people's time and privacy along with respect their feelings of considering their things into private manner.
  • Masculinity versus femininity: This highlights the distribution of roles and responsibilities among men and women. Into masculine societies, the roles of men and women overlaps less and men are expected to behave into self-assured manner. Into feminine societies, there is great deal to overlap roles of men and women as the great level of significance has been placed over good relationships with the direct supervisors or working with the people who are able to cooperate in well-mannered ways. In Maldives, the country is having moderate level of masculinity as they are creating a balance among the feelings and attributes as well as among living the quality of life. People are motivated highly with precise targets and the workplaces are also flexible in nature that creates appropriate work life balance.
  • Uncertainty avoidance index: This is the type of dimension that highlights the ways in which people can cope up with the anxiety level. High uncertainty avoidance societies having people to make life controllable and predictable. On the other hand, low UAI score countries are highly relaxed in nature as well as inclusive and open. The Maldives is having moderate level of uncertainty avoidance as they are highly able to maintain the balance among the high and low UAI and make sure that people remain focused and not creating too many structures among the companies.   

The Maldivian culture is rich into oral traditions of legends and often featuring the mythical sea demons along with spirits that haunt the island. In context of the norms of the Maldivian culture, this has been identified that the country is the Muslim country and hence, the alcohol can only be consumed into resort areas. The country is highly anti-drug as well as the place at which the punishments are extremely severe into some cases. Thus, the visitors also have to dress modestly while entering into their mosques. Moreover, the country shares the transparent values that highlight the integrity, solidarity, justice, courage and democracy. Most of the businesses takes place during the morning sessions and having an informal prevails (Das, 2022). Appointments should be made among the country into businesses in advance manner and for business meetings, men normally wear short sleeved shirts and tie with the formal lightweight trousers. In context of politics, the constitutes designates Islam as the state religion and requires citizens to be Muslim. This also stipulates that the President must be Sunni Muslim. The constitution specifies that judges must use sharia law in order to decide about the matters not otherwise addressed, although sharia is not considered to be applicable to non-Muslim citizens.

Cultural assumptions are considered as the natural as well as normal in each and every social condition as well as human situations. Sometimes individuals or even entire social group possess attitude that do not match socially that defined natural states. The idea which is familiar into specific culture. The thinking about cultural assumptions helps to enhance the awareness and trust level that assist into making successful business results. Hence, the role of cultural metacognition into business is vital in nature. The role of cultural assumptions has been considered as the providing huge level of influence into the ways through which one view the world as well as others (Chedru and Ostapchuk, 2023). Each and every culture has different perceptions over the subject which includes government, religion, family, etc. The organizational culture leads the behaviour of the members of the companies and affects the work that has been done by the people. The basic assumptions that has been share among employees includes happy employees always provide benefits to the company and with the aspect of provide them equal level of values and respect, the companies are able to grow and expand in well manner. Get more free assignment examples for your assignment needs.

1.2 Levels of cultures

The levels of the culture refer to the learned behaviour of the society that involve the categories of international culture, national culture as well as subcultures. During the time of classification of three general patterns, this has been acknowledged that here is a variation among the given culture. Even at the individual level, there might be dissimilarities from the dominant culture while on the other side, most of the people do not think about their culture at most general levels, as such levels do impact others even if they are not even aware about the same (Dewitt and et.al., 2022). The organizational culture has the capability to affects all aspects of the business from tone to punctuality to contract terms as well as provide them employee benefits. At the time when workplace culture aligns with the employees, they are more likely to feel comfortable, valued as well as supported. The culture into macro and micro context have the capability to affects the company with the help of diversification, by formulating their own cultural characteristics in order to highlight its specificity and to oppose other companies to withstand into the competition and develop positivizes among others. With the help of involvement of the organizational culture which acts as an important function of integration of employees through adjusting the internal environment. Due to the specified organizational culture, the companies are able to protect their employees against any kind of potential threats into the external environment as well (Aririguzoh, 2022). This is the basis of organizational behaviour as well as actions of preventing and control the direct negative consequences of the external environment company. With the assistance of organizational culture, the values are transmitted and preserved along with the traditions of the enterprises. Any kind of changes into the management system must takes account of the values, habits and concepts that must be perpetual in order to provide strength to the company. Without having any kind of strong culture, the companies are unable to talk about their strength and success.

In terms of the National culture which considered as the belief, traits, values and institutions that shared within the country. This can be easily recognizable into the form of symbols which include logos, flags, colours, etc. along with sound that includes national anthems and musical styles. Although this is considered as the mistake to assume that everybody within the large establishment shares common culture. Basically majority of people does agree over some core values at some level. Core values are considered as the basic, key as well as central values that integrate culture along with provide assistance into distinguish from others. In context of the Maldives, the country is having most delicate environment anywhere over the planets as the country has no hills. The country covers an area approximately 90000 square kilometres of which only 298 sq. kilometres is the dried land (Lee and Haskins, 2022). The country is largely flat and has no land features such as hills and rivers. The Maldives island attained complete political independence from the British in 1965 and into 1968, a new republic was inaugurated and finally the sultanate has been abolished. In context of the culture, the status of the women into the Maldives is fairly high as the special sections are reserved for women into public areas such as mosques and stadiums. The Maldivian cultures shares many aspects of strong matriarchal tradition with the ancient Dravidian culture. Being an Islamic country, the Maldives having conservative culture although the people are quite indirect while speaking because they focus over not offending the other party. The environment of the business is hierarchical and decisions are generally made by the top management people among the hierarchy. are you looking for personal statement writing service. Don't worry we are here to help you.

The culture of the Velana International airport consists of doing business into the language of English and the company greatly considers the values and personal kindness in securing the deals with their customers. Into the company, the titles play a major role as it is best to address the partners directly by using their professional title followed by their last names. The agreements that has been made among the firm are conducted into the format of writing and the negotiations are often impulsive in nature as the partners often demand an immediate meeting while showing the interest into business (Dahl and Sharma, 2022). The company prefers to deal with details with the help of personal meetings rather than correspondence. This is also considered as an important aspect that the people among the Maldives and even in the Velana International airport company are quite polite in nature and they likely to provide small gifts as the personal care of gesture. Generally, the meetings among the firm starts with an informal conversations and business negotiations are often time consuming as well. The company runs their culture with a vision to provide friendliest airline with unparalleled experiences. Their mission consist that they want to provide high level of consumer satisfaction into the airline industry through innovative domestic as well as regional operations to the highest standards of commitment and professionalism.

The Velana International airport company culture is highly influenced with the corporate culture within the Maldives as the culture of the company is having rich and traditional culture and heavily shaped with the influence from Sri Lankan, Indian, Arab, Malaysia, Indonesia and even African influences. They operate their employees as well as consumers with high level of warmth, welcoming and friendly behaviour in order to provide great level of services to their employees as well as users. The professional culture that has been followed by the Velana International airport company includes working of 48 hours per week as the Friday, Saturday and Sunday is considered as the holiday. Also all employees are entitled to be nine public holidays. Moreover, they are paying the annual as well as sick leaves of 30 days for all employees who have finished one year of their work engagement. The company follows the hierarchical structure and their decisions are generally made by the top range of the hierarchy.           

Culture and management is considered as the interactive as well as strategic way to link the company beliefs, core values and purposes to all employees related to the company system. The culture within the management illustrates the predefined policies that provide guidance to their workforce and give them sense of direction at the workspace (Karl and et.al., 2022). With the embedding great level of culture into the company, the people are able to give everybody with an opportunity to grow, learn and make a positive contribution towards the society as well as company. This also assist to increase the productivity, profitability along with increase the level of engagement of employees towards the functioning of the company. Are you looking for paper help in UK. We are here to help you.

2.1 Cultural dimensions into business context

Cultural dimensions are the thing that summarizes the extent to which the cultural groups are found empirically different from one another in context of psychological attributes which includes values, beliefs, personality, behaviour and self-constructs (Ahyani and et.al., 2022). This specified approach has been potentially associated with Geert Hofstede as the national cultures has been explored with the help of identification of different and important six dimensions of the culture that has been explained below:

Dimensions

High

Low

Maldives in reference to each dimension

Power distance index

· Extremely complex hierarchy

· Centralized establishment.

· Large gaps among the authority, compensation and respect.

· Employees and supervisors are considered to be equal.

· Flatter establishments.

The country is having low level of power distance.

Individualism versus Collectivism

· High level of value has been placed over the time of the people and their requirement related to privacy and liberty.

· Expectations of individual rewards for hard work.

· Prominence over building skills and becoming proficient into work.

· Maintaining harmony among groups.

· People work for essential rewards.

High level of individualism.

Masculinity versus Femininity

· Strong level of egos exists among people.

· Achievements and money plays a major role.

· Relationship oriented.

· Completely focused over quality of life.

Moderate range of masculinity.

Uncertainty Avoidance Index

· Conservative structures unless the danger of failure occurs.

· People are expressive and allowed to show their emotions.

· Openness to change and generally inclusive in nature.

·  More inclined towards open ended learning and decision making.

· Least sense of urgency.

Moderate level of uncertainty avoidance index.

Long versus Short Term Orientation

· People generally wonder the ways to know what is true.

· Education are considered as positive values.

· Modesty

· Obligations and virtues are emphasized.

· Strong convictions.

· People tend to oversell themselves as others will assess their assertions critically.

· Moralities and ethics are emphasized.

The country is long term orientation

Indulgence versus Restraint

· Significance of freedom of speech.

· Optimistic in nature.

· Focus over personal happiness.

· Pessimistic

· More rigid and controlled level of behaviour.

Maldives having high indulgence quality and low restraints.

Western culture refers to western civilization is the term that highlights the diverse range of heritage related to ethical values, social norms, belief systems, artifacts and traditional customs along with technologies of the western world. The western culture clusters consider of The European Union which is originated from the economic market to fair trade among European countries. This is considered as the body with common institutions at social, political and economic levels. The Latin Europe consists of catholic churches as well as Roman languages that influences Roman Empire. This proposes more personal approach in order to organize and manage but into high bureaucracy. The European consists of formalization of hierarchy as well as procedures into most efficient manner. This reliance over families and personal connections to get the things done into efficient ways. Into the context of Anglos, it consists of citizens of British Isles and immigrants of north American and Australasian. The group of them are settled into Britain that has been established by Romans (Adamovic, 2022). Now England is the part of the UK of Northern Island and Great Britain consisting of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Culturally, they are least power distance and having lower level of uncertainty avoidance while more individualistic and aggressive over their counterparts. They are following relaxed management approach and emphasis over individual concerns that are contributed towards the tasks. On the other side, the Latin Americans shared their cultural values irrespective of differences among bet Central and South American countries. They are the ones who strongly believe into catholic religion along with the socially and economically, the bet gap bet the rich and poor is considerable. They consist of collectivist culture pride, interdependence and loyalty among families but least value on institutional collectivism.

On the other side, the Eastern culture considers as the Eastern civilisation and considers as the historical culture for varied and different cultural heritages which includes countries of Asia and the Middle East. On the basis of culture, this is quite different from western culture and reflects the attitude and behaviour of the people. The East Europe refers to the nations that are dominated with the Soviet communism and includes Hungary, Albania, Russia, Greece, Poland, Georgia and Slovenia. The East Europe is high into orientation, collectivism, gender egalitarianism, future oriented and restraint along with lower scores into the uncertainty avoidance (Peñarroya-Farell and Miralles, 2022). This is also lower into power distance and collectivism. The Middle East cluster refers reflects Arabian Muslim culture and involves Turkey, Qatar, Egypt, Morocco and Kuwait. These societies score lower level in uncertainty avoidance and higher scores into the restraints and collectivism. The Confusion Asia is considered as having strong influence of confusion ideology. This involves Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, japan, China and Thailand. Into this, the Japan is having high level of individualism and lower on the part of collectivism and power distance.

The south Asian cluster involves the India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Philippines, Nepal and Fiji. The nations within this cluster irrespective of the diversity among the external influences share the disposition in order to adjust the external and modern level of impacts into their native cultures. The Maldivian culture also influences with the Southern Asian culture and also displayed it into the history of peaceful as well as interactive coexistence of diversity which include their religious beliefs. The societies among the Maldives report higher level of score for power distance, collectivism and humane orientation (Perdana and et.al., 2022). This cultural value profile illustrates societies that put their emphasis over the fulfilment of the obligations into the hierarchical system with in-depth orientation of the community. Although Maldivians have assimilated such influences over the years as well as created their own cultural identity like no other country.

The Eastern culture is having certain level of features that includes stronger emphasis over the hierarchy, respect for the authorised people, more marked power distance among social classes and put high level of emphasis over ethical values.   

2.2 Cultural dilemmas

Value orientation in context of culture represents the core as well as basic beliefs of a culture. Such type of basic beliefs deals with the relationships of human with one another and with their world. This is basically the principles of right and wrong that are accepted by social group as well as an individual (Strömbom, Bramsen and Stein, 2022). There are some value orientations in terms of culture that has been represented as the affective autonomy that pursuing positive affective experiences, mastery that encourages self-assertion, hierarchy that proposes unequal distribution of the power, harmony that highlights the being at ease with the world and embeddedness that illustrates of being part of the collectiveness. In order to elaborate the aspects in detailed manner, the Trompenaars cultural dimension model has been introduces that has been explained below:

Sr. No.

Dimension 1

Dimension 2

Maldives in reference to seven dimensions

1.

Universalism is related to tie values as well as beliefs to work, instructions, provide clearly defined procedures along with analysis for decisions made.

Particularism allows for dissimilar treatments for different people on the basis of their circumstances.

Maldives is considered as being more particularistic culture.

2.

Individualism tends to focus over the things from an individual perception by considering the things that best suited for an individual and affects own achievements.

Communitarianism focuses over principles of taking care of the entire group and the ways in which everyone will work together to make sure no one is left behind.

Maldives is having communitarianism kind of culture as they acknowledge group successes.

3.

Neutral cultures tend to make sure that emotions are kept into check and are not shown.

Emotional cultures share their feelings with others with the help of body language to convey their thoughts and handle conflicts appropriately.

Maldivians expressions of emotions are neutral in nature.

4.

Specific cultures tend to keep personal as well as professional lives completely separate as the relations are clearly defined.  

Diffuse cultures have relationships that are intermixed hence, personal and professional lives mix together.

Maldives shares diffuse cultures.

5.

Achievement cultures equate someone worth to their performances and actions they have taken.

Ascription cultures base the perception of who a person is over things like age and gender.

The Maldives society is considered as achievement based society culture.

6.

Sequential cultures incline to treat time as extremely valuable and inflexible along with tend to adhere to punctuality and strict schedules.

Synchronic cultures illustrate as to provide value to priorities more than predetermined time limitations.

Maldives is having synchronic kind of culture.

7.

Internal direction are related to the self-motivated mind set in order to achieve goals that they find worthwhile and important.

Outer direction tends to direct the thoughts and actions through external norms by conforming the values and standards of society or group.

Maldives is having internal direction kind of cultures.

             

Dilemma is the kind of condition in which one has to choose among two or more things, plans and ways that are equally unsatisfactory in nature. Cultural barriers come into different forms with differences into religious beliefs related to communication that has been created by unfamiliar languages and nonverbal behaviour. This has been overcome through certain methods which includes being open minded towards adopting new things, utilise effectual communication system and generate awareness related to cultural awareness (Han and et.al., 2023).

Reconciliation acts as the process that helps to ensure the accuracy and validity of financial information. With the help of adopting this, one is able to acknowledge and deal with the past, build positive relationships and facilitating significant culture along with attitudinal changes. This highlights as the framework that facilitates the procedure of bringing to opposing parties collectively into such manner through which they are able to learn to appreciate the modifications among them and also able to restart development of new and innovative ideas along with appropriate solutions based over the diversity (Aureli and Del Baldo, 2022). In order to overcome from cultural differences in Velanna International airport company, the team members have to listen more than speak, ask consistently questions, create an environment of transparency, focus over universal values, lead with humility along with leverage personality assessments. And to overcome cultural barriers from society, thinking beyond the ethnicity and race, learn by asking people, paying attention towards non-verbal communications and making local connections.  

CONCLUSION

From the above report, this has been concluded that there is a great impact of diversified culture over the organizational success as it helps to enrich and develop lives into many ways that they not always recognize. This helps to generate social as well as economic benefits with improves learning and health and also enhance the tolerance as well as opportunities to come together with others. This helps to increase the quality of life and increase overall wellbeing for both individuals and communities.

Related Sample - LSBM306 Indigenous Australian Assignment Level 6

 

REFERENCES

Books and Journals

  • Aboramadan, M. and Kundi, Y.M., 2022. Emotional culture of joy and happiness at work as a facet of wellbeing: a mediation of psychological safety and relational attachment. Personnel Review.
  • Adamovic, M., 2022. How does employee cultural background influence the effects of telework on job stress? The roles of power distance, individualism, and beliefs about telework. International Journal of Information Management. 62. p.102437.
  • Ahyani, H., Putra, H.M., Slamet, M. and Mutmainah, N., 2022. Standardization of Companies and The Islamic Business Environment in Indonesia. Jurnal Ilmiah Ekonomi Islam. 8(1). pp.10-20.
  • Aririguzoh, S., 2022. Communication competencies, culture and SDGs: effective processes to cross-cultural communication. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. 9(1). pp.1-11.
  • Aureli, S. and Del Baldo, M., 2022. Stakeholders' consciousness of cultural heritage and the reconciliation of different needs for sustainable development. Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development.
  • Chedru, M. and Ostapchuk, M., 2023. The effect of study abroad and personality on cultural intelligence: A deeper understanding using the expanded model of cultural intelligence. International Journal of Intercultural Relations. 92. p.101737.
  • Dahl, Y. and Sharma, K., 2022, April. Six Facets of Facilitation: Participatory Design Facilitators' Perspectives on Their Role and Its Realization. In Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-14).
  • Das, R., 2022. Cultural determinants of national innovativeness: A 56 country Bayesian analysis. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management. 34(8). pp.933-945.
  • Dewitt, S., Jafari-Sadeghi, V., Sukumar, A., Aruvanahalli Nagaraju, R., Sadraei, R. and Li, F., 2022. Family dynamics and relationships in female entrepreneurship: An exploratory study. Journal of Family Business Management.
  • Dumont, G., 2023. Immersion in organizational ethnography: Four methodological requirements to immerse oneself in the field. Organizational Research Methods. 26(3). pp.441-458.
  • Han, H., Al-Ansi, A., Chua, B.L., Ahmad, N., Kim, J.J., Radic, A. and Bobby Ryu, H., 2023. Reconciling civilizations: Eliciting residents' attitude and behaviours for international Muslim tourism and development. Current Issues in Tourism. 26(9). pp.1463-1481.
  • Karl, J.A., Johnson, F.N., Bucci, L. and Fischer, R., 2022. In search of mindfulness: a review and reconsideration of cultural dynamics from a cognitive perspective. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand. 52(2). pp.168-191.
  • Lee, A.T. and Haskins, N.H., 2022. Toward a culturally humble practice: Critical consciousness as an antecedent. Journal of Counseling & Development. 100(1). pp.104-112.
  • Peñarroya-Farell, M. and Miralles, F., 2022. Business model adaptation to the COVID-19 crisis: Strategic response of the Spanish cultural and creative firms. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity. 8(1). p.39.
  • Perdana, A., Lee, H.H., Koh, S. and Arisandi, D., 2022. Data analytics in small and mid-size enterprises: Enablers and inhibitors for business value and firm performance. International Journal of Accounting Information Systems. 44. p.100547.
  • Sheeran, N., Jones, L., Pines, R., Jin, B., Pamoso, A., Eigeland, J. and Benedetti, M., 2023. How culture influences patient preferences for patient-centered care with their doctors. Journal of Communication in Healthcare. 16(2). pp.186-196.
  • Strömbom, L., Bramsen, I. and Stein, A.L., 2022. Agonistic peace agreements? Analytical tools and dilemmas. Review of International Studies. 48(4). pp.689-704.
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