Cross Cultural Management - Essay Example

? Cross Cultural Management Cross cultural management Difficulties of working and managing cross cultural in Australia. 1.0 Introduction Culturally and Linguistically diverse People Overseas immigration has a great and widespread impact on Australia’s economy, especially management of business and workforce operations. Migration has been a chief source of growth in Australia’s population over the last few years, accounting for 44% of the population increase since 1979 Jupp (2001, p.88). Certainly, overseas immigration is the most important component in the population growth of Australia. Linguistically and culturally varied people comprise a considerable percentage of the West Australian population. The phrase “culturally and linguistically varied” refers to individuals and groups of people who differ in terms of ethnicity, religion, language and race, with an exception of people whose ancestry is Aboriginal, Anglo-Celtic or Anglo-Saxon. The widely used abbreviation for this group is CALD, “Culturally and Linguistically Diverse.” This report aims at highlighting several management issues related with diversity, especially between Malaysia and Australia. The report bases its contents on an interview conducted with the CEO of iNOVA Pharmaceutical, Andrew Howden regarding his experiences as a CEO in Australia and other countries such as Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore. It also bases its findings and discussions on another interview with a Malaysian insider, Ralph, who was born and raised in Malaysia, but relocated to Australia. The report begins with a background analysis of iNOVA pharmaceuticals, the CaLD stakeholders and relevant information on the CALD group. What follows is a summary of the interviews’ results, stating the CEO’s and the insider’s comments, experiences and views on several management issues. The report will then offer a literature review and discussion of the results by offering more information on the role and significance of CALD on Australian business and management, and management and operations differ between Australia and Asian countries, especially Malaysia. In this section; it will focus on the benefits of having a multicultural workforce, in relation to the interview. Before concluding, the report offers recommendations on how to handle problems created by diversity. 2.0 Background iNova Pharmaceuticals (Australia), is the corporate headquarters for “iNOVA* operations. The company is leading in consumer healthcare, with specialty prescription brands in over fifteen countries including Asia Pacific, New Zealand, Africa regions and Australia. The company was borne out of Riker Laboratory and 3M pharmaceutical fifty years ago, and presently maintains a broad spectrum of products as well as the ability to develop and acquire new products. Providing new opportunities and bringing new talents are fundamental to iNOVA The CALD stakeholder is Malaysia, a Southeast Asian federal constitutional monarchy. The country has a total of 13 states and three territories. Malaysia has a “freedom of religion” clause in its constitution despite maintaining Islam as its state religion. 61.3% of Malaysians practice Islam while Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism and several Chinese religions, shares the remaining percentage. Malaysian official language is Bahasa Malaysia, while English is an active second language. The country has a multilingual, multicultural and multi ethnic society. 3.0 Results a) Interview with iNOVA CEO: account and perspective In an interview with Andrew Howden, the CEO of iNova Pharmaceutical, the CEO pointed out several potential difficulties pertaining to the management of people of different cultures and religious backgrounds. The main culture in question was the Malaysian culture, with emphasis on the Muslim religion. The aim of the interview was to establish the potential difficulties that managers must overcome in order to manager people of different cultures effectively. It is important to note that Andrew had anticipated similar difficulties as he had prior experience, working in Asia for close to fifteen years. In Asia, cultural hurdles and incidences are normal, making it easier for international leaders to relate to situations. The CEO noted that the biggest hurdle, especially in the Pharmaceuticals industry relates to the beliefs, values and principles of Muslim employees and customers, as well as their deep concern for pork products. He argues that even though employees would have little difficulties working with the products, consumers are keen on products containing any product, and would avoid them. Because of this, it is mandatory for a pharmaceutical company owners and management to do a thorough background research on products before storing them. Muslim consumers would reject a product-containing gelatin, a byproduct of pork. In Malaysia, the government cannot register a product until it is Halal certified. This illustrates the importance of Muslim religion, especially its influence on the consumer behavior and purchase. Even though Muslim or Malaysian employees working in Australia would have no problem working on products containing pork products, the situation may be different in other countries where Muslim religion is more prominent. The central employee difficulty that Andrew observed was the issue of prayer rooms. Muslim employees have high regards for prayers, and would not miss praying when needed. He said that their office in Singapore had to build a cupboard for the Muslim employees to conduct their prayers. When asked if this Muslim behavior would affect the behavior of other employees who were not Muslims, Andrew responded that this solely depended on their work-colleague relationship. If the Muslims frequently snick off to pray, other employees would see this behavior as a slack. However, a majority of employees would have no problem in cases where the Muslims only go for prayers during their breaks. This “prayer habit”, was also intense in other countries such as Malaysia and Singapore, where employees would literally stop everything and even switch off machines to go for prayers. However, this was different in Australia because that would be “out of practice”. Despite this, Australian managers must still accept the prayerful behavior of Muslims. Another important factor that Andrew reports to have come across was the issue of communication. He notes that in a business situation and communicating across cultures, mangers need to use different languages and use too many words when communicating to other cultures. This is more specifically, when using emails to communicate, as it is easy to offend people through emails. Managers need to be careful not to use slang or abbreviations in emails because audiences may fail to understand that message. This is a similar case to when using presentations to communicate. In some Asian cultures, it would be impossible to use sarcasm during communication because they will not get it. Managers should avoid the use of jokes or other slang words, as they would have different meanings in different cultures. People in Malaysia, Philippines or Thailand value positional power, thus, anyone in position must be careful with what they say and to whom. When an employee asks a manager or an organizational leader a question, the leader may fail to be as open as they would like because of the powerful information they hold. However, in Australian culture, Australians are easy, unbiased, open and more direct. When striking a deal with Asian cultures it is necessary to foster relationships first before talking about business. This is unlike Australia, where people talk business upfront. If anyone becomes upfront with business talks in Malaysia, others would consider this gesture rude. Andrew reports that in Asian countries such as Malaysia, it was common to see cultural clashes, especially in the presence of Muslim and Chinese employees. On the contrary, Australians are more tolerant and accepting of other culture’s views. However, Malaysians avoid conflicts and have higher levels of uncertainty avoidance. In this respect, they are more forebearing to performance management issues. Regarding body language and non-verbal communication, Andrew reported that one must be very careful while using body language, as it is easily misunderstood. In Asian cultures, putting up one’s feet up would be very rude. On diversity, Andrew reported that at a senior level, it would not be necessary for iNOVA to employ many females. However, on an outsider’s perspective, it would be important for the company to diversify. Diversity would have the benefit of providing diverse ideas and views on managing and running businesses. In a multicultural organization, it is critical for people to be aware of other people’s beliefs, norms, cultures and values, as this is important in resolving conflicts amongst them. Culture also has a large impact on motivation and peoples’ copping ways, as well as issues of respect. In Asian cultures, an employee would be unhappy with the boss but hide it. This is unlike Australia where employees openly show their grievances. Asians such as Malaysians have an efficiency and motivation problem, thus, they would be breaking inwardly but fail to reveal it. However, this may not only be a cultural issue but a company issue too. A company that has a culture that encourages employees to display their emotions will have more employees airing their grievances. When communicating with Malaysians, it is important not to use emails because it inhibits the use of various important gestures such as handshakes and looking into someone’s eyes. Despite the technological availability, Malaysians still hold certain gestures very important. For meetings, Asians prefer meeting in outside one’s home. Inviting someone home would make them uneasy as they would feel obligated to invite back, even when they do not want to. In Malaysia and other Asian countries, it is common for people to have a common meeting place, over food, this mainly happens at a certain point of striking deals. This is different in some cultures where it is almost impossible to discuss business over a meal. b) Interview with the insider, Ralph: the insider‘s account and perspective of the incident/challenges This interview was with a Malaysian insider, Ralph, who was born in Penang, North of Malaysia, but lives and works in Australia. Ralph reports that that trust is a fundamental factor in a workplace, especially for Malaysians because it holds the relationship between the two together. Lack of trust indicates a poor relationship because the farthest point a relationship can get to is by measuring if the people involved trust each other. In comparison with other Asian countries like Korea, who hold trust very highly (a previous interview revealed that once two people had a close relationship, they would refer to each other as siblings, “brother”, and that they would trust each other), when a boss commented that he could not trust his employees, they resigned. This revealed the importance the Koreans and Taiwanese attach to trust. However, this is a little different in Malaysia, with its patronage culture. It is sensible, especially in business practices, for Malaysians not to have that level of trust for other people. in addition to this, they avoid using emphasizing on the “brotherly” relationship even though Malaysians are still entrenched in the patronage culture. In Malaysia, the relationship between a boss and employees is critical to competency and the ability to perform tasks. Ralph reports that to succeed in Malaysia, one must understand cultural diversity as well as obtain an interest on languages because English is a second language in most Asian countries especially Malaysia. In addition to this, the religious aspect of the Malaysian culture is very important for one to understand in order to comprehend the Malaysian culture and remain sensitive to various cultural beliefs. Religion is an important factor in Malaysia, visible by the government’s regulations that companies provide prayer rooms for employees, to enable employees fulfill their religious duty of praying five times a day. However, this is different in Australia because there are fewer Muslims. Therefore, it would be impractical to provide a room for three out of one hundred employees for prayers. 4.0 Findings and discussion There are people from over two hundred different countries living, studying or working in Australia, identifying with over one hundred religious groups and speaking over two hundred and seventy languages. However, a high percentage of these migrants were relatively proficient in English and those who were unable to use English were mainly from Iraq, Vietnam, Japan, China, Korea, and Turkey Jupp (2001, p.127). Creating awareness for the need to rediscover ethnic and ethnic individuality as well as how to manage ethnic and cultural diversity, promotes the minority’s group access and participation in the society’s resources and maintains the country’s unity. This diversity reveals the reasons for Australia’s tolerance to many cultures and modernity. As seen in the interviews, Australia is quite different from Malaysia, especially regarding the emphasis Malaysians place on the Muslim religion and their culture. Australia cannot place such an emphasis on a single culture or religion because of its vast diversity. The integration of different cultures and ethnic minorities in Australia has positively influenced the country’s economy, especially through diversification of economic structures, educational options and business strategies. The country now has a large population of people from Non-English speaking background, which is beneficial to its international image, thus, attracting investors and skilled workforce. An example is Ralph, the Malaysian insider who lives and works in Australia. Immigrants feel comfortable in Australia because if the Australian policies that provide services for immigrants, and ensures immigrants access resources for improving their livelihood. These have indirectly benefited both local and international businesses operating in Australia. International managers bring into the country better management strategies, which ensure success for their companies. Multiculturalism ensures the country borrows ideas from the minority groups on how to handle issues, hence improving their problem solving abilities Scarborough, (1998, P.129). When Australian companies hire people from the minority groups such as Malaysians living in Australia, they avoid emphasizing on the minority’s culture, and instead provide a general and acceptable company culture that every employee can identify with. For example, Andrew reported in the interview that in Australia, it would be improper to provide a prayer room for Muslim employees. This is a strategy for ensuring equality at the workplace. Australian companies and business have a mixture of employees from diverse cultures. Obligating the company to recognize and provide the demands of all the cultures would be absurd. This is different in Malaysia, where, despite having other cultures and religions, Muslim remains highly important, and it is a government requirement to recognize Islam culture. The concept of diversity is very important to Australian companies. For instance, diversity enables companies to understand international market, obtain diverse perspectives and obtain operational skills, which aid in decision making and representing a diverse customer base. In the interview with Andrew, he emphasizes this fact by arguing that even though his company, iNOVA may not necessarily require women employees and it would be good for the company’s image to hire women. In addition to this, diversity would ensure iNOVA have a broad knowledge pool for its decisions and perspectives. Australia seemed to have realized that different cultures result to diverse socio-politico-economic paradigms and systems. This implies that the country had realized that market mechanisms, economic systems and policies, governance, financial institutions, and corporate systems were all inherently bound to culture Jayasuriya (2003, p. 121). Thus, understanding and accepting diverse cultures and ethnic backgrounds was critical to understanding the diverse systems of management and business operations. Managers, stakeholders, business partners and shareholders make choices and decisions that borrow from the background and perspectives of different backgrounds. Australia embraced cultural diversity, which completes their global business solutions and issues. While, solutions usually depend on cultural harmony, synergy and cooperation, businesses first encounter cultural misunderstanding, collisions and conflicts. This motivated Australian companies to refine their business approaches and perspectives in the global arena and their educational philosophies on worldwide business management. Following this acceptance, Australia understood their cultural values, social structure, perceptions, demography, decision-making practices and manners, hence forming cross-cultural understanding Castles (1992, P. 69). Hiring people from the minority group ensures the business obtains specialized knowledge and insight that is unique to the group. In addition to this, Australian businesses are finding it increasingly valuable to have workforce mix up, which reflect the customer base make up. Australian businesses choose to have a diverse workforce as a strategy of increasing effectiveness in internal and external communication and interactions.. Business communication increasingly evolves in proportion to globalization, which sets business cultures of diverse cultures on a collision course. Communication is very critical to a business success. The difference between the communication in Australia and Asian countries such as Malaysia is that in the Asian countries, one must be very careful how they use verbal and non verbal, as well as their mode of communication. While this is important in almost every country and it is critical to understand every culture’s way of communication, Asians place emphasis on physical (face-to-face) communication, unlike other countries where emails and/or telephone communications are acceptable. Many non verbal communication techniques may also not make sense to Asian, and so, it is important for one to understand what is (or not) acceptable. Australian businesses have managed to integrate diverse business cultures with their own, hence creating a culture powerhouse for their business. In this view, it is critical to understand that unique worldviews of indigenous cultures highly influence languages. Therefore, Australian businesses ensure that when they employ Non-English speakers, the employee can clearly communicate with co-workers. This encourages unity at work, which translates to good performance and production. It also encourages learning among employees as the company raises interest and sensitivity of employees to other cultures and ethnic backgrounds. Because of the language and cultural diversity prominent in Australia, business managers take initiatives to learn cultural peculiarity of other businesses before contacting or interacting with them. This learning process entails verbal and body language communication. Poor communication may lead to severe business consequences such as poor staff motivation, loss of clients, internal conflicts, inadequate team building and poor productivity. As Andrew reported, motivation and communication are tied together. In Asian countries, it would be difficult for a manger to motivate employees effectively because Asians “hide” their sentiments in the boss’s face, but act differently behind the boss’s back. While they may agree with the boss in his/her face, they would do the opposite later. In contrast, it is quite easy to communicate and motivate Australians because they easily display their sentiments, and may disagree with the boss instantly, giving the boss room to consider his/her decisions. This is also helpful in avoiding crises or instances where employee dissatisfaction leads to company crises. In addition to this, the open communication that Australians adopt help in conflict resolution and management because managers have a grasp on the potential problems that may arise. Consequently, the businesses ensure that the conflict resolution and management style is competent in resolving matters between diverse cultural parties. Conflicts may arise from the diverse beliefs, languages, culture, behavior, ethics, values and business ethics. Because of this, Australian businesses upgrade intercultural communication skills, hence remaining competitive within and across their borders. To prevent challenges that relate to prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination, Australian companies have broken down traditional barriers as they realized that diversity was essential to growth and success. In addition to this, the presence of many culturally diverse individuals in Australia has ensured businesses invest in strategies to attract the diverse culture base, such as hiring the CALD. These traditional barriers include over emphasis on religious beliefs as well as the use of one culture as a universal tradition. This is unlike Malaysians who have high regards for Islam, must be considered in workplaces and consumption of products, including medicines and drugs. Andrew reported that Muslims are very cautious and may not take drugs containing pork products. Diversity in Australia has improved the quality of business and company management by increasing the pool of applicants aiming at managerial positions Moua (2010, p. 154). It has also unblocked highly qualified people who would have been incapable of advancing due to formal or informal policies, which discriminate the minority community. On the management front, multiculturalism also improves recruiting efforts by ensuring there is a possibility of recruiting from a diverse population. Multiculturalism in Australia has improved management by enhancing competitiveness due to the ease of recruiting scarce labor, enhanced problem solving, enhanced ability to obtain resources, increased organizational flexibility, enhanced sale to the minority community, increased social responsibility and enhanced innovation and creativity. However, Australian companies suffer the negative dynamics associated with diversity such as cultural clashes within the workforce, ethnocentrism and stereotyping Castles (1992, p.84). This situation rarely occurs in countries that maintain one chief culture, like Malaysia. Sometimes these dynamics combine with the power structure discrepancy to generate work drawbacks for the minority groups. In addition to this, cultural differences generate barriers to absolute participation of the minority group. Studies also indicate that a homogeneous workforce outperforms culturally diverse groups, particularly in the presence of communication hurdles. Heterogeneity prevents contribution from all members. Australian business and companies also suffer cases of absenteeism and higher turnover due to lower levels of group integration. Additionally, businesses also stand chances of encountering reverse discrimination due to the affirmative actions aimed at ensuring assimilation of the minority group with the citizens. These cases are nonexistent in Malaysia and other Asian countries because of the cultural unity. 5.0 Recommendations To prevent hurdles associated with diversity and multiculturalism in the work place, it is fundamental to include training programs, which eliminates the hurdles and makes employees aware of other cultures’ beliefs, values and norms. To prevent legal action against a company, managers should ensure they apply diversity in their companies, employing people from diverse backgrounds, races, sex and age. 6.0 Conclusion In the presently connected global economy, corporate prosperity largely depends on cultural competence. Cultural competence refers to the understanding of the cultural dynamics of “a cross the border” relationships and adapting corporate management styles and practices to various business arenas. The focal issue in multiculturalism and diversity discussions is the compatibility of different cultures for the common good. These benefits include higher innovations due to creativity, better decision-making, management sensitivity to legal and social matters, greater marketing success, especially to the ethnic minority and foreign communities, increasing customer base and an improved distribution economic chance. This report has discussed the differences managerial styles and aspects between Australia and Asian countries, specifically Malaysia. The differences include communication variations between the countries, culture and diversity and emphasis on religion. List of references Castles, S. (1992). The challenge of multiculturalism: global changes and Australian experiences. Wollongong, NSW, Australia: Published for the Office of Multicultural Affairs, Dept. of the Prime Minister and Cabinet by the Centre for Multicultural Studies, University of Wollongong, Australia. Culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) community needs analysis in the arts: final report and recommendations. (2006). Fitzroy, Vic.: Multicultural Arts Victoria. Jayasuriya, D. L. (2003). Australian multiculturalism past, present, and future. Crawley, W.A.: School of Social Work and Social Policy, University of Western Australia. Jupp, J. (2001). The Australian people: an encyclopedia of the nation, its people and their origins. Cambridge [England: Cambridge University Press. Moss, G. (2010). Profiting from diversity: the business advantages and the obstacles to achieving diversity. Basingstoke [England: Palgrave Macmillan. Moua, M. (2010). Culturally intelligent leadership leading through intercultural interactions. New York: Business Expert Press. Scarborough, J. (1998). The origins of cultural differences and their impact on management. Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books. Read More