Dancom Operations in Russia - Essay Example

DANCOM IN RUSSIA: With Globalisation spreading its arguably benevolent wings through ensuing global business/trade, every MNC with their hosts face a frustrating task of assimilating alien colleagues into the local culture and vice versa. Outsiders go through, sometimes a harrowing experience of being bulldozed by the natives, while trying (with reservations) to feel at home. Local workers, bristling with hostility against the 'invaders' cannot co-operate. Every MNC faces this misery and a passive feeling that it is an ongoing process, is resigning it to the sad fact. Cross-cultural management had never been easy. Colonialisation was another form of it and it worked mainly because people from colonies took orders from the imperialists, though conflicts exploded frequently in strange ways. If they had been equals, administration would not have been easy. MNCs carefully avoid behaving like overlords and expect cooperation from native workers. Western countries, who were impressively successful in imperialism, had been unable to attain same level of achievement here while dealing with cultural syndromes. "A cultural syndrome is a shared pattern of beliefs, attitudes, self-definitions, norms, roles, and values organised around a theme," says Triandis in Gannon and Newman (2002, p.16). CASE STUDY: The provided case study of Dancom operating from Russia is an eye-opener, a situation in crying need of cross-cultural management. Study gives importance to the Russian voices of dissent heard in a Danish company. Russian workers, especially middle managers, who are 'united against headquarters in Denmark,' do not feel loyal for their company belonging to Danes. Problem of languages, lack of frequent/meaningful communication, poor and misguided interpretation, and isolated decision making with very little trust on the integrity and cleverness of Russians are the issues nagging this company. Another complex question is of insiders and outsiders, hosting insiders and hosting outsiders. Looking from Danish angle as the company belonged to them, Russians are workers from another dense culture, that too, ex-communists. From Russian point of view, overbearing Danish company is operating from Russian soil, and this should make Russians main players. There is a major difference in planning between Danish (long term activity, hence, important) and Russians (a short immediate task, not much to be bothered about), while Russians feel that Danes should have more trust in the knowledge and experience of Russian middle managers. What brings the differences other than culture, language and working pattern and natural bias How to reduce cross-cultural conflicts It had been a major challenge to Dancom. Russians are more tuned to the 'one authority' ordering, being under Communist rule for decades and Danes, being capitalistic in their approach, are more decentralised in their handling, even though they depend mainly on themselves. Years of mutual mistrust and prejudice about the other's capability (mainly due to political propaganda fed during days of Cold War) cannot be wiped out at one go. It takes time to develop trust, respect and mutual understanding and such an effort could be made through cross-cultural management. As a solution, cross-cultural relationships should be trusted and developed. Communication and co-ordination have to be developed. It is imperative to find out how Russians perceive themselves and this might be the key to many stagnating questions. Lamenting on not having research results, Jonson and Cullen argue: "Research on trust and its role in exchange has proliferated since the 1990s. However despite the insights offered by scholars, we do not yet have a generalizable and comprehensive model of trust in exchange," Jonson and Cullen in Gannon (2002, p.335). They hope to have much more research on the dynamics of trust, culture's role in the bases and evolution of trust and on business ethics across cultures. There are issues which showcase Danish approach being different from the Russian approach, like Russians' lack of respect to others' private space. Even though the company has employed highly educated Russians, Danish bosses believe in dramatic stereotypes. Earlier forms of management are woven into much simpler societies compared to the complex structures what we have today. Creating highbred cultures had neither been easy nor longstanding. International business is bound to be across national boundaries, and dealing with various cultures is one of the priorities. Even though conflict and multiculturalism co-exist, it is necessary to make cultural composition work. Some cultures feel threatened that MNCs challenge their legitimacy and self-identity. The situation is involved with many missing relations, historical roots, while dealing with cultures and traditions, solo cultural systems or guest cultural systems or cross cultural structures. It needs strategy and international research in inter-organisational relations, international joint ventures, and interfirm relationships. Another factor that creates ambivalence is the impermanent nature of MNCs. Russians are unhappy that Danes depend on their checklists and control. Their grouse is that their experience and tradition have not been honoured. They complain that Danes and rest of the Westerners do not have any middle path, and for them, it is either the job is done, or not done. There is no informal conversation and friendly rambling that might lead to interaction of cultures. Russians assume that Danes feel superior, while Danes' grouse is that Russians are obstinate. This is a diverse case study. There seems to be some understanding of the issues from Danes' side, when they say that in Russia, there need not be any hesitation in using the Top Down technique as Russians are accustomed to it. Hierarchies always existed in Russian organisations and decisions that are handed down from higher authorities are followed without question. Getting rid of hierarchies, in spite of serious efforts had not been easy in any organisation for the simple reason that they are inevitable and all cannot be involved in decision-making. It is believed that hierarchies meet our psychological needs by providing us illusion of security. INDIVIDUALISM AND COLLECTIVISM Of all the cross-cultural management styles, Individualism and Collectivism suit better for Dancum. Individualism and collectivism are two cultural syndromes out of a whole lot like complexity, tightness, vertical and horizontal cultures, active-passive cultures, universalism-particularism, diffuse-specific, expression-suppression, and many more. ".individualism emerges in societies that are both complex and loose; collectivism in societies that are both simple and tight," Triandis in Gannon (2002, p. 18). Capitalist societies of West give priority to individualism while totalitarian societies to collectivism. These theories are based on culture more than political thought. Western countries, after Second World War, gave more importance to individual freedom, growth and preference, whereas Eastern societies, from the beginning, stressed on collective work, community life and social interaction. "Individualist cultures stress individuals' achievements and rights and expect individuals to focus on satisfying their own needs," Mead (1992, p. 20). Synchronization of individualist and collective approaches will deal with ethnocentrism in the face of cultural diversity, cultural shock, attainment of management perspective, and comparing management cultures in the theory. A combination of the individualistic approach of the West and collective approach of Russia should be the management style to be adopted for Dancum. Dancom is an organisation from an alien country, operating from Russia and the Russian workers are finding it difficult to adjust to the Danish company and vice versa. Russian workers have their own individuality and being a communist power, they never worked for or with others. Totalitarianism existed in Russia involved only Russians and they had no outsiders participating in a functioning organisation for nearly 60 years. They have developed their own individualistic working culture behind the iron curtain and this was untouched by any alien cultures. At the same time, transforming their society from Communism to capitalistic democracy too had its own birth pangs. Building a bridge across these two streams is the need of the hour. Role of language, communication, streamlining institutional and legal systems, time orientation, synchronising people at work, and cultural relativity are important. There are many more plaguing issues like masculine/feminine, equal/unequal, tough/tender, and rigid/flexible in management to be dealt with. Search for universality and nature of differences, attaining cross-cultural equivalence, conceptual and functional equivalence are significant too. Deconstruction of multiple cultural realities would help immensely, though it might meet stiff opposition in certain communities. "Most of the cultural fabric is invisible, like the immersed part of an iceberg, while cross-cultural research situations involve encounters between instruments from one culture and informants from another, employees and managers from different cultures, etc." Usunier (1998, p. 137). Fundamental and extensive empirical research, sampling and independent both, has to be initiated in exploring management practices in foreign contexts and precautions to be taken while dealing with alien, rigid cultures. While saying "Management has long remained ignorant of its roots," Usunier (1998, p. 1) also says "However, with the growing body of knowledge explaining why firms internationalise, there has been a need to investigate deeper into 'how' they do (or should do) it, with increased focus on tactical rather than strategic issues, functions rather than operations, and implementation rather than merely decision-oriented issues," (p. 3). Some researchers differentiate between culture and capacity and wonder if they could be clubbed together." The notion of culture as capacity is no doubt a useful contribution to the analysis of socialization in relation to organization; the capacities of the actors are relational as well as organizational, individual, or collective. But what is the connection between an actor's strategic capacity to relate to other actors in the context of some organizational game and what the authors call a social capacity, presumably an attribute of society at large" question Redding and Stening (2003, p. 82). CONCLUSION: Reverting back to Dancum, the company should follow cross-cultural management methods and none of the theories is as suitable as individualism and collectivism for this particular case study. It is an applicable and functional strategy that should ease of managerial functioning. Respecting each other's culture, language, style of functioning, ways of living, religion, and understanding historical, political and social backgrounds and not expecting overnight dramatic changes should be the cornerstones of the management process in a cross cultural situation. It would be a great mistake to expect the other to give up all their cultural, social, political and historical background and become followers of an alien culture. Diversity of cultures is the hope and life of this world and it is neither practical nor wonderful to hope for uniformity of cultures. "Cross-cultural research itself thrives on diversity. The field needs diverse points of views and backgrounds. Cross-cultural management should not be allowed to become its own self-contained area, closed off from other disciplines," say Tjosvold and Leung (2003, p. 7). Instead of streamlining cultures, our aim should be a common vision, implementation of organisation philosophy, respecting human dignity, individual rights and freedom of expression, participation in decision making, justice, improving life and work for employees, building trust, eradicating fear of punishment, encouraging sense of pride in companies by allowing a role to each employee, restoring their pride in workmanship and developing a sense of worth amongst workers. BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. Earley, P. Christopher and Singh, Harbir (2000), Innovations in International and Cross-Cultural Management, Sage Publications, Inc. London. 2. Gannon, Martin J. and Newman, Karen L. (2002), ed., The Blackwell Handbook of Cross-Cultural Management, Blackwell Publishers Ltd., Oxford. 3. Holden, Nigel J. (2002), Cross-Cultural Management, A Knowledge Management Perspective, Pearson Education Ltd., Harlow. 4. Koopman, Albert (1991), Transcultural Management, Basic Blackwell, Oxford. 5. Lessem, Ronnie (1998), Management Development Through Cultural Diversity, Routledge, London. 6. Leavitt, Harold J. (2005), Top Down, Harvard Business School Press. 7. Mead, Richard (1992), Cross-Cultural Management Communication, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester. 8. Redding, Gordon and Stening, Bruce W. (2003), ed., Cross-Cultural Management, Vol. 1 and 2, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, Cheltenham. 9. Tjosvold, Dean and Leung, Kwok (2003), ed., Cross-Cultural Management, Foundations and Future, Ashgate, Hampshire. 10. Usunier, Jean-Claude (1998), International and Cr5oss-Cultural Management Research, Sage Publications, London. ONLINE SOURCES: http://ccm.sagepub.com/ http://home.ku.edu.tr/ijccm/ http://www.geocities.com/madhukar_shukla/ccmlinks.html Read More