Cross cultural management - Essay Example

?Cross cultural management In this article, the has done a detailed review of the various interpretations and manifestations of the development of cultures, the way different cultures merge into one another, and how they still maintain their individuality and distinct nature in an organization. The article starts with a plethora of literary sources that discuss the anthropology of culture, its various dimensions, and patterns of development. Organizational researches have traditionally used deterministic and universal values at the starting point, yet the emphasis on the need to go beyond these dimensions has increased in the recent years, that is suggestive of the integration of anthropological perspective of culture into the organizational literature. The contemporary research is rapidly exploring the impact of power relations on cross-cultural perception and vice versa. “One determinant of perception is culture, the socially inherited, shared, and learned ways of living possessed by individuals in virtue of their membership in social groups” (Avruch, n.d.). This is an exploratory article. In this article, the author has laid a detailed account of the interaction between power and culture in organizational context and has discussed the role played by power as well as differences in power in the cross-cultural perception. The author has placed his emphasis on investigating the impact of the imbalance of power on the perception between the selected entirely different ethnic groups functioning in different cultural and environmental contexts. This study is built upon the dimension approach’s criticism and explores the effect of power over the cross-cultural perception in different organizational as well as national contexts in two specific ethnic groups, each characterized by unique power dynamics. The author has demonstrated the way perception changed between the two ethnic groups depending upon the level of power asymmetry between them. The key messages that the author has tried to suggest in this article are that cross-cultural perception between supposedly similar groups in terms of similarity of national culture varies on the basis of the context in which the cooperation occurs between the groups (Heijes, 2011). The author asserts that power dynamics between different ethnic groups is one of the most fundamental drivers of the cross-cultural perception. Research along this line is a valuable aid that extends the understanding of the significant interrelationship between the culture and dynamics of power within organizations. The distinctive content of the article is that the author has achieved his objectives by compiling a comparative evaluation of the cross-cultural perception between two different ethnic groups. In the recent years, the number of cross-national studies has considerably increased (Renn and Rohrmann, 2000, p. 20), of which this research forms a part. The organizational research’s domain is getting increasingly international, thus raising concerns about the transportability of the models of social science across societies (Tsui, 2004). The ethnic groups selected for the study were African Curacaoans and European Dutch. These groups were chosen in two organizations that operated in two different countries and the power dynamics of the selected organizations in their respective environments differed from each other. The author has used empirical evidence to demonstrate the way cross-cultural perception is influenced by differences of power. Perception has been studied along two altering axes; the first of which was the external national context and the second was the internal organizational context. The author has studied the cross-cultural perceptions in Curacaoans and Dutch as well as in two organizations that were made part of the research; the police and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The author used these comparative case studies to offer a comprehensive account of the real-life cross-cultural perceptions between the selected ethnic groups so as to comprehend the processes and the meanings hidden in the perception. The total number of participants that were involved in the study was 284. 136 out of these 284 were included through interviews while the rest were included through their perceptions’ and behaviors’ observation. Both organizations and countries were interviewed and observed equally. The author made 30 per cent of the total observation along with conducting 45 per cent of the total number of interviews in the Dutch organizations that were related to the Curacaoan workers whereas the rest were related to the Dutch workers. On the other hand, the author made 40 per cent of observation and 35 per cent of the total number of interviews of the Dutch workers in Curacao while the rest were about the Curacaoan workers. The methodological approach used in the article is quite robust in that the author has tried to supplement interviews with participant observation and the techniques were almost equally divided among the workers belonging to the two different ethnic groups serving in different organizations in different countries. The author used methodological triangulation and made use of a variety of techniques to collect the data including participant observation, literature study, and interviews. The author carried out interviews of the workers in the workplace as well as in their homes. The author ensured that the interviewees were equally distributed across ranks and their country. The author taped the interviews with due consent of the interviewees. The author used standard protocol to compare the interviews with one another in two consecutive meetings attended by the researchers as well as the interviewers. One strength of the methodological approach used by the author in this article was the use of case study to investigate the cross-cultural perceptions between the selected ethnic groups because the depth provided by a case study is not readily provided by a survey or a questionnaire. It imparts the need of adopting an approach that deems contextuality, detailed description, and observation important. Another strength of this methodological approach was that it was conducted according to the established ethnographic case study research standards. Such a strategy enables the researchers to explore the organizations or individuals, simple through complex relationships, interventions, programs, or communities (Yin, 2003). The case study approach is based on a constructivist paradigm that “recognizes the importance of the subjective human creation of meaning, but doesn’t reject outright some notion of objectivity. Pluralism, not relativism, is stressed with focus on the circular dynamic tension of subject and object” (Hesse-Biber, 2010, p. 18). The rate of compliance in the research was quite high which might be attributed to a number of factors including the fact that all interviewees were individually approached, and clear explanation of the goals of the research by the author to the research participants. The author removed the interviewer bias by using different interviewers to conduct the interviews since an interviewer’s ethnic background may influence the respondents’ answers especially when the topic of discussion is a sensitive one i.e. culture. “Although it is difficult to recognize interviewer bias, it is important to be aware of it and to implement procedures to minimize the likelihood of its occurrence” (Szklo and Nieto, 2007, p. 119). The interviewers used for the research were not only different in ethnicity but also in gender. Various studies to date e.g. Banerjee (2009) have concluded that culture affects power distance between the subordinates and leaders. The findings and discussion presented in this article have created new knowledge about the cross-cultural management. Findings of this study indicate that research upon the cooperation as well as cross-cultural perception within the organizations cannot depend upon a universal approach that is value-based. Instead, such research has to consider the power dynamics among the concerned groups within the society in general and within the specific organization in particular. The power dynamics have a strong effect over impact perceptions. It is not possible to disconnect the culture from its context. The cross-cultural perception cannot be comprehended appropriately unless the asymmetry of power among the interacting groups is analyzed. If I had someone to read this article, I would definitely recommend reading it because this article offers a lot of information about cross-cultural management. While cross-cultural management and issues are readily explored in the organizational context by a lot of researchers to date, yet research on its relationship with power dynamics is scanty, and this research fills this gap in the literature. The use of case studies, in particular, help the author provide a detailed insight into the relation between power dynamics and cross-cultural perceptions. “The selective case study may focus on a particular issue or aspect of behaviour with the objective of refining knowledge in a particular area, to provide a better understanding of causal processes” (Schell, 1992). Therefore, this article offers analysis in a real-life context. The scripts from the taped interviews incorporated within the article randomly not only help foster the understanding of the assertions made by the author to the reader, but also make the paper interesting to read and provide the reader with an opportunity to personally draw conclusions about the relationship between power dynamics and cross-cultural perceptions by reading the interview scripts. In this research, the author has implemented a number of techniques to control different kinds of biases in the collection of data and its analysis as discussed before, thus adding to the validity and reliability of the research. My experience of working in a multicultural group I have some experience of working in a multicultural group. It was a project that I did in my high school. In the start, I had certain perceptions about the behavior and culture of my group members. I expected them to think and behave in ways that reinforced my understanding of their respective cultures that I had developed till them. “On the basis of previous work in the domain of culture and causal attribution, one might guess that East Asians (in this case, mainland Chinese) would be less vulnerable to stereotyping than would Westerners (Americans)” (Spencer-Rodgers et al., 2007, p. 525). From my perceptions, I knew that my American friend would place more emphasis on quality of work than adhering to the deadline whereas my German friend would make his utmost effort to finish the work on time. I expected my Indian friend to be very friendly and helpful toward all of us. To a certain extent, I could notice the very qualities in my group members but this might be just coincidence. After doing that project, I reached the conclusion that while preconceived notions about the behavior and approach of people belonging to different cultures are important, one cannot entirely rely upon them as there is a lot of variation in the behavior of different people who belong to the same culture. How a person deals with others in a multicultural setting is not just depicted by the norms and values of his/her own culture, but also on his/her personality, the complexity of the setting as well as of the interrelationships among different group members. I found variation in the cross-cultural perception among members that were supposedly similar in terms of national culture depending upon the context in which the cooperation happened among those members. References: Avruch, K n.d., Cross-cultural conflict, [Online] Available at http://www.eolss.net/ebooks/Sample%20Chapters/C14/E1-40-01-01.pdf [accessed: 28 March 2013]. Banerjee, M 2009, Subordinate Perception of Leadership Style and Power: A Cross-Cultural Investigation, University of Akron, [Online] Available at http://etd.ohiolink.edu/view.cgi/Banerjee%20Mili.pdf?akron1253769052 [accessed: 28 March 2013]. Heijes, C 2011, Cross-cultural perception and power dynamics across changing organizational and national contexts: Curacao and the Netherlands, Human Relations, Vol. 64, No. 5, pp. 653-674. Hesse-Biber, SN 2010, Mixed Methods Research: Merging Theory with Practice, The Guilford Press. Renn, O, and Rohrmann, B 2000, Cross-Cultural Risk Perception: A Survey of Empirical Studies, USA: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Schell, C 1992, The Value of the Case Study as a Research Strategy, Manchester Business School, [Online] Available at http://www.finance-mba.com/Case%20Method.pdf [accessed: 28 March 2013]. Spencer-Rodgers, J et al 2007, Culture and Group Perception: Dispositional and Stereotypic Inferences about Novel and National Groups, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 93, No. 4, pp. 525–543. Szklo, M, and Nieto, J 2007, Epidemiology, Jones & Bartlett Learning. Tsui, AS 2004, Contributing to global management knowledge: A case for high quality indigenous research, Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Vol. 21, pp. 491–513. Yin, RK 2003, Case study research: Design and methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Read More