Cross-Cultural Gape between the People of China and the US - Coursework Example

First Last Number 14 September There are differences between the people of China and the US in terms of culture and values. In this regard, it has been identified that the differences in culture and values are identified to be affecting a workplace environment, which in turn influences business operations of an organizations. The assessment has been made to undertake the cultural differences amid between these two countries based on Hofstede six cultural dimensions. Based on the assessment of significant similarities and dissimilarity in the culture of Chinese and the American society, it can be comprehended that power distance index, individualism vs. collectivizing, uncertainty avoidance index, long terms vs. short term and indulgence vs. restraint of the society, there is wider differences in both the nations. Whereas, based on the masculinity vs. femininity dimension both the nation having the similar characteristics. Thus, it can be affirmed from the discussion that culture of China and the US differs in various aspects. Chinese highly emphasize power, pragmatism and masculinity. On the other hand, the Americans do not emphasis these dimensions, as they highly prefer individualism and indulgence dimension. INTRODUCTION In the contemporary era owing to globalization and evolution of technology, advancements have certainly led the nations to interconnect their respective cultures, which in turn dramatically developed intercultural relationship at large. High influence of media, technology and internet usage by the people also developed cultural relationship amid groups or sub-groups within various countries. Similarly, in the context of changing environment and its effect on the culture, organizations also face significant challenges in effectively managing their workforces due to dissimilarity in the cultural backgrounds. In any organization, workforce consists of various people is an indigenous part that significantly develops an effective organizational culture, which is highly based on shared beliefs and values. Thus, it becomes important for the organizations to effectively manage organization culture significantly to attain results efficiently. In order to have the competitive advantages, organizations not only rely over their capacity, but also manage their culture in an effective manner (Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov 3-24). Conceptually, culture is referred as the behavior, which individuals obtained and acquire from previous knowledge, value, religion, experience, belief, notion of time, role, material objects, relationship and processes in their course of generation through various people and group. Whereas, cross culture is an act or a process of exchanging ideas, thoughts, feeling or information between two or more persons having different cultural backgrounds (Becker-Olsen, Taylor, Hill and Yalcinkaya 30-44). Cross cultural activity is the procedure through which individuals interact and communicate efficiently in context of different cultures. Additionally, in other words it is simply a procedure of interaction amid individuals of different cultural backgrounds (Allwood, “Intercultural Communication”). The key components that are included in cross culture include appropriateness, sensitivity, adaptation and empathy, mindfulness and presence, effectiveness, anxiety reduction, and knowledge. Due to differences in individuals’ culture, people feel uncertainty and difficulty to examine behaviors of others, which led a high communication gap between the individuals. Proper management of cross culture enables an organization to have a prior understanding of differences of cultures, communication style and perception of individuals. THESIS STATEMENT Correspondingly, the paper highlights the changing dimension of culture and its importance in international business. Besides, the paper explores the cross cultural context by taking into the consideration the cultural differences of the Chinese and the American society. In this respect, a comparison has been made with the aim of identifying the cultural differences amid these two countries. CULTURE AND ORGANIZATION Globalization as well as development of technological aspects has certainly led nations to be culturally interconnected. On the basis of organizational context, it is becoming increasingly important to have proper understanding of different cultural factors that have assisted them to comprehend the characteristics of individuals along with their choices and preference. Besides, the cultural values, beliefs and religion endure the firms to provide better value to their end users (Farooq “Element of Culture”). In the changing scenario of business environment, organizations face significant challenges to manage their workforces due to having immense differences in individuals’ cultural backgrounds. In every organization, people were the indigenous part that helps to develop an effective organizational culture, which is based on shared expectations, values, beliefs and assumptions. However, organizations are also identified to face major difficulties to manage the professionals and their employees of different cultures. In this context, the major problem arises when the tasks are significantly larger, which is not possible to be performed by few or selected workforce and thus, an organization has to combine its workforces consisting of difference cultural background. In the earlier time, workforce in an organization is simple based on experience. In this context, it has been important for an organization to manage organizational culture significantly to attain results efficiently. Since the year 1980, the concept of culture in an organization is of significant importance to manage the entire system for building an effective intercultural communication. Moreover, the competitive advantages are not only relying on the organization operational capacity, but also on the how an organization manages their culture. Thus, the expansion of the key resources and organizational abilities is relatively necessary for building effective organizational culture accordingly (Barney 656-665). Correspondingly, organizational culture consists of shared beliefs, assumptions, and expectations that are presented in the member of an organization. Based on expectations and beliefs of employees, the organizational values, norms and roles are developed (Gray “Organizational Culture and the Psychological Contract”). In this regard, the organizational culture theory that has been significantly developed by Bob Waisfisz in collaboration with the Geert Hofstede comprises six dimensions that assist in recognizing the differences in culture among organizations. The six dimensions of organizational culture include power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, pragmatism and indulgence (The Hofstede Centre “Cultural Tools”). LITERATURE REVIEW Cross Culture and Cross Culture Management. Ochieng and Price (1159-1167) highlighted that multicultural teams in an organization play a key role to meet the challenges that has been faced in global businesses. Moreover, the effective leadership approach is important to be possessed by the managers in terms of diverse characteristics with the aim of communicating effectively with different cultural individuals. Woods, Barker and Troth (95-108) noted that cultural factors are important for influencing individuals to become effective in exploring the productivity of the group in an effective manner within multicultural group members. By creating and developing trusts, proper leadership, effective cross cultural collectivism and proper communication with individuals in the group is important factors that will affect the effectiveness of the group (Woods, Barker and Troth, 95-108). In this regard, De-Mooij (182-192) stated that problems in cross-cultural communication arise when an individual of one culture felt difficulty to understand the cultural differences in communication and other cultural aspects. Modern business organizations lack behind to have proper awareness of cultural differences, which led to ineffectiveness in conducting desired business operations successfully. According to Kawar (105-111), cross cultural management reveals the behavior of an individual in the organizations around the world and shows people how to work in organizations with employees and client representing different cultures. In the context of cross cultural management, culture and communication are the key determinates. Bird and Fang (139-143) argued that cross cultural concept is a new concept in management practices that relate to the various theoretical prospective of management with the cultural dimension in order to understand how the local culture affects the practice of management. Moreover, it includes identification of similarities and differences in the culture with the context of an organization in order to identify and increase the business efficiency of an organization in the global market. Importance of Cross Cultural Management. According to Tian and Borges (110-126), in order to perform the business in the international environment successfully, the concentration of differences in culture is very much important. In this regard, awareness of an organization with respect to culture reflects the behavior as well as values as the key to manage operations in cross-cultural environment. The involvement of cultural factors proves to be invisible barriers in conducting operations based on intercultural communication. With having due understanding regarding the differences in cultural factors, an organization would be able to manage as well as conduct operations in an effective manner. Furthermore, various important element of cross cultural communication should be effectively developed to have competitive advantage (Ballow 1-5). Culture is a prominent factor that is accountable for having differences in an individual and human behavior of the workforce in an organization. Chinese’s managers are highly involved in delivering a better cross cultural environment for proper communication by incorporating various strategies of marketing to accomplishing objectives of an organization in a successfully manner. Additionally, international business position of an organization can be enhanced if it is highly efficient in managing the various cultural problems by combining the prospective of cultural and problems that are encountered in different manner (Tian and Borges 110-126). Correspondingly, Becker-Olsen, Taylor, Hill and Yalcinkaya (30-44) commented that the multinational firms ensure a high level of prospect to the cultural activities by providing prior importance to the local taste and preferences behind the success of multiple dimensions. Moreover, organizational activities play a major role in cross-cultural management. In this respect, the findings of the study will be effective in providing an immense understanding about the importance of cross cultural management. Sanchez-Runde, Poelmans, Cardona, Lee and Reiche (371-385) noted that unparalleled concentration of the individuals that exists in the management between the cross cultural individuals was the major problem of an organization. In the modern organizations, cross-cultural management aspect emphasizes the importance of communication in the global stage. Additionally, focus is laid to the universalism of the western management for creating a highly strong cross cultural team and communication between the groups (Sanchez-Runde, Poelmans, Cardona, Lee and Reiche 371-385). Issues in Cross Culture Management. The existence of high differences in the domestic and international business professionals have intensified the cross cultural issues. Moreover, the cross cultural problem has raised volatility in developing effective measures that will mitigate such issues. Furthermore, some organizations have operated their operations smoothly, because they are having an effective focus towards structuring their corporate level strategies by taking into prior consideration of cultural dimensions. Thus, culture has a massive impact on multinational organization and it can affect the nature of business negotiations (Kawar 105-111). Blocker (1-8) stated that with the existence of differences in culture among the western and other global countries, culture is determined as an important factor based on which an organization is able to provide better customer value in the global context. In this context, validity and usefulness of core concept of marketing could be derived by examining customer perceptions with respect to the decisions of business managers across countries that are diversified culturally. It has been noted that customer value is the ultimate measure amid culturally diversified countries, which help to tradeoff between benefit and relationship. Furthermore, comparisons of various models reflected various valid and invalid concepts reported in the literatures that help to provide guidance to various managers for providing better customer value. The methods assist firms to measure cross-culturally valid customer value (Blocker 1-8). According to He and Liu (1-32), with rapid expansion in globalization as well as economic development, businesses have started undertaking cross cultural activities in the global scenario. Apparently, along with higher level of diversification, its subsequent impact on the managing the workforce of different cultural background is becoming a challenging task for most of the businesses. Moreover, they affirmed that when the parent or its subsidiary organization having the operation in the various countries does not follow the national culture for minimizing cultural issues. Besides, differences in the language as well as the geography are the key barriers in the way of proper communication and management (He and Liu 1-32). WAY TO AVOID CROSS CULTURAL AWKWARDNESS In order to remove awkwardness or difficulties that arise in an organization, it has been identified that individuals belonging to a specific cultural group will become more sensitive with respect to the cultural differences. Additionally, higher level of trust with other members of a group is important in order to develop better collaboration during the work. Furthermore, differences in cultural factors will be reduced by paying higher level of attention and minimizing conflicts by understanding the culture in a better way, which would also assist in communicating effectively. Likewise, by avoiding ‘right verses wrong’ with understanding the behavior of individuals would facilitate better communication between the group members. Apart from this, having prior consideration over the factors including respect for the people of an organization, adjusting with the communication pattern of the people of different group, listening opinion, respectfulness based on the hierarchy and experience and paying higher attention towards employee’s personal life will assist to minimizing the cross cultural differences. Hence, for every organization, it is important that they should endure their cultural differences as strength and not as weakness to become successful in the global context (Rimmington, Gibson and Alagic, “Improving Strategies for Intercultural Communication through Simulated Experiences”). DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CHINESE AND AMERICAN NATIONAL CULTURE In order to identify the similarity and differences on national culture in a reasonable and proper manner, Hofstede cultural dimensional model has been utilized. China is selected to make comparison with the US culture. The six dimensions of culture include power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, pragmatism and indulgence provides an understanding about the cultural differences between the US and China. Power dimension signifies the fact that not all individuals in a society are equal. It also notified in the power differences dimension that people should be judged through performance and not on the basis of power. Additionally, individuals should not have the aspiration beyond their aligned powers. Individualism dimension implies a society that is maintaining significant degree of interdependency amongst the members. In an individualism society, people are concerned about their self and family interest. Collectivist society on the other hand signifies that people perform their operations in groups. Masculinity dimension indicates that people of a society are driven by competition, success and achievement. Uncertainty avoidance dimension reflects the extent to which people are threatened with uncertain conditions or situations and accordingly, they create their beliefs to avoid these uncertainties. Pragmatism dimension of the model explains that every societal culture maintains some linkage with past practices in order to manage future challenges. The final dimension i.e. indulgence of the model reflected that people control their impulses and desires based on their maturity (The Hofstede Centre “Cultural Tools”). The rating based on the Hofstede cultural dimension between China and the US has been depicted below: Comparison of China culture with the US culture (Source: The Hofstede Centre “Cultural Tools”) Power Distance Index (PDI). The dimension of power distance relates to the fact that not all individuals within a society are equal. Moreover, this dimension measures the extent to which an individual and organizations accepts and expects the need of power in themselves. Accordingly, the US score 40 in power distance, which is relatively low as compared to China, which rank 80. In this regard, Chinese people are more inclined towards valuing status and position while in the US people hold the belief that inequalities in the society should minimized. In this regard, it can be affirmed that the people in the Chinese society have the belief that they will accept the norms of having inequalities between the peoples. Moreover, the relationship between the superior and subordinate are polarized whereas due to having high rating of power, there is no proper defense available to the subordinates against abusing of power from the superiors. On the other hand, the US highly emphasized unequal distribution of prosperity compared to Chinese society. Moreover, this reflects that the Americans focus on forming equality among various societal levels which includes organizations, inhabitants and government. This orientation of the American society reveals that they reinforces over having corporative interaction of the power and form a stable cultural environment (Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov 60-70; The Hofstede Centre “Cultural Tools”) Individualism (IDV) vs. Collectivism. This dimension deals with the amount of which the people of a country emphasize group performing and the interdependence that a society values among its members. Individualistic societies focus on personal achievements as well as individual rights as higher priorities along with the fact that people stand for themselves and their family and own affiliations. On the other hand, national culture of the country is regarded as Collectivism, which people focuses and act as a member of cohesive group. Observably, individualism in the context of China scores 20 while the US is relatively higher i.e. 91. China is categorized as a collectivist society where people place importance on group efforts. On the other hand, people in the US are highly concerned about themselves and the family members regardless to collectivist society. Moreover, China scores below in the individualism vs. collectivism dimension, which reveals that individual commitment over an organization is lower rather they prefer to build high relationship among the other colleagues (Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov 94-132; The Hofstede Centre “Cultural Tools”). Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI). This dimension of culture reflects the extent to which members of a nation attempted to manage their level of anxiety by minimizing the level of uncertainty in the future. China ranks 30 in terms of uncertainty avoidance, which reveals the fact that Chinese were highly enthusiastic and prefer to undertake the activities that are governed by low regulations in the nation. Moreover, legal framework and government norms in China are flexible to suit with the actual situation, as pragmatism plays an important role in the life of the people. Whereas, the US ranks 46 is comparatively higher than China. The relative higher score of the American people reflected that they are more inclined towards the behavior of avoiding risky tasks and behavior as compared to the Chinese. Moreover, Chinese are highly comfortable with the aspect of ambiguity whereas, the local language is having full of uncertain meanings, which led to various difficulties to be followed by the Americans (Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov 187-233; The Hofstede Centre “Cultural Tools”). Masculinity (MAS) vs. Femininity. This dimension reveals the extent to which inhabitants of a nation are masculine or famine. Masculine cultural society values competitiveness, materialism, objective, power and assertiveness as major importance. On the other hand, people of the feminine cultures emphasis associations and quality of life. This dimension reveals the degree of value placed by the people on achievement and success. Correspondingly, on the assessment of both the nations’ culture, it can be affirmed that in the Chinese society, people are driven by achievement, success and competition. This also reveals that the Chinese people sacrifice their family life and spare times by giving their priorities over the work. Accordingly, the Chinese ranked 66 with respect to the dimension of Masculinity. Whereas, the US ranks somehow lower than Chinese i.e. 62, which reveal that they are also having the similar characteristics as Chinese, but does not belong to feminist society (Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov 138-180; The Hofstede Centre, “Cultural Tools”). Long-Term Orientation (LTO) vs. Short Term Orientation. In the long term oriented society, people of a society give importance to the future over the short term oriented society. In terms of orientation, Chinese societal culture as compared to American culture is very hardnosed and sensible to the changes, as people in China are highly dependent on the demanding situation, context and changing scenario. This signifies that Chinese society has high sense of adoptability of the traditions with the changing conditions. The US ranked 26 while China scores 87 on the scale of pragmatism. On the other hand, American tends to analyze situation weather the new information is reliable or not before adopting such changes and accordingly, the American businesses measure their relative performance on the short-term basis. Besides, based on the assessment, it can be stated that Chinese inhabitants are eager to compromise their short-term social success as well as emotional gratification for having brighter future (Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov 235-274; The Hofstede Centre “Cultural Tools”). Indulgence vs. Restraint (IVR). This dimension reveals the extent that the societal members control their needs, desire and inclinations. Indulgent societies are the one in which the people are having free gratification regarding the desires of enjoying life and having fun. Whereas, restrained societies are the one in which gratification are been regulated by highly governed norms of the governments. In this respect, to the indulgence and restrained dimension, the US culture is rated 68 and the Chinese culture is rated 24. Chinese society is regarded as restrained society as tendency is highly cynicism as well as pessimism. Besides, people in the nation have the perception that their respective activities and the actions are restrained through different societal norms. This implies that the US society places importance on satisfaction of their desires than the Chinese society (Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov 277-296; The Hofstede Centre, “Cultural Tools”). STRATEGIES TO EFFECTIVELY MANAGE CROSS CULTURE IN ORGANIZATION In any organization, building a productive team will be beneficial to effectively make the operation of an organization in a reliable and needful manner. Moreover, this will assist an organization to encourage their various employees to eradicate any differences that exist between them and respectively, focus on the attainment of end goal of an organization. In this regard, an organization should also need to be focused towards the behaviors of an individual rather than attitude in order to develop an effective team. Likewise, by choosing words in a careful manner when functioning within group regales of taking any unnecessary assumptions will highly help to facilitate in enhancement of communication within different cultural group. Nevertheless, encourage the people of an organization to enhance their communication skills by allowing them to capitalize their strength along with minimizing their weaknesses. Correspondingly, proper management of gap in communication is an effective procedure that will significantly help to enhance communication through the selection of appropriate mode of communication and establishing network, which will allow their workforce to have mutual understanding in the group (Spencer-Oatey 1-15). Similarly, by establishing a strong shared knowledge within an organization and within themselves, mutual understanding and negotiation can be accomplished with proper understanding of the culture background. Additionally, motivate people towards learning and using the different culture and language to remove cross cultural conflicts. In addition, adjusting with the differences in the language and building sound flexibility as per the proficiency level of other individual culture as well as paying attention towards style of communication will be helpful. Structuring and highlighting information in a significant manner by building a mechanism of regular checking, sympathetic and providing amplification would aid in mitigating the cultural gap between the individuals (Spencer-Oatey 1-15). CONCLUSION Based on the above discussion, it can be concluded that culture differences in individuals are having immense impact over organizations. Cultural aspect consists of languages, religion and political environment that influence multinational corporations. Besides, it can be affirmed that in order to have the proper understanding of cross cultural approaches, Hofstede cultural dimensions is an effective model for having a better understanding about the behavior of an individual and societal culture. In this respect, it has been identified that there are certain cultural differences between the US and China. Based on the Hofstede cultural dimensions, PDI reveals the fact the US rates lower than Chinese, which signifies that Chinese society is highly inclined in valuing status and position while American hold the belief that inequalities in the society should be minimized. In this regard, based on individualism dimension, American highly concerns about themselves and the family members as compared to the Chinese, which is categorized as a collectivist society by giving importance over the group efforts. Besides, the Chinese society is driven by achievement, success and competition more than the American society. According to uncertainty avoidance dimension, American peoples are highly inclined towards revealing risk avoiding behavior compared to the Chinese. Moreover, in terms of pragmatism, it can be comprehended that the Americans are more pragmatic than the Chinese who are highly dependent on the changing dimension and situation. Nevertheless, organizations in order to be effective in cross cultural management are required to develop significant strategies to ensure that information and operations will be coordinated in an effective manner. Works Cited Allwood, Jens. “Intercultural Communication.” 1985. Web. Dec 08 2014. Bird, Allan and Tony Fang. “Cross Cultural Management in the Age of Globalization.” International Journal of Cross Cultural Management 9.2 (2009): 139-143. 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