Human Resources: Line Management in the Multicultural Company - Research Paper Example

 The factors that enable a HRM manager to carry out a line management in the multicultural company Introduction In the modern companies the problem of cross-cultural management became very relevant. Before the globalization people usually worked in familiar environment among the people who were brought up in similar conditions, had similar values and culture. So, the communication between workers and the work of human resource managers did not meet any difficulties. With the globalization the situation began to undergo significant changes and the managers suddenly received a new task – to use proper line management techniques in order to supervise a staff consisted of people from different countries who were brought up in different environment, with different culture and values. The task is not easy and the problem is worth-discussing, that is why the current paper will study the problems of cross-cultural relations and give advices to the human recourse managers who work with people of different nationalities. The main definitions Before defining the main line management techniques that should be applied by managers it is necessary to present the main definitions. The first important definition is “culture contact between society”. Bochner provides us with the following explanation: between society culture-contact refers to individuals who travel beyond their countries of origin for a particular purpose and for a specified period of time, and the relationships they establish with members of the host society (Bochner, 1986). The next important term to discuss is “host-society members”. It refers to people who accept the worker or workers from other countries in their staff. A person who comes to foreign company for temporary work is usually called “sojourner”. It’s obvious that altering environment generates the necessity of everyday communication between sojourner and host-society members. The task of the sojourner is to urgently adjust to another culture and maybe even change a bit his manners and behavior. It is not an easy task and demands serious effort, that is why a person who suddenly appears in foreign country usually experiences “cultural shock” (Maurer, 1996). The role of cross-cultural management       Cross-cultural management is often defined as a science that helps to solve problems that arises in multinational institutions. It provides the managers with efficient techniques, which can resolve conflicts between people with different cultural background. However, the new approach to the cross-cultural communication made it possible to recognize this definition as wrong, because it really does not correspond to the modern realities. Today it is essential to speak about international organizations, the important duty of which is to supervise international network pooling resources and communicating, in spite of the borders, distance and difficulties, by means of modern technology. There are new techniques and approaches that can help human resource manager to implement line management in multinational company. These approaches are based on the requirements created by the increasing difficulty of communication within the organizations and between them (Soderberg, 2002).     The main strategy to be used by human resource manager There are special techniques defined to help the managers implement line management task in multinational companies. They are necessary to be followed while setting and managing right and efficient multicultural communication and staff supervision: a manager should create cultural understanding inside the company. Employees should be aware of cultural peculiarities of people they work with and try to understand them; a manager should help people distinguish and appreciate another culture; it is necessary a human resource manager should be culturally neutral; in no circumstances should a manager impose a value of one culture on a person with another. It is very important to understand that this is unacceptable. If a people want to adapt something they will do that themselves; every decision should be made in the presence of cultural informants. These are several points, which represent the important part of the idea of correct human resource management in multinational company. Every human resource manager should follow all these rules in order to implement successful management in international company (Zeffane, 1996). Staff training Training is an integral part of the idea of appropriate staff supervision in multinational companies. It is essential to explain the strategy the human resource manager may use to train employees in order to attain understanding and positive reception (Goodstein, 1991). The requirements of the new environment imply attaining new skills and use them together with those applied before. Employees’ training strategy can be different depending on the area of company’s activity, however the common goal is to make employees understand and recognize the serious effect of right or wrong strategy of the work’s efficiency and achieve positive reception and positive attitude towards the cultural values that are different from their own. A lot of experts believe that difficulties in communication arise, because of different languages people speak, serious cultural differences employees are not aware of and cultural shock that arises as a consequence (Piderit, 2000).      Three engagement levels Organizations hold the responsibility for training employees in order to make them understand engagement levels. The scientists define three engagement levels. The first is explained in the business ethics literature. It implies commonly used rules of communication that are usually used by all the people in everyday communication. They include politeness, punctuality, work accuracy, responsibility etc. However, it is necessary to remember that one issue that may seem simple sometimes has different interpretations in different cultures. The person who appears in another country should adjust to another interpretation of some issues even if it conflicts with his own (Hoerder, 2002).      The second engagement level speaks about more strict rules. These rules are about the definite aspects of business activity. Giovannini explains for example, when doing business in Australia, there are regional differentiations between acceptable business interactions in Sydney as compared to Melbourne. Likewise, there are differences between Shanghai and Hong Kong. (Giovannini, 1993)      The staff is often trained on the first level, in some cases the attention is paid to some aspects of the second one, however the third level is usually ignored. This level of engagement explains how the individual should behave in order to help manager understand his needs and satisfy them. The efficient multicultural communication should be founded on all three engagement levels. Moreover, the company should train their employees in order to make them understand how to work on the second and third levels, because these skills need special practice. Certainly, studying and applying three engagement levels is necessary to positively influence business tactic and efficiency. When the workers meet the difficulties in communication with customers, they will be able to create a special plan to overcome them. The importance of appreciation and understanding      Other employees’ appreciation is very important for good multicultural communication and collaboration. Every employee should know that it is essential to take into account the opinion of people he works with, to learn and analyze their manners and actions. For example, within a certain organization, a team heads may have different requirements depending on their personal qualities and priorities. Harris explains: with regard to completing reports, one team leader may require pages of details, and the other leader wants only bullet points of information (Harris ).       For better cross-cultural communication employees must understand the values of each other. This will lead to understanding consumer’s needs properly. It is necessary to appreciate cultural diversity and understand its high value and advantages. It does not imply the appreciation of any style of behavior, however, it is essential to value people for their outstanding qualities. Rossiter states.  In our work with international companies, we too often paint other cultures with a broad brush and fall into a trap of stereotyping instead of drilling down into individual styles. Many countries in the world, based on world events, group all Americans as “fill in the blank.” Americans are often offended by that, though they likewise tend to paint other cultures with broad brushes, rather than taking into consideration the regional and individual differences? (Rossiter, 1998) Staff motivation Good human resource management also needs the tactic of efficient employee motivation to be created and applied. Differences in cultural values require acquiring special techniques before making attempts to motivate workers. It is necessary human resource managers should analyze the situation and environment and create a special tactic in order to meet the requirements of each employee. The efficient tactic implementation procedure is rather difficult when the manager work with the people from the same country. However, it becomes much more difficult when the person is to implement the motivation strategy in the multinational staff. It is possible to define three stages of motivation strategy. They provide human resource manager with necessary techniques and help him build employee motivation strategy. They are founded on the main rules of multination communication.        The first stage is understanding or interpretation. Efficient alteration of behavioral strategy should be started with the thorough understanding the reasons why the person behaves this or that way. It is essential to clearly interpret his stimulus in different situations. Such understanding can make the motivating procedure simple and conventional. For example, many supervisors think that their workers speak foreign languages during the working process because they just do not respect other employees or because of their laziness. However, it usually happens, because employees just want to hasten the process of communication or they are already very tired. The simplest way to find out the reasons of this or that behavior is to ask the worker personally about these reasons. The information manager receives is often quite surprising for him. Dahringers explains: Ask the employee why he or she is late for work or why he or she failed to get the job done on time. If you do so with respect, you gather valuable and accurate information that will help you motivate the change you desire (Dahringers, 1991).        The second step is expectations. A human recourse manager should possess special skills to understand the person that was brought up in another country. The experts say that the main problems at the workplace arise because of the wrong expectations of managers and supervisors. For example people who came to the United States to work do not possess enough information about the values of this country and their expectations are usually wrong. It is usually complicated to explain to the people from another country what we really need. Moreover, people do not even try to do that, because do not consider that to be necessary. That is why it is essential for the managers to learn the workers’ expectations by asking questions. Bandyopadhyay states: a noncomplaining staff could be a hindrance, because you do not have the information you need to solve problems (Bandyopadhyay, 1993 ) The very important step is to inform the employees about their opportunity to complain and tell the managers about the difficulties they meet. Informing the manager about their problems will prevent the formation of the opinion that foreign managers are rude and not attentive. In order to form the right expectations it is necessary to ask the staff about their needs and inform them about their right to complain. Bandyopadhyay explains: employees will never know what is expected of them until you take the time to spell out that you need to know about problems to do your job well and that a good employee brings difficulties to the manager's attention (Bandyopadhyay, 1993).   The third and final stage is support. Every manager should support his staff and the models of multicultural communication, which he finds positive. It is necessary to notice and value the right steps employees made. It is difficult but possible. The main problem is that managers usually do not know what actions should be praised. Rossiter states: US managers may not realize how difficult it is for non-English speakers to consistently speak English in the workplace and will, therefore, fail to compliment them on that effort (Rossiter, 1998). Therefore, a qualified supervisor should take into account that something that is easy for him may appear to be difficult for workers from another countries. It is necessary a manager should understand that every worker will appreciate kind words and attention of the manager, no matter what country he came from. Summary and conclusion      To sum up it is necessary to list the measures, which should be taken by a human resource manager in order to work successfully in multinational company. First he should follow special techniques defined to help the managers implement their task in multinational companies. They are necessary to be followed in order to prevent difficulties while setting and managing right and efficient multicultural communication and staff supervision: a manager should create cultural understanding inside the company. Employees should be aware of cultural peculiarities of people they work with and try to understand them; a manager should help people distinguish and appreciate another culture; it is necessary a human resource manager should be culturally neutral; in no circumstances should a manager impose a value of one culture on the person with another. It is very important to understand that this is unacceptable. If people want to adapt something they will do that themselves; every decision should be made in the presence of cultural informants These are several points, which represent the important part of the idea of correct human resource management in multinational company. Every human resource manager should follow all these rules in order to implement successful management in international company. Training is an integral part of the idea of appropriate staff supervision in multinational companies. It is essential to explain the strategy the human resource manager may use to train employees in order to attain understanding and positive reception of different cultural values.       For better cross-cultural communication employees must understand the values of each other. This will lead to understanding consumer’s needs properly. It is necessary to appreciate cultural diversity and understand its high value and advantages. It does not imply the appreciation of any style of behavior, however, it is essential to value people for their outstanding qualities. Appropriate staff motivation is also very important. Good human resource management needs the tactic of efficient employee motivation to be created and applied. It includes proper interpretation, expectations and support. A human recourse manager should possess special skills to understand the person that was brought up in another country. The experts say that the main problems at the workplace arise because of the wrong expectations of managers and supervisors. A qualified supervisor should take into account that something that is easy for him may appear to be difficult for workers from another countries. It is necessary a manager should understand that every worker will appreciate kind words and attention of his manager, no matter what country he came from. Works cited Dahringers, L. & Muhlbacher, H. International Marketing: A Global Perspective. New York, N.Y.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1991. Maurer, S.J. “Using Resistance to Build Support for Change”. Quality and Participation, 19, 1996 Piderit, S.K. “Rethinking Resistance and Recognizing Ambivalence: A Multidimensional View of Attitudes Toward and Organizational Change”. Academy of Management Review, 25, 2000 Furnham, A., and Bochner, S. Culture shock:  Psychological reactions to unfamiliar environments. London: Methuen, 1986. Zeffane, R. “Dynamics of Strategic Change: Critical Issues in Fostering Positive Organizational Change”. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 17, 1996   Goodstein, L.D. “Creating Successful Organizational Change”. Organizational Dynamics, 19    1991 Soderberg, A.  Rethinking Cross Cultural Management in a Globalizing Business World. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 2002. Hoerder, D. Cultures in Contact: World Migrations in the Second Millennium. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002. Giovannini, M.J. & Rosansky, L. M. H. Anthropology and Management Consulting: Forging a New Alliance.  The American Anthropological Association, 1990. Rossiter, J. R. & Chan, A. M. () Ethnicity in Business and Consumer Behavior. Journal of Business Research, 1998 Bandyopadhyay, S. & Robicheaux, R. (). The Impact of the Cultural Environment on Interfirm Communications. Journal of Marketing Channels, 1993 Read More