Cross-Cultural Management Department of HR - Research Paper Example

Cross-Cultural Management Department of HR Table of Contents Section A 2 Policy of operating in different countries and employing people from diverse cultures with reference to concepts and outcomes of research on management across cultures 2 Section B 6 Forming and managing multi-cultural teams across different offices and production units. Expected problems and ways to handle them- Motivation, leadership, rewards and communication 6 Handling issues in multi-cultural teams 9 Reference 11 Bibliography 12 Section A Policy of operating in different countries and employing people from diverse cultures with reference to concepts and outcomes of research on management across cultures Since the organization has establishments across different countries it is crucial that it must follow a global HR strategy for managing its human resource. This must be applied beginning from the process of recruitment and selection followed by training and development programs and also compensation practices. Broadly defined international human resource management comprises of the process of procuring, allocating and utilizing human resources effectively across the multinational corporations (Brester, et al, 2011, p.5). First the company is faced with distinctly different cultures in the Asian and Arab countries from its home culture. However some amount of similarity might be seen in the American culture, though there are a lot of differences too. Studies have particularly stressed up the impact of Hofstede’s dimensions on HRM practices. It is seen that in collectivistic cultures recruitment and selections based on test scores would be minimal while selection through employee referrals could be more preferred. On the other hand, individualistic culture employers would select candidates on the basis of task abilities and skill. Thus it is recommended that selection criteria in Asian and Arab countries must include education, prior experience, cognitive skills as well as personality tests. On the contrary in North America, which depicts collectivistic cultures selections must be done on the basis of fitness of the candidate with the rest of the company, whether they are loyal and trusted, etc. Thus it is advised that in North America, where the company is taking active expansion, strategies such as internal employee referrals, word of mouth advertising must be used for recruiting candidates. In such cases candidates having knowledge about the company is rated highly by the employer and are preferred to be recruited (Milikic, 2009, p.107). The tough influence of power distance has been previously proved in academic literature. Some studies have particularly brought forth the fact that educational qualifications are considered to be more valued in cultures having high power distance index. This is possibly because of the high focus of these countries on status such as India. Thus it is recommended that while undertaking recruitment programs in subsidiaries in India the company must particularly specify the designation and the particular qualifications required for that role. Other aspects such as required personality traits and characteristics suitable for the job role are provided less emphasis in such regions (Ivancevich, p.100). Regarding career management programs, it is advised that strategies in Europe and America must be different from the strategies in the Asian and Arab countries. Career development programs in the former must be based on promotion decisions based on candidates’ relationships with superiors in the organization. On the other hand in countries like Arabia and Asian countries, promotion decisions must be largely based on the relationship of employees with their peers and employees at the same level (Milikic, 2009, p.109). This is because Lam and Schaubroeck (2002) have suggested that personality similarities and favourable relationship with peers to be significant predictors of decisions for promotions for individualistic cultures. On the other hand, similarities of personality along with favourable relationships with superiors are considered to be major predictors for promotions decisions within the collectivistic cultures. In addition to this managers in India must be selected and promoted on the basis of seniority. In such countries having high uncertainly index and collectivism, group favouritism while declaring promotion decisions can take over formal promotion strategies, which must be avoided for the benefit of the country. Rather the focus must be provided on merit and qualities of the candidates. On the other hand it is suggested that career progression programs in the Western countries must be based on merit primarily, i.e. high performance levels, achievement on job responsibilities and contributions towards the organization (Milikic, 2009, p.109). Merit based or performance based promotions strongly contradict with the collectivistic cultures because it focuses more of team and group performance, intra-group cooperation, group harmony, and collective interest of groups too. Thus a highly rates collectivistic culture would be related indirectly with the decisions of promotion of candidates based on their merits (Milikic, 2009, p.109). The global HR programs must necessarily be focussed around the training programs in the subsidiary organizations across nations. Emphasis must be provided towards language training programs in the Asian and Arab countries which are distinctly different in terms of language and communication means from the European counterparts. This is because communication plays the most crucial role in the phase of globalization which is spreading across the world so rapidly. Language training programs would be effective in removing communication barriers and hurdles significantly between the organization headquarters and their subsidiaries. Besides language aspects, training must also be focussed depending on the tasks and skills which are required in the job processes. Since subsidiary units would primarily comprise of local residents training and developmental activities must be concentrated at the local levels. There must be a consistent and local training program. There must also special training programs for the expatriates in the nation. These programs must be developed and provided by centrally defined objectives in terms of management development (Milikic, 2009, p.109). The CEO must also try and develop a culture which encourages teamwork in the European and American subsidiaries. This is because of the collective culture of these places which encourages them to prefer and deliver greater efforts in jobs which allows them to work in groups and provides them with opportunities to work in teams (Bishop, Chen & Scott, 1999, p.7-9). This way they would gain more security at the workplace. Employees would also be easily retained at positions which stress on cooperation and assisting others in place of individual competitive achievement. On the contrary, to deal with the culture of the Asian and Arabian organizations, it is recommended that the CEO stresses on individual achievement of goals and targets to enhance competitive culture. Too much emphasis on team work or group activities might give them give them the impression that individual efforts were being overlooked and this would inculcate an atmosphere in which each one would shirk job responsibilities on the other. Individual recognition and appreciation and rewarding is much required in these organizations to keep employees motivated and encouraged in their job tasks (West, 2004, p.46). The compensation programs and strategies must also be ruled by cultural differences rather than following a uniform compensation for all subsidiary units of the company. This is because the hierarchical structures of organizations are different for different countries. This primarily arises out of the culture dimension with regards to the power distance index. Indian and Arabian organizations characterised by high power distance indexes must have distinctly different salary slabs across the organization hierarchy. Designations must be fixed according to tenure, experience and qualifications with distinct salary scales. On the other hand organizations in the western cultures generally have certain general employee characteristic for all apart from the usual hierarchical structures. All employees are required to be friendly and amicable irrespective of the position he is hired for. Moreover, employees at different levels can be employed for group activities for the same job which is not possible for the European or American organizations. Section B Forming and managing multi-cultural teams across different offices and production units. Expected problems and ways to handle them- Motivation, leadership, rewards and communication The sophisticated nature of logistics and innovation and development requires that Home Furniture employs team and group activities in the organization. However, since it is a multi-cultural organization, the team members would be belonging to different countries where the company operated. Very often these nations happen to be distinctly different in terms of their culture and lifestyles which reflects through their organization behaviours, norms and regulations. Thus managing these multi-cultural teams would be an important concern for the organization and must be one of the prime HR aspects that the CEO has to look into. Some of the major barriers that can be confronted with while creating multi-cultural teams are provided henceforth. Firstly since the company headquarter is in Finland, the organizational norms and behaviours would be dominated by the western culture. Since the company wants to make expansions in regions like Asian and Arabia, employees from these regions would be associated with different culture from them. The main challenge would arise in terms of communication within these virtual teams. In the typical western cultures communications happen to be explicit and direct, while the eastern region countries it is generally seen that people have certain inhibitions while communicating. These arise out of age, personality traits and the like. A typical western employee would not consider many such things while communicating, but an employee belonging to the eastern region would certainly consider many such aspects as seniority of the other person, position, designation, etc before conveying a message. This keeps them communicating openly and this tampers the message and consequently its meaning (Harvard Business Review, 2011, p.108). Since the company is based in Finland, the language used would be English. In such a case all virtual team members would be required to converse and communicate in the English language. Besides lack of fluency in English the non native speakers would also have an accent different from their team members and problems with usage and translations. At times this could lead to frustrations besides communication barriers. This might also come in the way of perceptions regarding status and competencies of employees. Such incidents can take a toll of employees’ motivation levels and incentive to work in the organization (Cox, 2006, p.239). Since the employees belonging to the western and the eastern regions are different from each other in terms of their attitudes towards authority and hierarchy, an inherent challenge faced with multi-cultural teams is that they have a flat hierarchical structure. However, team members from cultures who have the tendency towards getting different treatment because of their status and position can be uncomfortable with flat structures. When members defer to the higher status team members their behaviours and attitudes would be right for such a case when the other team members would also come from hierarchical cultures. In the Asian cultures employees are supposed to be humble especially when they are communicating with a person in the seniority level. However, in the American and European cultures, communication styles do not differ according to status and position. Thus the virtual team comprising of members belonging to Asian, Arabian and European countries would be faced with the problem of communication styles. A straight forward style coming from a European member might not be easily appreciated or accepted from an Asian counterpart (Harper, Palen & Taylor, 2005, p.123). The CEO might also be faced with the problem of conflicting norms of decision making between the virtual teams. Cultures can differ distinctly during the time of making decisions, especially in terms of the extent of discussions to be taken before the decision and the time taken to make the decisions. Research reveals that American managers are found to be particularly quick when taking decisions and do not prefer to spend extensive time on analysis before taking a particular decision as compared to managers in other countries (Oumlil & Balloun, 2009). Handling issues in multi-cultural teams Managerial intervention would play the most important role in such cases. Since the diverse skills are valued in the working of the organization it is also important that diverse decisions are managed well and used for the company’s benefit. However, teams must not be allowed to take decisions without having the consent of members. In such a case it must be made mandatory in the part of the top management to ensure that a decision taken is in the interest of all and no one has any problem with it. In case the problem still exists, the management must have the ultimate authority to decide whether to adapt the decision or not. It is important to ensure that all members are given equal preference and all their views are recognized. The reason to recognise the decisions of team members is to make them motivated. When employees’ views are not accepted it might de-motivate them, however, the management must be transparent in its selection of decisions and always put forth arguments as to why a particular decision is selected over the others. Structural intervention is suggested in managing multi-cultural teams. This is particularly important for reducing interpersonal conflicts and frictions between team members. In such a case a flat hierarchical structure of the team is suggested. This is because it would be capable of removing hurdles arising out of position differences. Employees would feel free to come up with their queries and problems and this would be effective reducing the problems substantially. Compensation and rewards structures must be based on team performance particularly. This is one way in which team members could be motivated to put in better efforts in team performance. Incentives must be directly related with the performance of the entire group ensuring that individual participation is not overlooked. Competition existing between the teams would be effective in attaining best performance of the teams and groups in the organization (Miller, 2009, p.185). Team performance large depends on the performance of leaders leading the team. Thus a good leadership development program is suggested for facilitating the operations of the teams. The leaders would responsible for bringing about harmony in the team and collaborating work activities between team members. He would act as the coordinator, guide and motivator in the team. Any communication gaps created would be the responsibility of the leader to remove them. However, the leaders must maintain unbiased attitude towards the team members. Any kind of biasness towards employees and discrimination among them would be unfavourable for the group and hence ruin team performance. It would be his responsibility to manage the existing diversity in the organization coming from team members belonging to different backgrounds and integrates them such that they benefit the organization on the whole. A diverse variety of human resources can be used to the organizations benefit with the multiple ideas and suggestions that come from them. However it is crucial that these ideas are integrated and used optimally in the organization. This would be one of the most important responsibilities of the leader. Teams can perform optimally only when group members are satisfied completely. Exit of any members is considered to be damaging for the team, both in terms of his contributions and also in terms of the harmony within the team. It would spread apprehensions, suspicion and dissatisfaction among team members which must be avoided at all costs. Thus leaders must lay the active role of ensuring that there are not attritions from the team and that all members care satisfied equally (McManus, 2006, p.1). Reference Bishop, J. W., Chen, X. & Scott, K. D. (1999). What drives Chinese toward teamwork? a study of U.S.-invested companies in china. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.uic.edu/depts/soci/xmchen/teampaper.pdf. [Accessed on March 22, 2012]. Brester, C., Sparrow, P., Vernon, G. & Houldsworth, E. (2011). International Human Resource Management. Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.cipd.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/2E2B1EF2-6CDC-4BF8-8D5F-6EC000EE2198/0/9781843982661_sc.pdf. [Accessed on March 21, 2012]. Cox, R. (2006). Retailing: An Introduction, 5/E. Pearson Education India. Harper, R., Palen, L. A. & Taylor, A. S. (2005). The inside text: social, cultural and design perspectives on SMS. Springer. Harvard Business Review. (2011). Harvard Business Review on Building Better Teams. Harvard Business Press. Ivancevich, J. M. (2008). Human Resource Management 10E. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. McManus, J. (2006). Leadership: project and human capital management. Butterworth-Heinemann. Milikic, B. B. (2009). The influence of culture on human resource management processes and practices: the propositions for Serbia. ECONOMIC ANNALS, Volume LIV, No. 181, April – June 2009 UDC: 3.33 ISSN: 0013-3264. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0013-3264/2009/0013-32640981093B.pdf. [Accessed on March 21, 2012]. Miller, W. (2009). ProActive Sales Management: How to Lead, Motivate, and Stay Ahead of the Game. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. Oumlil, A. B. & Balloun, J. L. (2009). Ethical Decision-Making Differences Between American and Moroccan Managers. [Online]. Available at: http://www.mendeley.com/research/ethical-decisionmaking-differences-between-american-moroccan-managers/. [Accessed on March 22, 2012]. West, M. A. (2004). Effective teamwork: practical lessons from organizational research. John Wiley & Sons. Bibliography Armstrong, M. (2006). A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. Kogan Page Publishers. Gueutal, H. G. & Stone, D. L. (2006). The Brave New World Of Her. Wiley-India. Gueutal, H. G. & Stone, D. L. The Brave New World Of Her. Wiley-India. (2006). Lunger, D. A. (No Date). My Personal Reflections On The Topic of Human Resource anagement And How It Relates To My Job As An Army Officer. [Online]. Available at: http://cobweb2.louisville.edu/faculty/regbruce/bruce/rflct600/lunger1.htm. [Accessed on March 22, 2012]. Read More