How the Impact of Culture Affects Ethical and Moral Communications - Research Paper Example

How the Impact of Culture Affects Ethical and Moral Communications Abstract The basic flow of communication has many barriers which can hinder the effectiveness of communication. One of the most integral barriers to effective communication is cultural differences in encoding and decoding of the message. There are different code of ethics, norms, values and a different belief system in each culture hence a single message can have various different interpretations. Thus, organizations need to address this lag in order to avoid any morally or ethically debilitating practices that may result as a consequence of cultural impact. Introduction The basic model for communication, as presented by Schramm’s, entails that effective communication is one in which initiates with the encoder who encodes the message and transmits it through a medium of communication. This message is received by the receiver who then decodes the message and sends feedback to the encoder. The basic process of communication has many barriers that impact its effectiveness and cultural is one of the elements of “noise” that can distort the understanding and interpretation of the message (John). Cultural differences in understanding as well as message delivery can become barriers to effective communication. And these differences have become more profound by the proliferation of mass media and social media promoted through the increasing use of internet (Lauring). The impact of culture on meaningful business and inter-organizational communication is dependent upon the nature of cultural context, a theory proposed by Edward Hall. Based on his findings, people in organizations rely on other sensory and behavioral cues in sending, receiving and interpreting messages. The filters are socially constructed and so are these sensory cues thus each individual’s communication process is greatly influenced by the norms and value of his cultural context (Chitakornkijsil). In high context cultures, such as Chinese, Korean and Indian, people rely less on verbal cues and more on non verbal elements like voice, facial expressions, tone and the implying meaning of the message rather than the literal meaning. In low context cultures including the American, Australian and the English cultures, on the other hand, the sender and receiver is more oriented towards direct and literal meaning of the messages implied (Karin). Likewise in individualist cultures place more importance on personal goals rather than group interests in communication. On the other hand, the collectivist cultures induce people to think of themselves an extended part of the organization thus making inter-organizational communication more effective (Caroline). Hence, culture has the tendency to impact the moral and ethical dimensions of communication in a business as well as a social setting, this is because of the cognitive constraints which pertain to the different framing of the same idea and differing value systems. Secondly, there exist behavioral constraints in terms of the everyday behavioral practices including standards of proximity, eye contact, shaking hands etc. for example, in America culture, it is against the social etiquette to not look the other person in the eye while speaking to him while in Asian cultures, looking in the eye can mean disrespect. Likewise, while in American culture, greeting someone with a smile is again a social etiquette; in Germany this can send flirtatious sign to the opposite gender. Thirdly, the emotional constraints hinder and can impact the social and moral dimensions of communication. For example, in Japanese culture, silence is an integral part of work ethics, in Asian cultures silence is taken to be affirmation irrespective of the actual state of mind of the person whereas the American managers are more talkative and consider talking imperative to convey the right messages to their subordinates and co workers (Sunitti). The Communications Challenge As mentioned above, the basic model of communication can be impacted by several elements of “noise” which may include cultural differences, wrong choice of medium, interpretation distortion etc. this means that effective communication is subject to many challenges. As markets continue to converge, there is not just augmented competition but also a much more diversified workforce and diversified work practices within the same premises. Thus the foremost challenge faced by organizations and the business premise is the use of different spoken languages. This has given rise to multilingualism and applicants with knowledge of more than one relevant language are preferred (Lauring). For example, Europeans expect their mangers to be fluent at least one international language. This challenge is becoming fiercer as the global boundaries continue to blur, managers are expected to communicate with their customers no matter which part of the world the customer is located at. Global managers are expected to have a more detailed understanding of the verbal and non verbal communication mediums of their customers’ societies. However, the time constraints and distance limitations poses some limitations on their understanding and expectations of feedback every time an interaction are made with the stakeholders from various cultures without a face-to-face interaction (A.Caroline). Theories pertaining to language imperialism imply that English is the language of power hence it holds the strategic position of being the global language, a standard medium for communication. This is a challenge for many other business managers across the world where mother tongues are far more powerful like Bangladesh, Pakistan, India thus they have to learn English in order to keep up with the increasing convergence in business practices and global organizations. This is eminent in a proliferation of English language acquisition in South Asian countries, for example (David). The challenge however not just lies in different spoken languages in one business transaction but also in terms of the diversity of the global language itself. According to Professor Robert Philipson, the diversity of English needs to be understood because of its immensely vast user profile, “Pigeon English” has taken the toll so we need to understand its diversity in order to our own personal or business needs. And that is the reason; employees are offered spoken English classes, to be able to use the global version of English. The use of nonverbal mediums of communication is another challenge that plagues many organizations and individuals (Ives). Hence to overcome this challenge, most of the multinational companies in Korea, France and Germany hire local employees who can understand and deliver the needs of the local people and also interact with the customers. The subsidiary may have a combination of the home country and host country nationals. They have also built specialists in particular region and carry massive training programmers for the employees in their international divisions. Moreover, many marketers like Aldo, H&M and Zara have websites which offer tailored content for different geographical regions or simply different languages for different regions. Further, Coca-Cola tailors its communication to the local preferences of its target audience (Chitakornkijsil). Another important challenge in the inter-organizational or business communication is in terms of sharing information which becomes difficult as members of an organization become more dispersed. However, whatever the mode of meeting it may be, it is imperative to make it effective. Meetings have to have a clear agenda, and a clear objective for sharing the information. All participants must be encouraged to participate, generate more ideas on problem solving (Ives). Benchmarking Research The Communication Problem at Toyota Toyota Motor Corporation has been recently plagued with many communication problems which resulted in detrimental moral and ethical practices by Toyota. Toyota, previously known for its model of efficiency, has experienced some debilitation in its long established reputation. Toyota executives tried to hide the problem with their gas pedal system that caused many cars to suddenly speed up making the driver completely lose control even when they would not hit the gas. Initially Toyota tried to blame the American design for this and tried to hide the real problem from the Transportation Safety Administration. As a result of this delay, Toyota had to recall many cars internationally which was detrimental for its reputation. It was further forced to recall cars at home as well, something it did not intend to do but was pressurized by the press coverage (Brian). The main reason for this crisis in Toyota has been the corporate culture of Japan causing many ethical and moral challenges. In the Japanese culture, flow of information is too slow and sometimes almost nonexistent as the employees hold back information to not share it with their bosses who do not want to hear it or simply do not have a framework that tells them how to report such problems. The common Japanese practice thus is to squash the bad news before it makes its way to the press. However, to solve this crisis, the President, Akio Toyota, made every effort to meet the communication challenge because of which many families lost their members as the cars accelerated out of their control. The President spoke to the families himself to grant his condoles cense and set a public address at the Capitol Hill to answer the questions of the antagonized families for a session of three hours. So despite the immense technological advancement Toyota experienced, it was unable to develop proper databases for the communication aspect of quality management, something it did eventually to resolve the problem which cost Toyota millions of dollars (Brian). The Case of Walt Disney Europe The Walt Disney theme park was opened in Europe, Paris as a potentially profitable site for its success. In making the location decisions, Walt Disney chose Paris because of the success of Disney movies, its spectacular transportation network and a large population. Marne-la-VallŽe was selected as a site for its construction as it had strategic importance in terms of geography. However, the new investment did not turn into a profitable venture as had been anticipated by the owner. This is because of the many operational issues faced by Euro Disney much of which were fuelled by the cultural differences and insufficient understanding of the market. Euro Disney failed in capacity building for its peak days. It tried to implement more capacity utilization on Fridays as it thought like Florida, Fridays would be the heavy days and Mondays would be the least busy days. But in Paris it was the opposite and thus Disney faced staff shortages on peak days which had at least 10 times more turnout than normal days resulting in overcrowded queue and guests waiting for the tickets. This also resulted in inflexible schedules for the staff which lowered their productivity as the French workers were not accustomed to irregular working hours (Spencer). Moreover a poor understanding of the European market meant that Euro Disney did not have sufficient place in its restaurants and ended up in serving 2500 breakfast a day in a 300 seat restaurant with no wine, no eggs and bacon, something that Europeans demanded. To tackle this problem, this resulted in a loss of 15 million visitors in just one year, the management at Walt Disney started by changing the name of the theme park to Walt Disney Paris in order to attract the target market which was largely the visitors at Paris. They changed their communication strategy through the marketing campaign. The promotional packages aimed to target more European customers by identifying the needs and trends of the European market in more detail; it changed the emphasis from its huge size, which was the selling premise in Orlando and Florida, to the “magic” it aimed to deliver. Employee as well as customer databases management systems were maintained to direct operational activities and promotional packages to individual customers (Spencer). Wal-Mart’s Struggle in maintaining Cross Cultural Communication Likewise Wal-Mart Inc., which is one of the retail giants of the world, has 75,000 stores across the globe. This massive growth has had some diseconomies in the form of communication problems. Wal-Mart has been operative in Germany since 1997 but so far this global giant has been able to capture a market share of only 2% in the food sales. The major reason is the cultural differences in USA and Germany which Wal-Mart has struggled to deal with through its communication strategy, both verbal and non verbal. The American culture is accustomed to the Wal-Mart’s regularly updated ethics manuals but in Germany when this manual was introduced, it caused great animosity and press coverage. In America, “caution” against the relationship of supervisors and employees is seen as quite literally and to report “inappropriate behavior” was taken as a law abiding stance representing good citizenship. But in Germany this was translated as putting a ban on the romance between co workers and was seen as an invitation to rant on each other. Hence the Germans complained that Wal-Mart had failed to communicate with the local population and tried enforcing American culture through its policies and practices (Jack). Moreover, non verbal communication problems also persisted as for example, the company offered grocery bagging services but it was not welcomed by Germans as they did not like the idea of getting their grocery handled by strangers. Moreover, clerks and the staff at tills were ordered to greet shoppers with a smile as per the Wal-Mart policy, but this was considered as being an invitation by most of the male shoppers. So these cultural differences in communication, which Wal-Mart failed to address in its policies, caused the company many millions of dollars (Jack). However, Wal-Mart tried to live up to this challenge and responded by tailoring its strategy more towards the local market. It started by hiring a German chief in the German division. It changed its marketing strategy and tailored it to local preferences. For example, Wal-Mart offering the Easter specialty, carp for only $7.54 for a kilo. It changed its strategy management by offering more private labels like Cosies and Equate and focusing on improving communication with the local suppliers. Wal-Mart also laid greater emphasis on the German co-determination rules whereby employees are given more rights to participation in the decision making process (Jack). Communication Efficiency at Southwest Airlines At Southwest Airlines, poor communication occasionally resulted in complexity and a low morale of the entire organization in its initial years. However, access to information and a facilitated flow of information is given immense significance in Southwest Airlines where employees develop a direct and an open relationship with the co-workers by preferring face-to-face means of communication and preferably on the first name basis. Further the company uses tangible and verifiable means of communication like memos, letters, e-mails etc facilitated by the LUV lines, the employees’ newsletter. The section of Industry News facilitates the flow and access of information to the employees this is because the corporate culture at Southwest Airlines pertains to empowering employees with the critical information so that they can make quick fixes to significant problems. All means of communication are capitalized on and a cordial relationship building with the employee is promoted (Box). Conclusion Culture has a great impact on organizations’ communication flow and the flow and access of information. These differences in interpretation and understanding can result in various moral and ethical problems that can be detrimental not only to the profitability of the organization itself but also the community as the organization fails to deliver its corporate social responsibility. Hence organizations need to tackle these communication barriers caused by cultural differences and facilitate communication within the organization through a greater emphasis on maintaining diversity in corporate culture. Recommendations Firstly, starting from the language barrier, organizations, in a dynamic workforce, need to maintain language acquisition in a way that it facilitates the diverse nature of workforce. Organizations need to emphasize multilingualism like in French multinationals where the manager has to be fluent on at least one foreign language. Secondly, organizations should support language acquisition by offering their employees options to learn one more international language sponsored by the company. They should have the right to have an interpreter in legal proceedings and meetings of utmost importance (A.Caroline). Further, companies, especially multidivisional companies need to have updated databases that can facilitate the flow of information to the employees and to have a framework within which problems can be identified and solutions can be suggested. Company blogs, informal sessions, networking and news letter are all ways of not only empowering employees with the most critical information but also updating them with all the news which can result in greater motivation as they feel part of the organization. These networking activities also encourage an open corporate culture where problems can be fixed much more quickly unlike the Japanese culture due to which major ethical set back was faced by Toyota and the many families which lost their loved ones (Brian). Moreover, the overall corporate culture of an organization should be as such that it should not promote the practice of hiding integral problems but should have the employees report problems, and also should consider the diversity of ethnic backgrounds especially in case on a multinational. Policy formation should particularly take into account the impact of a policy on all its stakeholders which have essentially different backgrounds (John). The case of Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola stipulate that companies need to make decisions and communicate them according to the needs and preferences of the target audience (Jack). The cultural differences in its country of origin and in the host country can determine the success or failure of a company. Verbal as well as non-verbal communicating should be given equal importance. This is because in different cultures, the codes of ethics can differ and imposing a unilateral policy can result in moral degradation of the workforce as well as the fact that misinterpretation can cause major problems in organizations (Karin). Works Cited A.Caroline, Schaerfl. Idiocentric and Allocentric Worldview Determinants of the Coparenting Alliance . United States: ProQuest LLC, 2009. Box, Thomas M. "Southwest Airlines 2007." Journal of the International Academy of Case Studies Vol. 15 (2009): 21-27. Brian, Ross. Toyota Recall: Reports of Runaway Cars. 21 January 2010. 29 October 2011 . Chitakornkijsil, Pranee. "Intercultural Communication Challenges and Multinational Organization Communication." International Journal of Organizational Innovation Vol. 3 (2010): 6-20. David, Crystal. English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Ives, Peter. "Global English, Hegemony and Education: Lessons from Gramsci." Educational Philosophy and Theory Vol.41 (2009): 661-683. Jack, Ewing. Wall-Mart: Struggling in Germany. 11 April 2005. 29 October 2011 . John, Bratton. Human Resource Management; Theory and Practice 2nd Edition. London: Macmillan Press Ltd. , 1999. Karin, Ikas. Communicating in the Third Space. New York City: Routledge, 2009. Lauring, Jakob. "Intercultural Organizational Communication: The Social Organizing of Interaction in International Encounters." Journal of Business Communication Vol. 48 (2011): 231-255. Spencer, Earl P. "Educator Insights: Euro Disney-- What Happened? What Next?" Journal of International Marketing Vol. 3 (1995): 103-114. Sunitti, Ahuja. Business Communication . New Delhi: V.K. India Enterprises, 2009. Read More