Decision Making for Leading Multi-Cultural Groups and Teams - Research Paper Example

The manner by which managers view and approach their role is greatly influenced by their cultural frame of reference (cited in Sinclair & Robertson-Smith, 2008, p. 68).  

Concretely, an American and an Asian team leader, having an entirely different cultural frame of reference, would, more often than not, make very different management decisions for their teams. Following Hoftede’s (2007) five major dimensions by which to analyze differences among cultures: (1) power distance, (2) individualism as against collectivism, (3) uncertainty avoidance, (4) masculinity as against femininity, and (5) long-term orientation, the US business culture, Hofstede (1997) describes, illustrates low power distance, high individualism, low uncertainty avoidance, high masculinity, and low long-term orientation (cited in Ardichvili & Kuchinke, 2002, p. 101); whereas Asian culture, though much complex, can be characterized generally by high power distance, low individualism, high uncertainty avoidance, high masculinity, and high long-term orientation (Hofstede, 2009). Observably so, except for masculinity where both demonstrate high value, Americans and Asians are in the opposite spectrum for the other four culture dimensions. How these differences affect both the American and Asian team leaders in their management decisions for their teams working for Toyota will be analyzed focusing on staff evaluation.

An American leader may evaluate his/her staff differently from an Asian leader in four important points: (1) issues given importance, (2) meanings given to actions, (3) dealing with identified issues, and (4) informing the staff of the evaluation. Demonstrating high individualism, American leaders are more independent-minded and competitive. In evaluating their staff, they will most likely stick to performance issues based on the Toyota Production System’s standardized work. So, they will interpret the actions of their staff mainly in relation to their work execution. As such, individual initiative and the courage to take risks are given weight, which Freeman and Brown (2004) say, are consistent with low uncertainty avoidance culture (p. 175). 

Furthermore, with a low power distance culture, American leaders could present their evaluation to their staff, whether good or bad without much difficulty because they welcome dissenting opinions even from their subordinates and in fact, would even seek for it (Hofstede, 1991, p. 28). Besides, they are work-oriented. Their main concern is getting to the bottom of the matter right away because every minute counts.  Such is consistent with the high masculine culture and low long-term orientation.          

Given Toyota’s philosophy: “We do not just build cars; we build people” (Liker & Meier, 2007, p. 3), the advantages of American leaders over Asian leaders in evaluating a multi-cultural staff working in Toyota can be attributed to the American’s objectivity, open-mindedness, and competitiveness. First, being objective enables American leaders to evaluate staff mainly on the basis of their production performance. As such, issues unrelated to the Toyota Production System, which are oftentimes the source of conflict among the culturally diverse workforce and which more often than not are better left alone to the workers themselves than having managers intervene (Brett, Behfar & Kern, 2006, p. 1), will be avoided. Thus even the staff would be naturally compelled to concentrate on production matters rather than personal issues. Resultantly, the diverse workforce is then tuned in to a common goal – to excel in creating well-defined and efficient work methods. Second, the American leaders’ open-mindedness would enable them to hear opinions from the staff. This allows a dialogue that may pave the way to the team’s greater understanding of their strengths and weaknesses with regard to their overall performance. This would not only give the leader concrete bases for a better plan but more importantly, would also help the staff to better understand the work. As Toyota proudly claims, what distinguishes them best from other organizations is the “depth of understanding among Toyota employees regarding their work” (Liker & Meier, 2007, p. 112).  Third, the competitive trait of the American leaders would enable them to analyze which qualities or motivations do staff lack or need to drive them to perform best. This would allow the American leader to see cultural factors that may have bearing on the staff performance, thus enabling them to address such issues.

However, these American cultural traits may also have negative effects in evaluating the staff. Driven too much by work performance and achievement, American leaders may fail to recognize issues non-related to the Toyota Production System, but the key to the performance of non-American staff.  For example, the ‘sempai-kohai’ mentor relationship in Japan allows a personal bond between Japanese managers and employees (Chang, et al., 2001, p. 2). Thus, evaluating a Japanese staff based on standardized work alone would be insufficient. Second, the tendency of the American leader to evaluate staff based on individual performance may fail to see the impact of team related to the staff performance. As such, this may weaken American leaders’ decisions in terms of long-term philosophy, which is one of Toyota’s fourteen principles (Liker & Meier, 2007, p. 6).  Third, in presenting the evaluation, not taking into consideration the feelings of the staff, specifically for Asians, may build walls rather than understanding between the leader and them, forfeiting the very aim of the evaluation.