Managing and leading people across cultural borders - Essay Example

? Managing and leading people across cultural borders Contents Contents 2 Introduction 3 Theoretical Background of Cross Cultural Communication 3 Multinationals and Role of Expatriates 6 Conclusion 8 References 10 Introduction Globalisation has brought the entire world on one platform. Most of the countries of the globe are interacting on a regular basis in order to compete in the world markets. The managers are thus under a lot of pressure in these organisations for the purpose of the development of the long term goals and in order to conduct business in the overseas market. To manage the global economy cross cultural communication has become essential. This is mainly because of the fact that a company in order to be multinational have to cross the national borders of the headquarters and has to make its presence in the different parts of the world in order to have a wider access to the world markets. The success of a company depends on the multicultural competence it possesses. This means that the company should be able to accommodate all the types of cultures in a particular location so that there are fewer problems to combat the global competition. Theoretical Background of Cross Cultural Communication Significant numbers of scholars have contributed to the issues of cross-cultural communication. One of the main proponents who have contributed to the issue is Geert Hofstede. According to Hofstede, the variety of skills of management would vary across organisations. This means that for a company that is located in one particular country would have a distinct culture which would not match will the culture of an organisation that is located in a different continent. Thus natural cultures are unique. People are the most important part of an organisation. Since the humans build the companies it is imperative that the culture and the backgrounds in which the people are based would also mould the culture of the organisation which is being built. Thus the type of Management that is practised by the so called Western Countries like the United States would be different from that of Germany or Netherlands. Again the Western culture would be different from that of the Asian countries or the Middle Eastern countries where a more conservative type of organisation culture prevails (Hofstede, 1984, pp. 81-99). According to Hofstede in the process of management the employees in the organisation would make use of the technical as well as economic resources in order to attain the desired outcomes. Thus the societies of the world are characterised by different set of cultures. Hofstede had shared his experience of working in IBM in the later phases of his life. There are various aspects of the theory of Hofstede. He explained the concept of power distance in the context of the organisation. In most of the organisation the control of the decision making would lie in the hands of the senior management and the employees across all hierarchy generally accept this unequal distribution of the power. The concepts of Collectivism as well as Individualism are other important aspects of the theory put forward by Hofstede. Most of the organisations have factions in the internal environment and the people involved form either a part of the group or may stand for themselves in the entire decision making process (Schein, 1992, pp. 45-64). The organisations may also have varying tolerance level for uncertainty as well as avoidance. Some of the conservative organisations prefer to remain safe by taking the more certain pathways as they are risk averse. On the other hand many other organisations may be willing to accept this kind of situations and take up risky ventures. The studies conducted by Hofstede also reveal that the organisations may be either masculine or feminine depending upon the kind of culture that it exhibits. While the masculine organisations would display the features like ambition, competitiveness, power as well as assertiveness, the feminine organisations would rely more on the proper management of the relationships and the value of the employees to the company (Hofstede, 1980, pp. 45-59). Most of the companies have goals but the horizons for these goals vary from company to company. The long term goal organisations generally have a focus towards the sustainability of their businesses. Thus they are more future-oriented compared to the organisations that plan their goals depending on the immediate term only. The employees in the organisation may also be indulgent or retrained depending on how much they control the various types of desires while staying in the work environment. These six dimensions of organisation culture according to Hofstede would vary from organisation to organisation and each feature would help to distinguish one organisation from the other. Alfonsus Trompenaars is another major theorist of organisation culture who had framed his model on organisation culture based on the cross cultural communications of the employees. He posited that there were seven grounds on which one organisation could be distinguished from the other (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 1997, pp. 121-134). A company can be universal or particular depending on the issue of rules and the relationship among the employees. If the employee relations are given more importance and the rules of the organisation are flexible depending on the problems that the employees it would be considered as a particular organisation. In case of the universal organisations however, the rules are clearly defined and the employees have to adjust themselves with these rules. The concept of Individualism and collectivism as the two contrasting features has also been acknowledged by Trompenaars in the same way that was defined by Hofstede. The organisation may or may not encourage the display of emotions depending on which comes the third classification of Neutral or emotional organisation. The companies can be specific or diffusive or specific depending on how many the companies align the private lives of the employees with the personal lives (Peppas, 2006, pp. 119-129). Fifth distinction would be based on whether the organisation would provide the due respect and status or the employees have to make additional effort in order to achieve it. An organisation may be focused and may prefer to do one thing at a time, while another organisation may be sound in its multitasking skills. Depending on this organisations may be Synchronic where all the jobs would be done at the same pace or sequential where one jobs would be finished before starting with another one. The environmental control of the organisation may also be internally as well as externally controlled. According to Edward T. Hall the cultural context is an important aspect of organisation and the companies can be distinguished on the basis of this, i.e., high context as well as low context cultures. The high context cultures are those which considers the individuals as source of knowledge and resources and the low context cultures are the ones that consider that the employees have to be instructed on every issue because they would not possess the right judgement due to lack of knowledge (Latham, 2004, pp. 126-129). Multinationals and Role of Expatriates Expatriates are individuals who are sent to the foreign lands by a company for the exchange of the culture in some other subsidiary located across the national borders. The expatriates have a major role to play in the context of the home country as well as the host country. A multinational corporation essentially needs to exchange the employees across the business units in different locations so that one subsidiary can learn from the aspects of the other nations. This kind of a job would demand the employees to maintain an open behaviour and a positive attitude towards the culture where the person would be working in the foreign lands. The employer employee relation in the foreign SBU might also be different for the company. This would have an effect on the expatriate and the level of work that he delivers (Haidt, Rosenberg and Hom, 2003, pp. 12-36). It is therefore essential for every organisation to have an orientation programme for the employees who are sent as the expatriates. In most cases the spouse and the children of the employee are relocated to the foreign lands. Therefore the employees would face a drastic culture change in the social as well as the professional life. The expatriates undergo a series of processes on the introduction to the new culture (Pedersen, 1995, pp.27-31). In the first stage the employee would embrace the new culture and would look into the positives. This would be followed by a phase when they would face contradiction and would not like their decision of coming to the new country. This would be a stage of depression. The expatriate would finally recover from this phase and would move into a new phase of acceptance of the new culture and would adjust himself accordingly (Cox, 2001, pp. 129-145). There are differences in the Western and Asian patterns of organisational culture which the people need to adapt themselves with. In the Asian framework the concept of self is more interdependent on the other employees while the Western culture is dominated by individualism and self control of the employees (Hollingshead, 1941, pp. 217-224). The values of the organisation would be controlled by groups in the Asian companies while on the other hand it would be formed out of the cultures of the individuals working in the Western counterpart. The Asian employees would be less opinionated compared to that of the Western employees who would reason and counter any argument that is put in front of them (Wiseman, Sanders, Congalton, Gass, Sueda and Du, 1995, pp. 1-18). Thus the group merit would always be acclaimed in case of the Asian organisations like China or Japan. On the other hand for the Western companies the individual efforts would be acknowledged to a large extent (Neuliep, Hintz and McCroskey, 2005, pp. 41-56). The orientation programme of the expatriates is therefore essential at the post departure phase. They can make an idea whether or not they would be able to cope up with the new environment of work. The human resources department of a company has to be actively involved and has to make a positive endeavour indentifying the set of people who would be suitable to carry out such tasks (Smith and Hitt, 2005, pp. 75- 89). The skills of the employees have to be up graded as per the skills of the employees who are working in the foreign nations. Language in which most of the employees in an organisation is also essential to know for the expatriate. This is because the barrier of language would constrict the level of interaction and the communications among the local employees and the expatriates (Simon, 1997, pp. 12-23). As a result the expatriate would also remain alienated from the employee groups that are formed in the organisation. The organisations that practice cross cultural interactions often open in-house training centres that would train the employees in the language skills or the other soft skills. The reason behind this relocation technique is that the employees would be able to enjoy some variety in their work which would motivate them to do the work as well as they would feel they are more involved in the company. Conclusion It is therefore clear that practising multiculturalism would expose the companies to a lot of opportunities and would let the company have access to the larger markets in the globe. There is an increasing awareness in the organisations about the cross cultural exchanges which have the goal of tapping the international markets. In order to understand the needs of the customers of a distant country the employees need to understand the culture before they can devise and formulate a product. The theories that the various researchers on organisation culture have come up with help to identify the distinguishing features that differentiates one organisation from the other. Any company that wishes to send the expatriates need to identify these features and have to train the employees depending on the country that person is visiting and the kind of changes that he would face. The mix of cultures would help an organisation gain by extracting the best features of each culture and to mould the organisational values accordingly. This would incorporate an all inclusive feature to a multinational company and would be a unique identity of its own irrespective of cast, creed religion, nationality or gender. References Hofstede, G., 1984. “Cultural dimensions in management and planning.” Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Vol. 1(2), pp. 81-99. Hofstede, G., 1980. Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work Related Values. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications. Trompenaars, F. and Hampden-Turner, C., 1997. Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Cultural Diversity in Business. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing. Haidt, J., Rosenberg, E. and Hom, H., 2003. “Differentiating diversities: Moral diversity is not like other kinds.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 33(1), pp. 1-36. Peppas, S. C., 2006. “Diversity in the workplace.” Employee Relations, Vol. 28(2), pp. 119-129. Wiseman, R. L., Sanders, J. A., Congalton, J. K., Gass, R. H., Sueda, K. and Du, R., 1995. “A cross-cultural analysis of compliance gaining: China, Japan, and the United States.” Intercultural Communication Studies, Vol. 1, pp. 1-18. Neuliep, J. W., Hintz, S. M. and McCroskey, J. C., 2005. “The influence of ethnocentrism in organizational contexts: Perceptions of interviewee and managerial attractiveness, credibility, and effectiveness.” Communication Quarterly. Vol. 53(1), pp. 41-56. Hollingshead, A. B., 1941. “The concept of social control.” American Sociological Review, Vol. 6(2), pp. 217-224. Pedersen, P., 1995. The Five Stages of Culture Shock: Critical Incidents around the World. London: Greenwood Press. Latham, G. P., 2004. “The motivation benefits of goal setting.” Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 18(4), pp. 126-129. Schein, E., 1992. Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Simon, H. A., 1997. Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organizations. New York: The Free Press. Smith, K.G. and Hitt, M.A., 2005. Great minds in management: the process of theory development. New York: Oxford University Press. Cox, T., 2001. Creating the multicultural organization: A strategy for capturing the power of diversity. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Read More