Savanna Business Multicultural Organizations & Communication Diverse aspects of culture and Its significance In business Islam Uninominal International Business December 20, 2012 Contents Introduction Culture Is the main matter to define the behavior In workplace. Different workers attitude, work output, thinking and relationship with college it depends on culture. And role. Culture is not Just an attribute of an individual. Culture is a shared set of values, norms, attitudes, beliefs and perceptions of a group that share these similarities.
Although variations can be seen between or among different groups, it can also exist within a group. More often, we associate culture with a larger group such as a country, yet culture also exists in ethnic groups, tribes, and organizations. We often refer to them as a subculture. Dealing with a group of people from another culture or ethnicity is what we commonly refer to as cross-culture. Cross-culture binds together fields which are not quite related such as cultural anthropology and communication.
The foundation of the concept of cross-culture is to establish and agonize how individuals of various cultures interact and communicate with each other. It also shows how the culture of a community or a society as a whole consists of the shared values, assumptions, and goals that are acquired from previous generations, carried on to the present-day society, and passed on to the future generations. Cross-culture is basically an interaction of different cultures, and a comparison of the differences and similarities among cultures.
Societies worldwide observe cross-cultural practices, traits, communication, and deal with barriers, issues, and conflicts. The diverse workforce has become a reality today. The impact of cultural diversity varies with the type of environment and firm’s overall strategy. As more and more number of firms move from domestic, multiplicities, multinational strategies to operating as a truly global firm, the significance and impact of cultural diversity increase markedly (Adler, 1997). Management of cultural differences has become more important for creating advantages and getting competitive edge.
Diverse workforce refers to the co-existence of people from various socio-cultural backgrounds within the company. Diversity includes cultural factors such as race, ender, age, colour, physical ability, ethnicity, etc. (Hefted 2012). Diversity includes all groups of people at all levels in the company. Diversity requires a type of organizational culture in which each employee can pursue his or her career aspirations without being inhibited by gender, race, nationality, religion, or other factors that are irrelevant to performance (Bryan, 1999).
Organizations must concentrate on holistic strategies that address broader human resource issues, and value diverse employees. Companies must also consider stakeholders as employees. The viewpoints of stakeholders such as shareholders, appliers, public agencies, and government regulators should be considered in shaping the culture of performance and approaching the diverse markets. The service company managers should have diverse managerial strategies to manage both their full-time employees and “partial” employees those are customers (Governed, 1999).
A type of organization should be created where diverse body of employees, customers and stakeholders are valued and integrated into all dimensions of the work. Companies must learn from the people they serve. Cross- Cultures in Business A business when try to gain international market or try to recruit international level Rockford, then they should be remember in their mind about cross-cultural conflict in business.
There are lots of advantages of cross cultural business and people, both as employees and customers, managers must recognize that such treatment is bound with bureaucratic structure, subjectivity and irrationality, inappropriate policies and practices, ineffective implementation of human resources and customer retention policies and practices, and inefficient and ineffective managers (Fernando, 1998). In this manner, companies can create constituent capitalized workforce by establishing mutual trust and respect among employees, customers and stakeholders (Fernando, 1998).
Companies should completely reshape the working culture that make possible the integration of a broad range of viewpoints that leads to a redefinition of how work gets done and how diverse markets are approached and capitalized upon. All employees should be held accountable for their behaviors and human resources results. Companies must create a post bureaucratic organization based upon trust and respect in which diverse employees are valued and integrated into all aspects of the work.
Companies should rethink and redefine missions, strategies, management raciest, cultures, markets, and products to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse body of employees, customers and stakeholders (Fernando, 1998). Arguments for creating a diverse workforce -New thinking and new innovation added to business -the creation of diverse workforce should be seen as a social and moral imperative. – Diversity enhances creativity and innovation and produces advantages. -Diversity helps organizations for entering the international arena. -Diverse teams make it possible to enhance flexibility and rapid response to change.
Diversity also causes certain problems those are as follows: -Communication comes more difficult. Employees from different cultures fail to understand one another. Firms operating in different language areas find difficulty in communicating with the local employees as local employees speak different language. -Diversity increases ambiguity, complexity and confusion. -Diversity also causes problems when managers and employees overgrazing organizational policies, strategies, practices and procedures. -Cultural diversity creates difficulties for an organization when it wants to reach on a single agreement. Cultural diversity increases the complexity and problems in developing overall organizational procedures. A company with a diverse workforce can better serve and compete in diverse markets. Hiring a diverse workforce can be challenging but the greater challenge is to retain the diverse workforce. The cultural impact on management is reflected by basic values, attitudes, beliefs and behavior of the people. Culture can affect technology transfer, managerial attitudes, managerial ideology and even government-business relationships. Moreover culture affects how people think and behave (Hostess and Lutheran, 1994).
In some societies important decisions are made by few top managers, while in others, Hess decisions are diffused throughout the enterprise. American society comes under the first case and Japanese comes under the latter case. American and other Western countries’ cultural norms require individual rewards that are not so in Japanese culture. In some societies, risk-taking is encouraged which is not so in others. People identify themselves very strongly with their company as in Japan against America where people identify themselves with their occupational group.
Some societies encourage cooperation between people. Others encourage competition between people. Some countries believe in short-term goals, while there are more interested in long-term goals. Western countries put high value on innovation and change as against rest of the countries where stability is being encouraged. So, it is the cultural background that creates differences (Reynolds, 1986). Dimensions of Difference (Hefted) Differences in work-related attitudes exist across a wide range of cultures.
Egger Hefted (1980), an eminent Dutch management researcher, conducted a big survey of managers and employees working for an American multinational corporation (MM) covering 40 countries initially, which was later expanded to over 70 entries around the world (Adler, 1997; Hostess and Lutheran, 1994). Hefted found significant differences in behavior and attitudes of employees and managers from different countries that worked for MM. He further found that national culture explained more differences in work-related values and attitudes than the position within the organization, profession, age, or gender.
Initially Hefted found that managers and employees vary on four primary cultural dimensions ; : Individualism/ collectivism ; Power distance. ; Uncertainty avoidance. ; Masculinity/femininity (Career success/quality of life). Individualism implies loosely knit social networks in which people focus primarily on taking care of themselves States, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Australia and India tend to have greater support for Protestant work ethic, individual decision-making, and promotions on the basis of market value.
In contrast, collectivism is a tendency of people to belong to groups and to look after each other in exchange for loyalty. Countries like Pakistan, Taiwan, Peru, Columbia, Singapore etc. Have high collectivism trait. These countries with high collectivism tend to have less support for the Protestant work ethic, less individual initiative, and promotions on the basis of seniority (Savanna Model 2012). Power distance measures the extent to which less powerful employees accept an unequal distribution of power.
In high power distance countries, such as Philippines, Venezuela, Mexico, South Korea and India, superiors and subordinates consider bypassing to insubordination; whereas in low power distance countries, such as Israel, Denmark and USA, employees expect to bypass the boss frequently in order to get their work done. Decision-making is decentralized in low power distance countries as against high power distance countries.
Uncertainty avoidance dimension measures the extent to which managers and employees feel threatened by ambiguity and, therefore, try to avoid ambiguous situations by providing greater career stability, establishing more formal rules, rejecting deviant ideas and behavior, and accepting the possibility of absolute truths and the attainment of expertise. Lifetime employment is more common in high uncertainty avoidance cultures like Japan, Portugal, and Greece whereas high Job mobility is more common in low uncertainty avoidance countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, Denmark and India.
The country United States with high Job mobility ranks is relatively low on uncertainty avoidance. The dominant values in Masculine societies are success, money and things. The values in quality-of-life societies are relationships among people, concern for others, and the quality of life. Highly masculine cultures are found in India, Japan, Austria, Venezuela, USA and Italy. Feminine cultures are found in Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Trampers Dimension Before enter in a different country it is necessary for the business to do some researches in the different areas.
It is important to be analyzed things such as laws, economic environment, competitors, eventual suppliers and one of the most important is to analyze the culture of this area. The cultural background of the people is important to be analyzed because in that way the products the business offers and their design can be reconsidered in order to fit and therefore, sell efficiently. And the main reason for analyzing and understanding the cultural background of the area, the business is entering in is simply because the people may become customers for the future.
Therefore, the Trampers’ 7 dimensions will be used to analyze carefully the socio-culture in AJAX. The trampers’ 7 dimensions are being used all over the world and are globally recognized. Our consultancy team is therefore certain that is the perfect choice to analyze the background environment of United Arab Emirates, because not carefully analyzed market, simply means, focused on explaining cultural diversity in business. When looking at Trampers’ seven cultural dimensions, one will recognize them to be based on Parsons and Shills’ five dimensions of cultural systems and two of the value Orientations.
Trampers and Hammed Turner classified cultures along a mix of behavioral and value patterns. Their research focuses on the cultural dimensions of business executives. – Universalism versus Particulars: rules versus relationships. Whereas in universalistic cultures people generally adhere to the standards which are universally agreed, in particularistic cultures people encounter particular obligations to people they know. -Individualism versus Communitarian’s: the individual versus the group.
Do we relate to others by discovering what each one of us individually wants and then trying to negotiate the differences, or do we place ahead of this some shared concepts of the public and collective good? ; Neutral versus Affective: the range of feelings expressed. Members of cultures which are affectively neutral do not telegraph their feelings but keep them carefully controlled and subdued. In contrast, in cultures high on affectively people show their feelings plainly by laughing, smiling, grimacing, scowling and gesturing; they attempt to find immediate outlets for their feelings; -Specific versus Diffuse: the range of involvement.
Do we engage with others in specific areas of life and single levels of personality only, or in multiple areas of our lives and at several areas of personality at the same time (diffuse). In diffuse cultures, the concept of “saving face” is related to the belief that something made public is always personal too. – Achievement versus Ascription: how status is accorded. While some societies accord status to people on the basis of their achievements, others ascribe it to them by virtue of age, class, gender, education, and so on (ascription). Sequential versus Synchronicity: How we think about time (past, present and future) is related to whether our view of time is sequential, as series of passing events which happen one after the other, or whether it is synchronicity, with past, present, and true all interrelated and with several events happening at the same time. – Internal versus External Control: Societies either believe that they can and should control nature by imposing their will, or they believe that man is part of nature and must go along with its laws, directions and forces. Comparison between east and west based on decision making.
In east most of the manager is situation accepting. Their implementation is unanimous, choices collective, most of the time search for historical precedent for creates things, and they don’t have enough new idea. Most of the time they search idea from past. Moreover, if they face any problem they told its god will. On the other hand, in west decision making is based on problem solving. If they face any problem in decision making then they take it as challenge. They always search new information and always create new alternative. Never take from history. They make choice individually for decision and they are dynamic.
Graph: Lewis cultural Model “Cultural behavior is the end product of collected wisdom, filtered and passed down through hundreds of generations as shared core beliefs, values assumptions, notions and persistent action patterns. In other words, culture is a collective programming of he mind that distinguishes the members of one human group from another. ” Richard Lewis The behavior we accept as normal is actually formed from learned and inherited beliefs based on our religious upbringing, ethnic, generational, class, and gender programming, as well as the educational colonization and the professional ethics we have been taught and accepted.
All of these aspects, that we take for granted in our society, form the framework within which we think, look at life, and perform in the workplace. But they are actually very subjective norms, that are based on the culture we have spent the most time growing up within. When we travel or move to other countries we cannot assume that our assumptions are known or accepted as the norm there. In my opinion, If you are thinking of living or working overseas, or even traveling abroad, you may like to survey the list of characteristics above, to see which of these 3 cross cultural communication patterns you feel most comfortable with.
Not everyone is living in a country with a compatible cultural style for them. This happens if your family has moved from another culture to North America, bringing with it a different cultural style. It can also happen if you’ve spent your growing-up years overseas with your family. You may be a Third Culture Kid, who has had to adapt to many different cultures, and are wondering why you don’t feel at home in what is supposed to be your own culture.
If you find your preferred cultural profile doesn’t match the profile of the country you are living in, this may be a good time to become acquainted with the cultural profile you are most comfortable living within. Cultural differences in Management: and behavior of the people. Culture can affect technology transfer, managerial decisions are made by few top managers, while in others, these decisions are diffused throughout the enterprise. American society comes under the first case and Japanese comes under the latter case. American and other Western countries’ cultural norms require individual rewards that are not so in Japanese culture.
In some societies, risk-taking is encouraged which is not so in others. People identify themselves very strongly with their company as in Japan against America where people identify themselves with their occupational group. Some societies encourage cooperation between people. Others encourage competition between people. Some countries believe in short-term goals, while others are more interested in long-term goals. Western countries put high value on innovation and change as against rest of the countries where stability is being encouraged. So, it is the cultural background that creates differences (Reynolds, 1986).
Strategies for managing cultural differences The extent to which managers and employees recognize cultural diversity and its potential Advantages and disadvantages defines an organization’s approach (strategy) to manage Cultural diversity. Adler has identified the following strategies for managing cultural differences. (I) Ignore cultural differences (it) Minimize cultural differences. (iii) Manage cultural differences. Intercultural Communication and management leadership- Leader should be fit with different culture people to handle different kind of situation and guided then. A leader can make fit a group by his guideline to his followers.
Taking a team from ordinary to extraordinary means understanding and embracing the difference between management and leadership. According to writer and consultant Peter Trucker, “Management is doing things, right leadership is doing the right things. ” Manager and leader are two completely different roles, although we often use the terms interchangeably. Managers are facilitators of their team embers’ success. They ensure that their people have everything they need to be productive and successful, that they’re well trained, happy and have minimal roadblocks in their path, that they’re being groomed for the next level.
That they are recognized for great performance and coached through their challenges. Here I will discuss some perfect manager quality- -Ability to communicate with people from different backgrounds. -Curiosity for and interest in different cultures. One cannot be an expert on every culture, but one can develop the flexibility to put oneself in the shoes of those from Respect for different ways of doing things; everyone is a unique individual and culturally unique. – Willingness to learn. Awareness and understanding begins with knowing one’s own culture.
Intercultural communication and management skills require experience. -Ability to accept the fact that we all make mistakes; learn from them. -Have a good sense of humor. -Keep your eyes, ears and heart open. Conclusion- When a people grown in a culture, he make a shape about his output, behave, performance in his mind. When he try to Join in another culture for work or another types of activities then he face some trouble for his previous accustomed reference. On the other hand, manager of a different culture try to give a shape who is from different culture.
A perfect manager can give perfect solution and make him perfect for work. Hefted and Fans Trampers dimension discuss about different culture people behave and work output in their different culture. Culture is not Just an attribute of an individual. Culture is a shared set of values, norms, attitudes, beliefs and perceptions of a group that share these similarities. When culture cross then personality, attitude, beliefs will be changed according to the workplace culture. So, culture is the main matter to make a man fit with some environment.
