Introduction
In this presentation I have elaborated my understandings from the two provided material sources elaborating on the cross culture management subject as necessary aspect in understanding the quality management for an organization. I have also read lots of other materials available to understand what it means by cross culture management.
In present world most of the companies in various industry verticals are looking to understand and make it easy for their respective human resources and other resources the advantages and disadvantages in cross cultural management. This understanding helps in projects that have to be endeavoured to survive in the hostile economies scenarios. In this briefing paper I discussed and highlighted various aspects to look into understanding the cross cultural management.
Culture
The term is defined by many keeping in mind different circumstances and scenarios. In general it is, a set of common beliefs and value for the regularly performing activities or trade among a set regional-based population turns down as Culture over a time period.
Corporate culture is when a set of people put their experiences and act from several varied cultures at their place of work. Corporate culture is where communication is of top most priority. Nowadays, corporate world believes that when information is communicated in complete among its resources results will always be as desired. Since the globalization among the organizations has started human resource they hire is not restricted to a region but has to be global.
Cross Culture Communication
Nowadays organizations to survive have started drive themselves towards the concept of globalization. To encompass this vision organizations have uphill task of overcoming many managerial hurdles both at administrative and resources management level. The organizations to achieve their vision of globalization adapt new methodologies and enhance the ability of its resources to efficiently and effectively communicate among themselves. To achieve this organizations have to understand that communication of information is the main priority. Organizations have to believe and strive to improve the communication and in a way create a standard of communication among its resources. In a cross culture team communication plays an important role since the team is not just restricted to any specified region but it is cross cultural based. Each member of the team is formed with keeping in mind as per requirement of the task and individual professional qualification rather than just regional or cultural based. It is the duty and responsibility of each team member to work in tandem among each other work together to achieve team's motto of formation. Team has to conquer all differences and cope with any eventuality at the earliest. Cross culture team can only function effectively if it can communicate among the team effectively and efficiently. If communication among the team is efficient then there would no room for any kind of misinterpretations and any chance of improper information dissemination. For example, a hand signal shown across can mean a lot difference from region to region. Nowadays it does not matter what one want to communicate it only matters has how well one can communicate.
Reference: www.1000ventures.com
Challenges facing cross culture communication
The organization shall understand that effective and efficient communication among its resources smoothen its managerial process and enhance the effective decision making capabilities. Since the organizations are on globalization spree shall strive to realize and achieve this even more. To stabilize the efficient communication process within the organizational teams of cross culture blend, it faces many challenges. The basic areas of conflict are:
Communication styles.
Approach towards completion of task.
Conflict facing attitude.
Decision making process.
Zeal towards new learning.
Fairness in disclosures.
Organization shall always enable positive dialogue space, reward the new learners and freedom of expression rather than allow room for misjudging and miscommunication. An organization which is on globalization spree has to understand that culture is a major hurdle to overcome and important strength to harness and enjoy its benefits, as culture provides greater opportunities and resources to fasten organizational proposed growth projectile.
Reference: www.citehr.com/5782-cross-cultural-conflicts-ppt.html
Quality management - Cross Culture perspective
There have been many scholars and academicians who have studied and helped to enhance the understanding of effective cross culture management, among them is Dr. Geert Hofstede. His research and in-depth understanding of various cultural dimensions has evolved essentialistic model of the world's cultural map which is now and international standard for understanding of cultural regions.
Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions
Power distance index (PDI)
Individualism (IDV)
Masculinity (MAS)
Uncertainty avoidance index (UAI)
Long-term orientation (LTO) Dimension
United Kingdom's Greet Hofstede Cultural Dimensions
Reference: Sigmatwogroup.com
Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner Cultural Perspective
The other major research of cultural orientation was by Fons Trompenaars and Dr. Charles Hampden-Turner. They both have developed a model of culture with seven dimensions. A set of five orientations encompass the ways in which humans deal with each other:
Universalism vs. particularism i.e. preference of importance to either rules or relationships
Individualism vs. collectivism i.e. preference towards being in group or individual for any cultural events.
Neutral vs. emotional i.e. openness in displaying emotions.
Specific vs. diffuse i.e. importance to responsibilities accepted.
Achievement vs. ascription i.e. inclinations to the social statuses that is achieved by birth or have to work for it.
Sequential vs. synchronic i.e the approach or process of doing task. Each society looks different in the approach of work:
Internal vs. external control i.e. how are we controlled by the environment that we belong to.
Anthropologists in cross-culture management
Looking into the various growing economies and industry verticals opting the globalization route it is very clear that it is not always easy to manage the cross culture resources using the essentialistic perspectives like those of Hofstede (1990) and Trompenaars (1993). Their work has only developed cultural map of the world having scores and indexes for understanding the cultural diversities. These indexes only dramatically simply the cultural concepts but in real situations there is lot of variations between espoused values and actual behaviour. Generally consultants utilize their experiences rather than depend on these model values. Consultants tend to use anthropologists' views rather than cooperates' developed essentialistic perspective. Though anthropologists are good arriving at realistic solution for quality cross culture management but are not good at selling their views to industries. But consultants though not anthropologists but can sell themselves to the industries.
Solution
An organization has to understand and implement one old saying that goes saying as "live in Rome as Roman do." The organization shall pave way for a process development methodology that gives opportunity to the resources to rise and discuss circumstances at workplace along with behaviours and understand each other's perspective. The organization shall obtain first hand research on the regional culture that they are venturing into. The organization shall not only tackle the difficulties as they arise but should learn from them. The organization shall make sure that its resource is well equipped to manage all circumstances that they would be drawn into. The organization should have to undertake proper training to its human resources both for process and methodology development and also for new advents in information technologies.
Anthropologist is one who understands the culture, belief, and practices of living people in much better way than the normal human being. A growing organization which have opted the route of internationalization shall always take advices from an anthropologist or have resource who can think likewise an anthropologist. So that the subtle inter cultural issues are addressed at the earliest and in most amicable way.
Conclusion
I found the coverage of topics in the provided source materials to be very exhaustive and informative regarding the cross culture management. I used CRAP test methodology to analyze which of the provided source material are best suited and helped me to understand the concept of cross culture management. Using this test, importance was given to credibility, reliability of knowledge provided, accuracy of knowledge, and the reason for delivering the knowledge. Of the source material provided I found http://www.1000ventures.com and http://culturematters.wordpress.com/ source material to be very informative.
Information provided by the consulting/education firm called 1000 ventures.com founded by Vadim Kotelnikov, who is also the founder of Ten3 Business e-Coach. The author and founder Vadim Kotelnikov has lots of experience in training vast resources of various industry verticals in most parts of world. The information provided is presented in pictorial bar charts displaying various aspects that are of important for an organization. The information is easily understood and has wide spread coverage of important aspects of cross culture management. It gives a complete picture of what area of requirements are to be looked upon by the organization for effective and efficient cross culture management. This source material provided me with world wide eye opening facts and figures of cross culture team management from different regions of the world.
The other source material gave information about effective usage of anthropologists for better managing of dialect issues in cross culture team. As anthropologist is the one who understands the cultural delicacies and can fine tune the differences much before any ordinary man can even predict its happening.
Basing on the information provided in these two provided source materials I gathered enough knowledge on cross culture management. These two source materials have given me an insight as to what is cross culture management and what are the problems faced by the organization of varied industry verticals. These two provided source materials have also been informative on what type of processes or methodology to be undertaken within the organization to make the cross culture resources within to zeal together to perform better in any adverse circumstances.
