Managing Across Cultures

Introduction
Managing in a multicultural setting can be very challenging. The ability to create conditions under which diverse group of individuals can succeed is quickly becoming a crucial managerial skill. This article provides an insight into the challenges one has to face in a multicultural environment. Several concepts of anthropology, cross cultural psychology and international business management have been studied and integrated in order to create a tool, which managers and employees can use to understand the behaviour of people from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Culture is broadly defined as the people's way of life. It develops over time and is considered both Tangible (language, dress, food, symbols, artifacts, social rituals) and Intangible (Beliefs and Values). It is a pattern of shared values reflected in the preferences of groups of people for certain behaviours, attitudes and systematic practices in their ideal work situation. With international responsibilities and contacts becoming increasingly diffused in companies, handling cultural differences is now a part of virtually every management job. This book explores how culture influences management practice: structure, strategy and HRM. It challenges assumptions of "one best way", encouraging managers to reconsider the merits of exporting home country practices abroad. The challenge for companies with "global" aspirations is how to manage cultural differences - between individuals, within teams, and as organizations. Culture is at the same time visible, hidden and invisible. What makes culture learnable is that in many cases the visible culture is a manifestation of the invisible and hidden values. In Japan, for example, bowing is indicative of hierarchical beliefs and the importance of good manners and protocol. At the other end of the spectrum, in the United States looking someone in the eye is a manifestation of an egalitarian mindset that sees everyone as equal, deserving the same level of respect. Another visible sign of culture is the way people relate to time. The fact that someone is late to a meeting is a visible sign. In many societies, it connotes a deeper sense of fluidity regarding time - a belief that time is not under your control because other factors, such as interpersonal relationships, weather and traffic, may prevent you from being on time. Imagine culture as a cross-section of the Earth, with different layers. Visible culture includes dress, food and customs, along with what people say and do, how they dress, how they speak, their architecture, their offices and their behavioral customs. Hidden culture includes the values, beliefs and philosophy that define the culture, such as attitudes toward time, communication and religion, and notions about good and evil. The hidden

layer is where you find the attitudes and values that have grown over time. Here, hidden from view, is where you find the clues to the behavior you see around you: common attitudes and emotions that sit on top of longstanding beliefs and social codes that, in turn, cover deeper standards of thought and conduct. Getting to understand the hidden layers takes time, study and observation.Core culture is the invisible layer, the principles people take for granted. Core or invisible culture harkens back to the essence of innermost beliefs about universal, non-negotiable truths. Core culture is so deeply embedded that it's difficult to recognize. Here are the influences absorbed since childhood: religious ideas and ideals, the nation's history and mythology, its heroes, its landscape, and stories handed down and retold generation after generation. Culture is created by a myriad of factors such as history, religion, mythology and a country's climate and geography. It's made up of shared values and beliefs, and forms the fundamental assumptions on which the whole society is built. Since no two countries have exactly the same influences. Relationships refers to the importance of developing a personal relationship before conducting business, and whether trust is assumed or earned at the onset of a relationship. Relationship-oriented societies require a level of trust before embarking on any work. They require time before individuals allow you to become friends and penetrate barriers. Relationships are stable, and sometimes pass from generation to generation. At the other end of the spectrum are cultures that are more transactional. People don't need to know others well before they do business or have significant social interaction, and associations develop quickly, but may only last for a short period.

COMMUNICATION STYLES Communication Styles refers to the way societies use language, both verbal and non-verbal, the amount of information people need to receive or share in order to understand a message, the directness or subtlety of the language people use, the way people use words or gestures to express feelings or moods, and the importance of harmony and saving face. The United States has a moderately direct style of communication, along with Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada and New Zealand. Even more direct cultures are Denmark, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. The most indirect countries are Brunei, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan and the Philippines. Moderately indirect countries include China, Egypt, Greece, Hong Kong, Italy, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates.

TIME ORIENTATION Time Orientation refers to the amount of control people feel they have over time, the importance society places on relationships versus keeping schedules, attitudes toward timekeeping and punctuality, and the appropriateness of assigning set times for social functions or business meetings to start and finish. You see time orientation in the promptness of meeting start times, the speed with which people move, and how important it is to get something done on schedule. High time cultures such as the United States, northern Europe and Canada view time as finite, an entity that can - and must - be controlled lest it be wasted and used up. By contrast, in the world's many low time cultures, including southern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, people believe time is a variable. Time is not their taskmaster, and they pay greater attention to relationships than to deadlines and schedules. Moreover, scheduling time is viewed as a very limiting activity. In terms of action, this means plans change frequently. Consequently, when someone is late, it doesn't reflect negatively on that person's character or ability to organize life. CHANGE TOLERANCE Change Tolerance refers to openness to change and innovation, willingness to take risks, whether people feel they control their destiny or if their environment controls them, preference for rules and structure, and how the organization encourages and rewards initiative and deals with failure.

MOTIVATION: WORK-LIFE BALANCE Motivation and Work-Life Balance refers to how people identify the ways they gain status, whether through achievement or personal life, and how people define their status in society, whether from personal or work achievement. It also deals with factors like motivation for success, how much work-life balance is valued, whether time off or a promotion is more motivating, and the presence or absence of laws and policies promoting family benefits.

Learning Framework

To understand how culture and values influences behaviour in business situations, a learning framework has been deduced. Each of its dimensions represents one of the seven fundamental dilemmas that people of all cultures face at work. These include; 1 - Source of Identity: Individual Collective To what degree should people pursue their own individual activities, achievements and educational and business successes rather than contribute to the activities, achievements and successes of their extended family, clan or ethnic group, or even company or division?

2 - Goals and Means of Achievement: Tough Tender How is success defined? Do the people in the culture strive for the tangible rewards of high income and material satisfactions or the intangible rewards of good working relationships, time with family and friends and satisfaction from spiritual development and volunteer work?

3 - Orientation to Authority: Equal Unequal How should people with different levels of authority, status and power behave towards each other As equals or Unequals?

4 - Response to Ambiguity: Dynamic Stable How acceptable is uncertainty? Is loose or Tight structure preferred for running the business organization?

5 - Means of Knowledge Acquisition: Active Reflective Which is valued more as a means of acquiring information and knowledge Action or Reflection?

6 - Perspective on Time: Scarce Plentiful Is the Orientation to the use of time urgent or relaxed?

7 - Outlook on Life: Doing Being

Is Mastery over nature or Harmony with nature preferred? Is life experienced as an outcome of human effort or the workings of destiny or divine will? Conclusion For any culture, it is possible to envision a process in which behaviours favouring one pole are reinforced to a greater degree than behaviours favouring the opposite pole. Thus each can be seen as exhibiting a pattern of preferences about the most desirable ways of thinking and acting. The ultimate aim of the authors is to link cultural values to three domains of managerial behaviour: - Relating to others - Accomplishing Work - Responding to change

Several major cultural issues have been described in this article. These have challenged the comfortable but very culture-bound presumption that there is a right way and a wrong way to do business and to manage.

Negotiating Across Cultures

Negotiation practices differ from country to country. Some cultures expect clients to negotiate over things that would be totally unacceptable in other countries. Some cultures get upset or angry by things that are totally acceptable in other cultures. Different cultures simply have different approaches when it comes to negotiation.This can be intimidating when you travel to a new country to negotiate for business.And even more so if it is your first time. It is important to know what is culturally expected of you when it comes to negotiation. If you are just starting out in developing your international markets, it is wise to do some homework and identify the standard expected negotiating habits in the country you are traveling to.No matter how much research you do prior to your first cross cultural negotiation communication road blocks can easily come up. This is even more likely if your negotiation is taking place in a foreign environment to what you are used to. So it is even more important to develop skills to ride through communication hurdles.Imagine a line of people waiting for a taxi at an airport. Imagine the taxi drivers reaction if his client started haggling over the price of his ride before he got inside the taxi. In the New York airport and even in the Paris airport, the customer would have no chance of getting in the taxi cab. In other countries this is expected. And not only expected, if you do not bargain the locals will laugh at you. It is very important to know what is culturally expected of you when it comes to negotiation. If you are just starting out in developing your international markets, it is wise to do some homework and identify the standard expected negotiating habits in your target country. International business recognises no boundaries or borders in winning new business or securing new strategic alliances. It does, however, recognise that each country and culture is different and that these differences can often directly impact the outcome of negotiations if the negotiator is not suitably prepared, with the results of poor negotiation skills often ranging from loss of business, poor working relations to unfavourable contract discussions with your overseas clients, partners or suppliers. More than ever, the ability to adapt your negotiating skills to those of the local market is crucial. Whether you require adapted negotiation skills to assist in your discussions with new European suppliers or need to understand Chinese negotiation practices to secure an important contract, this Negotiating Skills course will provide with with a greater knowledge of to negotiate more confidently within an international arena. It is said that over two-thirds of the effectiveness of negotiation is determined by non verbal communication. Body language can therefore frequently provide valuable insight into a person's feelings and attitudes. Gestures and facial expressions can communicate diverse emotions and attitudes. They are, however, often misleading due to the marked cultural differences in the use and interpretation of nonverbal cues.

It is therefore important to understand and recognise differences in the use of non-verbal cues, so that the body language of customers, especially those from other cultural backgrounds as your own, is not the cause of costly misinterpretation. For high-contrast negotiators, the preparatory stage focuses on building personal relationships with the other side. Accustomed to acting within a rich network of interdependent relations, high-context negotiators start by attempting to build such a network with the opponent. Lowcontext cultures see issues as separable from personal relations, and prefer to act in relatively anonymous ways. High-context cultures also tend to take a long term view, focusing on cultivating and improving the parties' relationship. Low-context cultures tend to have a more short term focus on the issue at hand. Maintaining face (reputation or honor) is generally more important in high-context cultures than in low-context. Because of the importance of maintaining face, high-context negotiators generally try to minimize uncertainty and to prevent crises, confrontations, and surprises. Being caught by surprise is likely to result in a loss of face for someone. Similarly someone is likely to lose in a confrontation, with the attending loss of face. Low-context cultures are less concerned with issues of face, and so are more open to uncertainty, competition and confrontation. The beginning phase of negotiations can be complicated by differences between hierarchical and egalitarian cultures. Egalitarian cultures assume negotiations will proceed by the parties taking turns presenting their concerns, and reciprocating initiatives in kind. Low- context negotiators tend to open negotiations by first setting forth their position, assuming that the other side will respond by stating their opposing position. Low-context cultures view declaring a opening position to be risky and confrontational. The opening positions reveal the party's interests. When this statement of positions is not reciprocated it gives the reticent party an advantage. Hierarchical cultures may view the parties' relationship as that of supplicant to superior, and so be "quite happy to demand one-sided concessions in payment of a supposed moral debt or as the duty of the stronger party." Cultures also differ in their preference for agreement on specifics or on general principles. Low-context negotiators are likely to rely on the factual-inductive mode of persuasion, which focuses on examining the facts at hand and crafting a conclusion to fit those facts. High context negotiators may prefer the axiomatic-deductive mode of persuasion, which seeks agreement on general principles and then applies those principles to the case at hand. Different cultures may have different expectations as to what should occur during the middle phase of negotiations, and how much time this phase should take. Low context cultures such as the U.S. expect that the middle phase will be a period of bargaining, a process of trade-offs and concessions in which the parties gradually converge on a shared position. Many high context cultures see such a process of "haggling" as appropriate to price negotiations, but inappropriate to matters of principle. High status individuals do not lower themselves to haggle over small points. Polychronic cultures are usually willing to draw out the middle phase. Monochronic cultures are usually in more of a hurry to reach an agreement. Monochronic cultures are often at

some disadvantage when negotiating with polychronic cultures, since their greater sense of urgency will prompt them to make greater concessions in order to close the deal quickly. Different cultural approaches to authority can also complicate the middle phase. Collectivist cultures tend to base authority relations on the father-child model. Authority is centralized, hierarchical, and tends to be absolute. Individualist cultures tend to disperse power and authority, and to encourage questions and even challenges to authority. The American system of governmental checks and balances is typical of a individualist culture. Difficulties have often arisen as negotiators from collectivist cultures over-estimate the power and domestic authority of the U.S. President. Japan is an anomaly among collectivist cultures, in that political decisionmaking relies on consensus. Different cultures favor different means of negotiation and persuasion. The emphasis on personal relationships and group harmony in high context cultures means that persuasion focuses on cultivating a close, trusting relationship with the other side. High context cultures are generally uncomfortable with overt aggression, confrontation, and adversarial styles of interaction. Low context cultures find facts and reasoned arguments to be more persuasive, and tend to favor a more direct, explicit and even aggressive style of communication. Low context cultures prefer direct communication, while high context cultures are generally more indirect, relying on strong personal relationships to support mutual understandings. "A striking feature of collectivistic, high context speakers...is their dislike of the negative; a direct contradiction is invariably avoided." When pressed for a direct answer, high context negotiators may resort to expressions of polite agreement which are without substance. Or they may offer ambiguous answers. Misunderstandings often result from such politeness being mistaken for substantive agreement. Nonverbal communication also varies widely from culture to culture, as does the acceptability of displays of emotion. High context cultures employ, and may be particularly moved by, symbolic gestures. As noted above, monochronic cultures, with their perpetual sense of urgency, tend to rush the end phase of negotiations. In particular, low context negotiators tend to overlook the importance of presenting face-saving alternatives when high context parties are involved. For a proposal to be acceptable in a high context culture, it must not only meet the parties material interests, it must also be presented in such a way as to preserve the prestige and status of each party. High context negotiators may reject even materially favorable proposals if agreeing would involve a significant loss of face. Conversely, symbolic gains may make a materially unfavorable proposal acceptable. One way to save face is to rely on informal, unwritten agreements, since these can be repudiated should they become too embarrassing. This however runs counter to the low context preference for specific, explicit, written agreements.