...Cultural Context of IHRM Intercultural Management Studies Our world is filled with many different and unique countries, all with their own customs and cultures. In International Human Resources Management, it is the IHRM Department’s job to educate any expatriate about the foreign country they will be moving too. The main reason to do this is preventing cultural shock causing a smoother transition for the expatriate. Culture can be defined as “the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time” or is a more business related sense “a way of thinking, behaving, or working that exists in a place or organization.” Throughout the years there have been many intercultural management studies and there are four most widely accepted theories: The Hofstede study, The GLOBE study, The Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner study, and Hall & Hall’s cultural dimensions. These studies broke down cultures and behaviors around the world and are valued resources for IHRM departments. First, there is the Hofstede study. Geert Hofstede was a professor who conducted an extremely comprehensive study of how different cultures place value in the workplace. It was Hofstede who first made an empirical model and had different dimensions of national culture. These dimensions were: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, femininity vs. masculinity, individualism vs. collectivism, and long-term orientation. Each different country would get scores in each section and from...
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...Management ISP Melanie Hiller 06.07.2010 4 Definition Globalization "Globalization is the continuous interlinking process of different worldwide happening occurrences in the fields of economy, technique, politics, culture and social aspects of nations with interlinked interdependencies and consequences.“ Stehr, C. (2003), p. 47 Intercultural Management ISP Melanie Hiller 06.07.2010 5 Multi-dimensional Process Economy Politics Ecology Technique Social Culture Cp: Teusch, U. (2004) Intercultural Management ISP Melanie Hiller 06.07.2010 6 The cultural Process? Cultural Homogenization? World Culture? Cultural Heterogenization? Clash of Civilizations? Cp: Featherston, M. (1990); Varwick, J. (2004); Huntington, S. (1996) Intercultural Management ISP Melanie Hiller 06.07.2010 7 Cultural Glocalisation Global Homogenization Local Heterogenization Glocalisation „Think globally, act Locally“ Cp: Roland, R. (1998) Intercultural Management ISP Melanie Hiller 06.07.2010...
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...Cultural Differences Paper Com/360 March 23, 2015 Cultural Differences All of us have been confronted with cultural differences at some point in time. Cultural differences often lead to misunderstandings however this can also have a serious impact on our personal relationships and business relationships. Culture is a strong part of people's lives. It influences their views, their values, their humor, their hopes, their loyalties, and their worries and fears. However, working with people and building relationship helps to have some perspective and understanding of their cultures. The differences among people stems from being in another nationality, ethnicity, and culture, from family background and from individual experiences. In which these differences affect our beliefs, practices, and behavior and also influence our expectations for one another. Cultural differences are important to identity for it provides us with a sense of belonging. A person's culture is often very important to them, because it has been apart of them since birth. Cultures aren't simply the differences between nations, the differences within communities and within your own back yard. Edward Hall When you want to seek to align and gain greater influence with other people of different culture, first you must understand the personal, national or organizational culture. When working across cultures, you must take note to the key factors. Anthropologist, Edward T. Hall’s introduced a theory about...
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... Research Paper Three Approaches That Will Help in Comparing Cultural Differences By Emmanuel Makoni, Sonia Jerin & Laren Michel Due Date: November 6th 2014 Introduction: There are around 196 countries in the world and the cultures and values differ between the different countries. There are still similarities in some of the culture traits. In today’s world people are more willing to engage in global business and for this reason they need to be able to adapt to the different cultures. As the cultures vary from country to country, people around the world may face many difficulties during their communication. Many businesses have failed due to the fact that they failed to fully assess the market they were entering in. The paper will portray three different approaches that will aid in understanding cultural differences that can be utilized as effective tools in conducting global business. These approaches are known as the context approach, the cluster approach and the dimension approach. 1. Context Approach: This is one of the three main approaches to understand cultural differences. Context approach is considered as the most straightforward as it relies on a single dimension. In addition, there are two parts of the context approach, known as: (i) High context cultures and (ii) Low context cultures. The two types of contexts have different cultures, values, norms, and ways of thinking. In low-context cultures such as North American and Western European countries...
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...Edward T. Hall : Cultural Dimension Introduction „A fish only realizes it needs water to live when it is no longer swimming in the water. Our culture is to us like water to the fish. We live and breathe through our culture." As Trompenaar's quote outlines, culture is a crucial part of someone's life or even indispensable for the life of humans. This is because culture determines a human's basic assumptions, values, norms and belief systems as well as a human's behaviour, language, food, drinking habits and other determinants of one's daily routine. Understanding his or her own culture is a key factor in order to live in his or her society, but understanding other cultures gives the opportunity to look out of the box. It provides someone, for example, with the ability to interact between two cultures. A vital aspect when it comes to make business upon international terms. This paper will focus on the discoveries of Edward T. Hall and will also provide especially european countries as examples. 2. Hall’s dimensions of culture Edward T. Hall, Anthropologist, developed a culture model with three dimensions. Context, the most popular dimension, Time and Space. The following paragraphs will outline and explain the three dimension. Overview of the most popular culture models HALL | HOFSTEDE | TROMPENAARS | HIGH-CONTEXT vsLOW-CONTEXT | POWER DISTANCE | UNIVERSALISM vsPARTICULARISM | | | INDIVIDUALISM vsCOLLECTIVISM | HIGH-TERRITORIALITY vs LOW-TERRITORIALITY...
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...management staff were exclusively Indian expatriates with a short time in Europe (Wipro Technologies Europe A, 2015). These staffs couldn’t build good relationships with the local communities compared with its competitors (Wipro Technologies Europe A, 2015). So Nandy took some measures to deal with these issues such as the Unreasonable staff structure and inadequate relation network. 2. The Analysis of some measures adopt by Nandy from three perspective of three culture framework This part will analyze the measures applied by Nandy from three perspectives of Hofstede cultural dimensions and Hall cultural dimensions in order to evaluate whether these measures are effective. 3.1 Hofstede Cultural Dimensions Hofstede cultural dimensions mainly consist of five aspects containing Power distance, Uncertainty avoidance, Femininity vs. masculinity, Individualism vs. collectivism and Confucianism vs. long-term orientation (Dowling, Festing & Engle, 2013). First, in the power distance Indian is a country with higher power distance compared with the America and Western countries (Hamza, Reza, Gholam & Meghdad, 2011). In this part Nandy hired the local people engaged into the Europe in order to make the team easily communicate with the European consumers and lower the power distance...
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...converted into a money business. It can carry on making money as a spreading skill on the cell phones. Value is significant but has the accepting how to labor with dealers with not the same cultural backgrounds, gender, and personalities are equally important. In this paper, it will explain how this all comes together for a negotiation between the Chinese (female) and Americans (male). The American team seeks a cell phone price of $6 per unit and symbolizes the following Hofstede’s cultural dimensions: individualistic, low-power distance, low-term orientation and low-context. The American team wants an inexpensive price. The other team is an all-female negotiating team from China that offers cell phones with a $9 per unit price tag. The Chinese team wants a merchant for their cell phones which permits them to make proceeds. The Chinese side symbolizes the following Hofstede’s cultural dimensions collectivistic, high-power distance, long-term orientation and high context. Gender difference, personalities and culture has an influence on the negotiation. Also, it will give details on how each side’s perceptions, cognitions, and emotions also played a part in the negotiation. Chinese and American Hofstede Dimensions Both teams have individualistic versus collectivistic. The high end of this is individualistic which is defined as the preference for a loosely-knit social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of only themselves and their immediate families...
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...BARRIERS OF CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN ELECTRONICBASED COMPANIES 1 Bibi Noraini Bt Mohd Yusuf, 2Zurina Bt Zulkifli, 3Intan Maizura Bt Abd Rashid, 4Syahida Bt Kamil, 1,2,3,4 School of Business Innovation and Technopreneurship Universiti Malaysia Perlis 1 bibinoraini@unimap.edu.my, 2Zurina@yahoo.com, 3Intan Maizura@unimap.edu.my, 4syahida@unimap.edu.my, Abstract Rapid growths in economic development and trade globalization have necessitate the number of firms to expand and extend their businesses abroad. A sizeable number of firms have been opening new plants in other countries or hiring their employees from overseas, creating a diversity of workforce. A diversified workforce will create cross-cultural differences leading to cross-cultural communication. This research aims to analyze the barriers of cross-cultural communication in electronic-based companies. The subjects for this study, comprising company operators and middle to top management were randomly selected from electronic-based companies domiciled in Northern Peninsular Malaysia. This study adopted a quantitative approach method, where questionnaires were distributed among 200 employees. Analysis of data compiled was carried out using the SPSS version 20.0 mode. Through an in-depth analysis and application of this study, there is a bigger impact of multinational firm communication in the cross-cultural communication. In addition, the dimensions of national cultures, high and low context communication...
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...Frankfurt International Business Administration Cultural Diversity Professor: Hans Hahn Summer Semester 2014 Cultural Dimensions of Geert Hofstede: Analysis of Colombia 10.06.2014 Soraya A. Suarez I. Register Number: 969800 Darmstädter Landstr. 64 60598 Frankfurt Tel: 0176- 708 59654 E-mail: sorayasuarez@gmail.com Cultural Dimensions of Geert Hofstede: Analysis of Colombia 2 Content 1. Introduction............................................2 2. Culture.................................................3 3. Colombia................................................5 4. Cultural Models and Cultural Dimensions.................9 4.1 Geert Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions.................9 4.1.1. Power Distance Index...........................10 4.1.2. Uncertainty Avoidance..........................12 4.1.3. Individualism vs. Collectivism.................13 4.1.4. Masculinity vs. Femininity.....................15 4.1.5. Long vs. Short-term Orientation................16 4.1.6. Indulgence vs. Restraint.......................17 5. Conclusion.............................................20 6. References.............................................21 Table of Figures Colombia Facts & Figures...................................6 Colombia Location, Flag and Coat of Arms...................8 Colombian Population According to Ethnocultural Identity..11 Colombian Culture through the 6-D Model...................13 Cultural Dimensions of Geert Hofstede: Analysis of Colombia 3 ...
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...Personal Experience 12 References 14 Appendix 16 Low vs. high power distance 16 Individualism vs. collectivism 16 Masculinity vs. femininity 16 Long vs. short term orientation 16 1. Introduction Businesses in these times of rapid growth are experiencing globalization and economic development that tends them to expand and grow at international level (Bennis and Nanus, 1985). For the expansion of the business at international level, firms tend to exchange their cultures and during the exchange conflict is natural to arise as the minds of people in different areas differ greatly. Due to the advancement in technology, physical barriers affecting the expansion of the business internationally have been overcome but there exist a number of cultural barriers thereby complicating the cross-cultural management for the managers (Adler and Graham 1989 referring Mishler; 1965, p.517). This study focuses on the cross-cultural management of two companies’ i.e. a Swedish company and its subsidiary in China. The two companies have entirely different cultures and therefore they are facing difficulties in exchanging the cultures (Martinsons & Hempel, 1998). The differences in management styles, communication systems and staff behaviors of these two companies are elucidated. We will use Hofstede’s model of culture for highlighting the barriers to cross-cultural management as the model emphasizes that the barriers of cross-cultural management usually comes from the nation’s culture...
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...provides high performance is one of the most important assets for a company. But even if an organization has the best talents in its field, it is not enough unless their aptitudes are incorporated into collectively performing unit. Turning an average performing into high performing team can be done by utilizing the strengths of each team member and the cultural diversity of the entire group. In the contemporary world we live, it is very common to work in multicultural teams. These teams are perceived as highly potential based on the perception that the greater the diversity, the greater the creativity and productivity of a team is. Yet, there are certain challenges that international teams encounter and that is why it is of great importance to be aware of the cultural diversity around the globe. Despite of how influential is our own culture on our beliefs and behaviours we must be aware that we are not coming from the one and only “valuable” culture in the world. People often tend to believe that their own values and beliefs are the only “right” ones as they are embedded in their particular cultures. We must be aware that each of us, each singular culture might shine in a different way, but that does not mean someone else’s light is less bright than ours. We must respect, mind and understand others differences in order to communicate efficiently and realize that these dissimilarities do not makes us weak ,they are actually the source of our strength. Frameworks for cultural analyses...
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...Executive Summary 1 2. Introduction 2 3. Cultural aspect to Communication 3 3.1. Cultural Contexts 3 3.2. Assessing Cultures through Hofstede’s Framework 4 4. Codes of Communication 6 4.1. Verbal Communication 6 4.1.1. Welcome topics of conversation 7 4.1.2. Topics to avoid 8 4.2. Non-Verbal Communication 9 5. Gift Giving 10 6. Causes of Cross-Cultural Communication Conflicts 12 7. Conclusion 13 8. Recommendations 14 9. References 15 Executive Summary Today’s world has gone global. This globalization has led to the collaboration among manufacturers of products, suppliers of materials and service providers situated across the globe. The markets are no more restricted to a specific region or a country. The boundaries and distances between the markets have vanished. Saturation in developed markets has led to exploration and exploitation of emerging markets. The expansion of geographic footprint is not happening only to meet business needs, but this is happening also to promote social causes (Education, Health Awareness) and to mitigate global risks (Global Warming). Therefore, for the purpose of effective functioning, there is a strong need to learn about Cross-Cultural Communication. It is true that any usage of an inappropriate word, an impression or a gesture can lead to serious business or social implications. These cross-cultural communication blunders can then lead to lost...
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...Halmstad School of Business and Engineering Rufei He & Jianchao Liu (2010) Barriers of Cross Cultural Communication in Multinational Firms --- A Case Study of Swedish Company and its Subsidiary in China Abstract In times of rapid growth, both in terms of economic development and globalization, an increasing number of firms extend their businesses abroad. A subsequent challenge of this development is the managerial implications of cross-cultural management. This study employs a qualitative approach in a single case study of Swedish company and its subsidiary in China. After reviewing the previous studies, the authors summarize the differences of management style, staff behaviors and communication system in different culture context and find the barriers of cross cultural communication in multinational firms. The findings of this study indicate that the barriers of communication come from the national culture’s influence on the work place and behaviors of people with different identity. Moreover, culture also influences people’s way of thinking and behaving and result in different understandings toward vision and purposes of firms. Key words: cross cultural, communication, multinational firms, management style, staff behavior Prelude It is 9:00 a.m. on Monday in Sweden. The Technical product manager of company X sent an email about the new design of the product to its subsidiary company in China. He would like to have a production ready model of the new design by...
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...Vicki Graves 8/2/2015 Short Paper 1 INT-600 High-Context vs Low Context South Korea & U.S. Edward T. Hall created the phrase high-context culture to describe a country/culture’s communication style. A high-context culture, like South Korea, is one where “there are many contextual elements that help people to understand the rules.” (Hall’s cultural factors). That being said, because of the “unwritten rules” or nonverbal communication it can be confusing for an individual to fully understand the communication. A low-context culture, like the U.S., is one where “very little is taken for granted meaning more explanation is needed and there is less chance of misunderstanding particularly when visitors are present.” (Hall’s cultural factors). There is more of a focus on verbal communication than nonverbal like body language. Between a high-context culture like South Korea and a low-context culture like the U.S. there are many similarities and differences when it comes to cultural dimensions. Hofstede’s model of national culture uses five dimensions: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, masculinity, and long-term orientation. Power distance focuses on how power is distributed and the extent to which subordinates accept how power is distributed unequally. It focuses on the belief that superiors and subordinates are different kinds of people. In South Korea power distance is high, receiving a score of 60 according to Hofstede, and embraced by all. It is and...
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...culture, environment, language, perception, age, experience, role, skills, as individuals as well as societies, it might seem impossible to establish noise-free communication (Thomson & McHugh, 2002). In organizations, healthy, contented and productive working environment urges for effective strategies to guide employees on how to eliminate noise and achieve work environment where signal transmitted (equals) signal received. Why is it so important? Well, as surveys show, Communication is problem No. 1 in organizations (Lauer, 1996). Disastrous plane crashes happen, mostly, as a result of communication errors (Gladwell, 2009). It is, then, indispensible for organizations to take communication into their topmost consideration and develop their cultural and social communications skills (Buchanan and Huczynski2010). The importance is...
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