Cross-Cultural Management in Work Organisations

Raymond French

• Editore: CIPD - Kogan Page
• Anno: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781843984030
• Edizione: 3
• Argomento: Business
• Categoria: Management

Formerly rooted firmly in the domain of anthropology, the topic of culture has shifted over the last thirty-five years to become an important component of business and management as organisations have become global. As companies outsource some of their work to other countries, or as employees migrate to new locations, culture can impact upon things such as attitudes to authority, differences in communication styles and ethics, which will affect working relationships. Cross-Cultural Management in Work Organisations explores the models and meanings of culture and how these play out in the work environment. The essential introduction to cross-cultural social relations in the workplace, Cross-Cultural Management in Work Organisations provides an evaluation of existing frameworks for understanding cross-cultural differences, examines the inter-cultural competencies such as cultural awareness needed by managers and evaluates how both cultural and non-cultural factors influence social processes at work. This fully updated 3rd edition includes new examples to provide topical and engaging insight into the subject. It is suitable for all postgraduate students studying cross-cultural management or cross-cultural awareness. Online supporting resources include an instructor's manual, lecture slides and seminar activities for tutors and web links and self-assessment exercises for students.

PART 1

SETTING THE SCENE

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter you should be able to:

• assess the importance and scope of cross-cultural management
• appreciate the interplay of cultural and non-cultural factors within the subject areas of people management and workplace behaviour
• recognise the need for topicality in research, models and theories in the field of cross-cultural management
• understand the structure and main features of this book.

1.1CROSS-CULTURAL MANAGEMENT AS AN EVERYDAY ACTIVITY

Culture matters. Culture is topical and culture is interesting. Formerly located firmly within the domain of anthropology, the period between 1980 and 2015 has seen the study of culture move centre stage into the area of business and management. Cross-cultural management has come to the fore as an important indicator of organisational success (Aycan et al 2014; Hajro and Pudelko 2010). The increasing volume of writing in the field is no coincidence, and enhanced levels of interest – both from academics and practising managers – can be attributed to identifiable trends within business; in particular, globalisation (McFarlin and Sweeney 2013).

Globalisation comprises a number of different strands, not all of which are, at first sight, compatible within a single concept. It is associated with the fragmentation of pre-existing boundaries, including those as fundamental as time, space and nation states. The term also encompasses complex processes such as global flows of finance, knowledge and people. The facet of globalisation which is most relevant for our purposes in this book is its sense of accelerating interconnectedness between nations and people, leading to an increased prevalence and intensity of cross-cultural interactions. Cross-cultural encounters might, for example, occur when companies decide to outsource work to new countries, or when organisations enter into new forms of networked relationships with overseas partners or, finally, as a result of increased migration of labour. As a result, organisational decision-makers and students of business and management have increasingly sought to comprehend the ways in which culture intervenes at workplace level (Patel 2014).

A concern with the effective management of people from different cultural groups is not new. Brewster et al (2011), for example, cite research in the field of international human resource management dating from the 1990s. However, these authors record a significant expansion – ‘almost exponentially’ (p3) – in new trends, events and research publications in the twenty-first century. What is noticeable in the period since the mid-1990s is the way in which cross-cultural management has affected the working lives of more and more people. It is no longer the case that it is mainly expatriate managers who need to be aware of cultural differences; for example, in people’s attitudes towards authority and independent working. Many managers find that cultural differences affect them even if they work in their home country.

In a report on UK migration in the period between 1991 and 2012, Rowthorn (2014) identified significant churn in the UK population, with 7 million people leaving the country and 10.1 million incomers. The net migration figure of 3.1 million involved a changed balance in the population, with a net increase of 4.6 million in the foreign-born group (the number of UK-born people leaving the UK was double that of returnees). In the capital city, a report published by the Greater London Authority in 2008 concluded that one of the main components of London’s population growth in recent years had been high levels of international migration. In 2006 the report recorded 170,000 incoming migrants to London, equivalent to 2.25% of its total population, or the population of just one borough, Hammersmith and Fulham. As these were officially recorded statistics, the informal invisible economy was, by definition, invisible and unrecorded, so it is very likely that the true figures were far higher. These labour flows were in part explained by London’s status as a major global centre for international business and finance in the years leading up to the ‘credit crunch’ of 2008, which has accelerated in the recovery years of 2013 and 2014. It can be argued that London became a ‘magnet for talent’ in that period. However, what Clegg et al (2011) termed ‘grunge jobs’ – involving both workers in the lower parts of the supply chain (who are easily substitutable) and workers in illegal sectors – were also a factor in explaining London’s increasingly diverse workforce.¹

The multicultural nature of London’s workforce, and population more generally, was brought home to many by the city’s hosting of the 2012 Olympic Games. In reflecting on the widely perceived success of the Games, ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair claimed that they ‘portrayed a modern multicultural Britain proud of both its heritage and traditions and its diverse culture’.² Blair was plausibly entitled to stress the multicultural dimension as he had emphasised London’s diversity when bidding for the Games in Singapore in 2005. The China Daily was among many commentators who concluded that London’s multicultural make-up was a major reason for it getting the Games, stressing both Blair’s address and an uplifting multicultural video at the Singapore event. The same source speculated that ex-French President Jacques Chirac’s comments about British food around the same time (he reportedly claimed it was the second-worst in the world; Finland’s was, he said, the worst), displayed a more parochial approach and may have anatagonised the Finnish IOC delgation ahead of the crucial vote, in which London narrowly defeated Paris.³

To reasssure readers who may be concerned that this book will take a UK-, or even London-centric approach, the existence of culturally diverse workforces is by no means limited to the UK or, more specifically, to its capital city. For many of us it is now an everyday event to deal with employees from many different cultural backgrounds in a single workplace, and it is no longer necessary to leave one’s country of origin – or to be employed in an explicitly international role – to be touched by cross-cultural (or intercultural) concerns. However, we should also recognise that social trends are, by their very nature, fluctuating. It is quite possible that the current trend for global flows of workers may decrease in importance, or even be reversed in future. Throughout this book we will attempt to identify the deep-rooted and long-term changes which affect cross-cultural management, as opposed to those which are surface level and transitory. We should therefore take a measured view of global labour flows. Cohen (2009) found that in England, the majority of the population lived approximately five miles from where they were born, and that there was a strong attachment among the population to locality, with a deeply held community ethos underpinning national values. Notwithstanding this important caveat, there is evidence that workforces in many countries are indeed becoming culturally more diverse. As we will see, the management of diverse workforces throws up particular challenges.

As indicated by its title, the focus of this book is on aspects of cross-cultural management within work organisations. Although its content may be of particular interest to existing or future expatriate managers, it is now possible to present a strong case that all managers must possess cross-cultural awareness and sensitivity at the level of managing people at work. Even if it is felt that incomers should wholly adapt to the ways of the host culture, meaningful differences will continue to exist if we believe that an individual’s core values are formed at an early age, are deeply held and portable. Many organisations are in any case concerned to secure and foster diversity within their workforce, in order to enhance employee performance and secure competitive advantage, so managers have little choice but to understand culturally based values and behaviour in order to carry out their own roles effectively.

What is very clear is that cross-cultural management is not an abstract body of knowledge; rather, its practical impact can increasingly be seen close to home – wherever that may be.

1.2BENEFITS OF SUCCESSFUL CROSS-CULTURAL MANAGEMENT

There are clear performance advantages arising from effective cross-cultural management. The concept of diversity is an important concept in this regard. The ‘diversity model’ suggests that exploiting the potential of a diverse group of workers will help secure competitive advantage (CIPD 2011). French et al (2011) conclude that working groups offer the potential for synergy, which occurs when a group develops to the extent that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Multicultural groups offer a particularly fertile setting for synergy, given the very different attitudes and competencies embodied in its members. The bigger and more diverse a group is, the more potential ideas it can generate. One can argue that the economic success of areas such as Silicon Valley in the USA can be partly explained by the talented employees who have been attracted there from different parts of the world.

Diverse groups of people, if they experience success, are more likely to further coalesce into networks which share knowledge, thereby reinforcing high performance. Interconnected networks communicate freely and optimise the complementary abilities of their members. There is a flip side of networks; namely the people who are left out. In our terms, a monocultural group, which does not enjoy the benefits of diversity, is likely to become increasingly isolated and inward-looking. An isolated group of this sort can ultimately develop a mindset in which members no longer want to innovate and where isolation is valued for its own sake.

Surowiecki (2004) popularised the notion of group diversity in his term ‘the wisdom of crowds’. An aggregate of people would for him typically outperform the same individuals acting alone. If one wanted to guess the weight of a cat, the average of the crowd’s guesses would give the best estimate. The more diverse the crowd, the more accurate it would be. Diversity is linked to success. However, Surowiecki recognised that crowds could also be dysfunctional. Members are less likely to query their peer group if, on the basis of prior success, they believe they are invincible. An unreal sense of euphoria may take over the group. If we come full circle with our London example, it is possible to view the economic collapse of 2008 as an example of the inverted wisdom of crowds. Issuing mortgages to people who are highly likely to default may now appear an obvious mistake. But many employees in the financial services sector, buoyed by a long run of success, came to feel that their talented group was incapable of making errors. The double-edged nature of cohesive groups (in a case such as the City of London, this cohesiveness was deepened by member diversity) is a classical social-psychological construct and is reminiscent of the term ‘groupthink’. Groupthink has been defined as the tendency of a group to be propelled towards bad decisions due to in-group pressures (Mullins 2013). It is an important concept within the area of people management.

In conclusion, cross-cultural groups or teams offer great potential for success, but need to be carefully managed. One recurring theme of this book is the finding that cross-cultural teams either perform much better than a monocultural team or much worse (Schneider and Barsoux 2003). So for a cross-cultural manager there is everything to play for.

1.3THE CENTRALITY OF ETHICS

There should be no doubt that cross-cultural management is centrally bound up with ethical considerations. There is firstly the sense that cross-cultural awareness is itself inherently morally desirable in that it can lead to mutual understanding. In the words of the American spiritual teacher Sally Kempton, ‘It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.’

Such a view, suggesting that understanding is a necessary prelude to harmonious relationships, has a long track record. The nineteenth-century Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle stated that ‘No person was ever rightly understood until they had first been regarded with a certain feeling not of tolerance but of sympathy.’ And yet the moral debates regarding mutual sympathy and comprehension have a particular resonance in the often multicultural organisations of the twenty-first century. In 2006 the Uphall Primary School in Ilford, East London included pupils who spoke 52 different home languages. In the light of a very positive government inspectors’ report the school can be regarded as a good working example of a diverse organisational environment. Furthermore, the seemingly successful mix of children from different cultural backgrounds can be regarded as positive in its own right. The school’s headmaster expressed this view as follows: ‘It’s like a micro-world. We have got children from all corners of the globe. Our success story is how children who have witnessed really traumatic events – people being blown up and shot in the street – how they have assimilated in school. I think sometimes when you see foreign dignitaries thrashing out a peace deal they would benefit from spending a day here. In 20 years’ time, if some of these children were world leaders, the world would be a better place.’⁴

The somewhat idealistic tone of the preceding quotes should not obscure the fact that cross-cultural awareness may not in itself result in positive outcomes. As we have already seen, when people from different cultural backgrounds work together, the likelihood is that they will either achieve high levels of success or significantly underperform. Polarised results in cross-cultural work situations can partly be attributed to clashes of values, themselves linked to ethical considerations. This is a difficult area in which hard choices may be required. In Chapter 9 there is a full discussion of some ethical dilemmas arising from exposure to cultural values which conflict with individuals’ own deeply held principles. The ways in which a person reacts to such dilemmas depend on whether he or she adopts a deontological stance in which the inherent goodness – or badness – of an act is the prime concern. Such a view holds that ethical behaviour is evaluated on universal criteria which are not therefore open to varying cultural interpretation.

An opposing stance is that of cultural relativism – not the same as moral relativism ...