a cross cultural team (autosaved)

8/7/2019 A cross cultural team (Autosaved)

1/13

1 Cross Cultural Management

Executive Summary

Multicultural teams play vital role for the success of any organization in international markets. First part

of the paper explores the differences of management styles in Japan, US and Russia, there are some

similarities as well but differences accounts major part of the paper. Differences are explored using

cultural profiling models. These cultures are extremely different in some aspects such as

communication. A team of these three cultures will face different conflicts, but if managed effectively

can produce greater results. In second part of the paper success of this team is analyzed using data from

first part and using theory and models from multicultural communication. Its success is seems to be very

difficult but can be possible if good strategies are used which are described in recommendations.


2/13


Contents

Cultural Profiling ...................................................................................................................................... 3

Introduction:........................................................................................................................................ 3

Differences in Cultural Dimensions: ..................................................................................................... 3

Cultural profiling by Edward T. Hall .................................................................................................. 3

Cultural Profiling by Geert Hofstede ......................... ................................ ...................... .................. 4

Trompenaars Cultural Dimensions: .................................................................................................. 5

Recommendations: .............................................................................................................................. 7

Success of Multicultural team ...................... ................................ ...................... ................................ ...... 8

Communication: .................................................................................................................................. 9Communication model by Robert Gibson: ........................ ................................ ...................... ............ 10

Recommendations: ............................................................................................................................ 10

References: ........................................................................................................................................ 11

Appendix: .......................................................................................................................................... 12


3/13


Cultural Profiling

Introduction

A cross cultural[1] team can be described as the team whose members are from different cultures of the

world. In todays globalized world use of multicultural teams is very common. These teams are success

or the devastation. They lead to high performance or they diminish efficiency.The influence of culture

makes the communication very complicated in multicultural teams than a single national team,those

who represent their organisation in multicultural teams not only have to adjust them in different

culture, but they have to manage them with different people within and outside the organisation. These

reasons and the growing business in international markets make it inevitable to make multicultural

teams. (House et al.2004) emphasizes that to be successful in international business, managers needed

to be flexible when interacting with colleagues from different cultures. Therefore sensible management

from different cultures would be much important for successful international project teams.This paper is divided into two parts; first part will study about the managerial behavior of multicultural

team consisted of USA, Japan and Russia, the differences present in their management style and the

second part of the paper will illustrate the probability of success present in this multicultural team.

Differences in Cultural Dimensions:

Differences in workperformances exist in different cultures of the world.Many writers of cross-cultural

management have created models for cultural profiling to explore the differences.

Cultural profiling by Edward T. Hall

Model by Edward T. Hall (1959) asserts the concept of high versus low context[2] communication. He

believes that cultural differences can be understood by the way different people from different cultures

communicate. Hall states that meaning and communication are contextually linked to each other,

therefore to understand the communication one must understood the meaning and context as well.

(Hall, 1976) ranked the cultures from low context (explicit) to high context (implicit), USA and Russia are


4/13


the most explicit countries where communication is direct and Japan is the most implicit country where

most communication is conveyed through body language, physical context, and through non-verbal

communication. It implies that there may be a problematic situation when agreeing on a deal in this

team because Japanese make more deals without written documents. In Japan managers avoid eye-

contact during communication and they prefer to hear the grunts of eh eheh from other party that

they are being heard. Japanese great each other by bowing in contrast to USA and Russia where mostly

they shake hands. (Brett et al. 2006) provides an example of USA and Japanese team was creating a

customer database and several flaws found into the system. American leader of the team pointed out

these flaws in an email to her American boss and the Japanese team members, her boss was happy with

the direct warnings and Japanese members were upset because American leader disrupted their norms

for exposure the problems.

Cultural Profiling by Geert Hofstede

Hofstedes work is very important in exploring the cultural differences and then working them out to

cope with those differences for the success in international teams. The model he developed (Hofstede,

1984) explores the clear differences on

y Power distance[3]y Individualism/collectivism[4]y Uncertainty avoidance[5]y Masculinity/femininity[6]

Hofstede (2005) states thatthe human beings thinking, feeling and their action is greatly influenced bythe learning they have in their childhood from parents, from their school and from the culture they live

in.

Power Distance:

(Hofstede, 1984) placed USA at 16 rank with the score of 40, suggest that there is low power distance,

so a manager from USA will strive for the power equalization, when we analyse japan there is no

significant difference in this respect and the score is 45. In contrast to US and Japan power distance inRussia is 93 which implies that managers will less likely to challenge the authorities of their bosses and

accept the decisions of their immediate bosses, but (Naumov et al., 2000) asserts that in Russia power

distance is 40 which make it similar to USA and Japan in this respect.


5/13


Individualism/Collectivism

USA individualism score is 91, Japan with 46 and Russia has 39 which Russia and Japan collectivistic

countries. In US managers are likely to look out for him/her. Employees are expected to be independent

from the organization. But Japanese and Russian managers are expected to look for their in-group. Theywill pay their attention to benefit their in-group. So in this team, US manager will work individually and

Japanese and Russian manager will prefer to work collectively.

Uncertainty Avoidance:

Japanese manager with uncertainty avoidance score of 92 and Russian with 95 will be threatened by the

uncertain situations, members from these countries will be risk averse, will not welcome the creative

approaches and will be strict to the rules and regulations which are lay down, for a manager from USwhose score is 46 will feel very uncomfortable while working in this team.

Masculinity /Femininity

Japan with the highest score of 95 shows the most aggressive style of management in comparison to US

(62) and Russia (36). In this team manager from Russia would be comfortable resolving the conflicts by

compromise whereas managers from US and Japan will like to resolve their conflicts by confronting

moreover member from Japan will have more aggressive style of management and they discriminatewith the genders, that may be the reason that females are not the part of higher management in Japan

and they are not considered best suitable for the higher management and are not given the equal

options for success in Japan.

Trompenaars CulturalDimensions:

(Trompenaars, 1997) explores the cultural differences more explicitly and his model is built basically

from the work which is based on cultural values and coordination. He asserts that every culture provide

different solutions for solving same problem.And people in different cultures treat the problems by a

different way, and thus he develops seven basic dimensions of culture, which differentiate US, Japan

and Russia below:


6/13


Universalism vs. Particularism[7]

This approach tells us what is most important in the views of people in an organization. (Trompenaars,

1997) declares that people from universalist culture apply the rules in every situation and rule is always

preferred, and in a particularist culture the greater attention is paid to the commitments of relationships

and rules are not given the preference. US managersextremely believe on universalism and contracts

and rules are the basis for the business whereas Japanese and Russian managers believe on

particularism where deals are made based on friendship and agreements are unsettled.

Affective v neutral[8]

It relates with the different ways cultures select to express emotions. Managers from US and Russia fall

in Affective culture, Russia is at extreme thus Russian manager dont control their emotions and show

them plainly, people from affective cultures easily show their verbal or non-verbal expressions. US is low

affective culture and Japanese are extremely neutral which means that they try to keep control on their

look and hide their emotions, this is the reason why Japanese have lack of physical contact and use of

gestures.

Specific V Diffuse Relationships[9]

In a specific culture work and private life is kept different and the public life is very open to others, in

this culture direct communication with your boss is acceptable in the private life. US a high specific

culture where work life and private life is kept different whereas Japanese and Russian culture is

diffused. Work and private life is not clearly different and communication is indirect, people are not very

social and it is hard to enter in their friends list. That is why people in Japan take a long time to trust

anyone before making a business deal.

Achieving v Ascribing Status:[10]

In an achieving culture people are appraised by how good they have performed and how good they are

in their jobs, whereas in an ascribed culture people are evaluated on the basis of other factors than


7/13


performance such as age or gender. US culture is extremely achievement as compare to Russian and

Japanese culture. So in this team it wouldnt be a good idea to use a younger US manager in a senior

management team of Russian and Japanese managers.

(Sequential andSynchronic Time)[11]This dimension is related with the perception of people they have of time in different cultures. This can

be divided in two ways: sequentially and synchronically. People from sequential culture are happy to

perform one task at a time, as in US and Russia. Whereas people from synchronical culture areincline to

perform more than one activity at a time as in Japan, Which can create conflict when projects duration

is taken into account.

Inner-directed v outer-directed[12]

People from US and Russia tend to control the nature and the environment, whereas in Japanese culture

it is believed that man must have harmony with the nature. That is why the organizations in Japan

operate in harmony with the culture and confrontation is avoided against the nature.

Recommendations:

y As we are all different in some respects, there are cultural differences as well. So there is a needto understand these cultural differences.

y Managers should be aware of different style of communication of team members before joininga team.

y A leader should talk with all of the members before the start of any meeting and should tell thebasic rules that should be followed in that team.

y Dont send a young Russian or US member to join the team of senior Japanese.y Sometimes there are stereotypes which are developed about some cultures, these should not

be given importance and before joining the team every culture should be studied using cultural

profiling models.


8/13


Success of Multicultural team

International business demands high professional managers who can understand the cultural diversity

and can work effectively and efficiently with different people from different nations. Scholars argued

that multicultural teams can increase team performance and hence organizations can work more

effectively and efficiently (Kirchmeyer and Mclellan, 1991; Tung, 1993). However the differences that

are presented above, show that a multicultural team between US, Russia and Japanese culture doesnt

seem a successful team, but if we analyze the past researches, scholars believes that multicultural teams

are more successful than mono cultural team. These teams bring diversity and innovative ideas that

leads to the success of the organization. According to (Evans, 2006) multicultural teams produce more

effective results, it may possible that in earlier stage these teams are not successful but at the end these

teams are more productive than single culture team.

No doubt that in US, Russian and Japanese managers differences of behavior, values, communication

and norms exist and these difference are big hurdles in the way of successful project team and using the

above data we can say that the probability of this teams success is very low. But if these differences are

not made the weaknesses and used as the strength then this team can be successful. As everyone is

different and has some distinctive qualities that can be used in multicultural team to make it successful.

As communication model by (Matveev and Nelson, 2004) asserts that Americans can better understand

different cultural values as higher level of interpersonal skills in American managers allow them to

perform more effectively in multicultural teams. From our first part we can clearly see that Americans

have low power distance and are individualistic as compare to Russian and Japanese, which makes them

good in interpersonal skills, so they can better understand others cultural values and norms. Moreover

Americans are individualistic which implies that they travel the world more than Russian and Japanese

so they can better understand the values and norms of other cultures.

In multicultural teams leaders play an important role in the success or failure of the team. If a leader can

clearly communicate the goals, rules and norms to the members then a team can easily be a successful

team. From the first part we get to know that Japanese and Russians are from collectivistic cultures

where people are more concerned with retaining the communal relationships, but in contrast to them

US managers are from individualistic culture and they are more concerned with performance and


9/13


outcome of the team. According to the model by (Matveev and Nelson, 2004) US managers are better

leaders for the team.

This model also believes that American and Russian are similar in the case of cultural empathy, they

show a high level. It implies that members from US and Russia can better understand the differencespresent in team and can work well in a multicultural team.

Communication:

If we analyze data from the first part we can see that US, Japan and Russia are different cultures and

communication is different across each country. Japan is high context cultures which can create

problems in communication for US and Russian members, conflicts can be arose in the team as

members from US and Russia cannot understand very well the way Japanese communicate, because in

Japanese communication non-verbal communication has a significant role. Moreover there will be a

problem in the language selection. US and Russian can speak English very fluently, and people from US

dont try to learn other languages and try to dominate other team members, while people from Japan

know more than one language but they dont have good access in English, thus Russian and US can

dominate and people from Japan cannot actively participate in this team. (Davison, 1194)

High power distance in Russia means that they will be expecting the use of titles with their names but in

US and Japan there is low power distance which can give rise to conflicts in the team. But if the later

study is considered true which says that power distance in Russia is similar to that of US and Japan, this

can make this team more flexible.

In Russia bureaucracy is at the top, which can give rise to corruption and people from US and Japan can

get offended by this situation. In Russia for making a deal you need to give favors to other person to get

your work done.


10/13


Communication model by Robert Gibson:

This model by (Gibson, 2002) says that there are different phases in a communication process.

Communication process starts with the sender who sends information to a receiver which can be verbal

or non-verbal. In multicultural communication difficulties can arose as receiver will receive the message

in a different way. As in this team Japanese give more importance to non-verbal communication which

can create difficulties for Russian and US managers to understand. US and Russian managers belong to

low context culture, in their communication they will use the direct words even if they are harsh as

compare to Japanese culture where message with a positive tone is sent to the receiver.

In Japanese culture people make sure that there acceptance of the new idea all through the

organization and they want to communicate new idea with whole of the organization, whereas in US or

Russia an idea which is felt good can be launched without communicating with whole of organization.

The main conflicts between this team are based on communication problems, which can disrupt the

success of the project. So, there is a need to resolve these conflicts, According to (Brett et al., 2006)

there are number of strategies to resolve the conflicts between multicultural teams based on the

problems. To firmness communication problems the best strategy is the use of Adaptation, if everyone

in the team try to understand the cultural difference and try to make harmony among the team, these

issues can be resolved and a successful team will be underway to build.

Recommendations:

y A cultural training can be provided to all the team members when they are working in differentcultures.

y A good leader should be chosen and leader must motivate the team members.y A leader must understand the talent of each member and should try to use that in a positive

way.


11/13


y Feedback of members should be taken and if there are any concerns, leader should take theprompt action.

y Strengths and weaknesses of each member should be understood and use for the success ofproject team.

References:

Brett, J., Behfar, K. and Kern, C., M. (2006), Managing Multicultural teams, Harvard Business Review,

pp.89-96

Davison, C., S. (1994), Creating high performance international team, Journal of Management, Vol. 13,

No.2, pp.81-90

Gibson, R. (2002), Intercultural Business Communication, Oxford University Press

Hall, E., T. (1959).The silent Language. New York: Doubleday.

Hall, E., T. (1976), Beyond culture. New: Doubleday

Hofstede, G. (1984) Cultural consequences: International differences in Work-Related Values, abridge

edn. Bevelly Hills: sage

Hofstede, Geert (2005).C

ultures and Organizations: InterculturalC

orporations and its importance forsurvival: Software of the mind. London: HarperCollins.

House, R. J.,Hanges,P.J., Javidan, M, Dorfman, P.W. and Gupta, V (eds) (2004).Culture, Leadership and

Organisation.The global study of 62 Societies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage


12/13


Kirchmeyer, C. and Cohen, A. (1992) `Multicultural Groups: Their Performance and Reactions with

Constructive Conflict', Group and Organization Management 17(2): 153-70.

Matveev, V., A. and Nelson, E., P. (2004), Cross Cultural Communication Competence and Multicultural

Team Performance: Perceptions of American and Russian Managers,International Journal of Cross

Cultural Management, Vol. 4, Issue. 2, pp.253

Naumov, A. and Puffer, S. (2000), Measuring Russian Culture using Hofstedes Dimensions. Applied

Psychology, Vol.49, pp.709718.

Trompenaar, F. and Turner, H., C. (1997).Ridding the Waves of Culture. Understanding Cultural Diversity

in Business.(2rd ed). London: Nicholas Brealy

Tung, R.L. (1993) `Managing Cross-national and Intra-national Diversity', Human Resource Management

32(4): 461-77

Appendix:

1. Culture: is a body of learned behaviour, a collection of beliefs, habits and traditions, shared by agroup of people and successfully learned by people who enter society.

2. A high context is a culture where most communication is implicit, less verbal and more non-verbal communication is done and a low context culture is explicit and direct communication isused.

3. It means the social distance between the people of different rank or position.4. Individualism reflects the extent to which an individual relies on a group for decisions or take

self-initiative.

5. It reflects peoples attitude to ambiguity in the society or country.


13/13


6. It reflects values which are widely consider more masculine such as assertiveness,competiveness.

7. This approach is defined as whether people are driven by the rules or relationships.8. This dimension means that how people show their emotions, openly or they control their

emotions.

9. This approach means that either work is part of the private life or private life is kept differentfrom the work.

10. It is defined as whether status is achieved by skills and abilities or it is attained by other factorssuch as age or gender.

11.This dimension is defined as how we feel about the time, either we can work one activity at atime or we can perform parallel activities at a time.

12.This is defined as how people feel about nature; either they want to create harmony with natureor they challenge the nature.

a cross cultural team (autosaved)

Documents