Download - Ks fs for webster graduate students
Key Success Factors (KSFs) for Webster Graduate Students
Dr. Steve F. Foster, Adjunct Professor, Management and Psychology
Key Success Factors
• Time management skills
• Stress management skills = closely-related above
• Communication skills = reading, writing, speaking
• ‘Team-work skills’ - Incl. managing diversity*
• Ethical awareness/actions - Incl. respecting others e.g. avoiding plagiarism, etc.
* culture, gender, age, etc.
Societal cultures differ in terms of:
• Individuality vs. collectivism
• Quality of life (Fem) vs. Quantity of Life (Mas)
• Acceptance of Power Distance
• Uncertainty Avoidance
• Long- vs. short-term Orientation
(G. Hofstede: ‘Cultures and organizations’)
Selected (Hofstede) culture scores• PDI = Power Distance Index; IND = Individualism; MAS = “Masculinity”; UAI = Uncertainty
Avoidance; LTO – Long term Orientation: Low, Med, High
• Note: scores are averages. Every society has a wide range of individual scores.
•
• ARAB COUNTRIES: PDI = High; IND = Low; MAS = Average; UAI = MedHigh
•
• Belgium: PDI = Med; IND = High; MAS = Med; UAI = High; LTO = Medium
•
• China: PDI = M-H ; IND – Low; MAS = Medium; UAI = M-H; LTO = Very High
•
• EAST AFRICA: PDI=M-H; IND = Med-Low; MAS = Med; UAI = Med LTO = Low
•
• Netherlands: PDI = Low; IND = H; MAS = Low; UAI = Med; LTO = Med
•
• WEST AFRICA: PDI = High; IND = Low; MAS = M-L; UAI = Med; LTO = V-L
• US PDI = Low; IND = High; MAS = Med; UAI = Low; LTO = Low
•
• Q: How relevant is Cross Cultural expertise
for: Business success today?for: success in studying at Webster?
• WHY?
© Dr. G.W.J. Heling14
Just think of …• Working with others on study teams• Globalisation of business:
Negotiations, Cooperation, etc. • International education & career paths• Corporate cultures:
Integration of ‘foreign’ employees, etc.• M&A:
– mergers take many years to be successful– 70 – 80 % of all mergers fail:
(main attribution: cultural differences) – poorly perceived, poorly managed
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The meaning of ‘bankruptcy’• USA: positive image of gaining
business experience
• The Netherlands: business failure, loss of trust by
shareholders, banks, suppliers etc.
• Japan: moral failure, dishonouring of all related people (family,
employees, suppliers, customers, etc.)
(after Dr. St. Foster)
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Q: What would you do?A boss asks a subordinate to help him paint his house. The subordinate who does not feel like doing it, discusses the situation with a colleague.
A.The colleague argues: “You don’t have to paint if you don’t feel like it. He is your boss at work. Outside he has little authority.”
B. The subordinate argues: “Despite the fact that I don’t feel like it, I will paint it. He is my boss and you can’t ignore that outside work either.”
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Percentage of respondents who would refuse to help the boss
• The Netherlands 93 %
• Spain 71 %
• Kuwait 50 %
• China 28 %
(Trompenaars, 1993)
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How value-preferences can differ
Netherlands France Germany Britain
1 Reality Imagination Leadership Helicopter
2 Analysis Analysis Analysis Imagination
3 Helicopter Leadership Reality Reality
4 Leadership Helicopter Imagination Analysis
5 Imagination Reality Helicopter Leadership
Table: Shell's HAIRL system of individual appraisal as prioritised
by managers from 4 European countries (Trompenaars, 1993).
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International competition to write an article about elephants
• English: Hunting elephants in British East Africa
• French: The love life of elephants in French Equatorial Africa
• German: Classifying elephant development in the years 1200-1950, 1900 pages in 6 Vols.
• American: How to breed bigger and better elephants
• Russian: How we will send an elephant to the moon
• Chinese: Aphrodisiac and healing powers of elephant parts in the Ming Dynasty
• Indian: Elephants as transportation means before railways
• Spaniard: Techniques of elephant fighting
• Dutch: Costs of using multicultural elephants in social integration and development programmes
• African: Selling elephant viewing safaris to wealthy tourists
Noteworthy
Don’t confuse the styles of individuals with styles typical of their society (the ‘ecological fallacy’)
“A culture is a set of likely reactions of citizens with a common mental programming,
but not the ‘average citizen’ nor a ‘modal personality.’
> Organzations that managed their cultures well today, see it reflected in their balance sheets for years to come.”
(Hofstede, 1991)
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KSF - Ethical awareness and actions:Be aware:
• Generally, treating others fairly and with justice is considered to be ethical behavior
• Citation without proper credit is unfair and unjust (both to author and to reader)
• Obtaining university marks/credit under false pretenses is academic fraud
• Taking/using property that isn’t one’s own is theft
• There are standards for proper conduct and there are sanctions for improper conduct.
KSF – Ethical actions> Kohlberg’s theory of Moral development:
Three Levels of Personal Moral Development: PreConventional/Conventional/PostConventional
Immanual Kant’s Theory of the Moral Imperative:
‘One must do what is right because it is to be done’
One bad apple can spoil the barrel (Arthur Andersen & Company)
It’s the responsibility of good apples to resist the temptations to be spoiled (by responsible actions)
‘Everybody does it’ is an excuse not a valid reason.
Concluding …• Cross Cultural and Ethical Expertise are KSFs for persons
(and organisations) with global outlooks (Webster folks)
• Try to understand others but know yourself first
• Avoid the over-simplicities of prejudice
• Know differences and capitalize on similarities
• Prepare for the new and unexpected
• Train your skills, but remain authentically you
• Never lose respect for others & their cultures
• And … try hard to keep looking at things from different perspectives
© Dr. G.W.J. Heling24