International OB : Managing

Across Cultures
Chapter 4
Culture and Organizational Behavior
 In previous chapter, we discussed organizational culture. Here, the
focus is more broadly on Societal Culture.
 Societal Culture is a set of beliefs and values about what is
desirable and undesirable in a community of people, and a set of
formal or informal practices to support the values.
 So, culture has both prescriptive (what people should do) and
descriptive (what they actually do) elements.
 It’s passed from one generation to next by family, friends,
teachers, and relevant others.
Culture and Organizational Behavior
How would you, as a manager, interpret the following situations,
 An Asian executive for a multinational company, transferred from Taiwan to the
Midwest, appears aloof and autocratic to his peers.
 A West Coast bank embarks on a “friendly teller” campaign, but its Filipino female
tellers won’t cooperate.
 A white manager criticizes a black male employee’s work. Instead of getting an
explanation, the manager is met with silence and a firm stare.
 If we attribute the behavior in these situation to personalities, three descriptions come to
mind; 1. Arrogant 2. Unfriendly 3. Hostile. They are probably wrong.
 However, if we attribute the behavior outcomes to cultural differences, we’ll have better
chance to make a valid interpretation.
Culture and Organizational Behavior
One cannot afford to overlook relevant cultural contexts when
trying to understand and manage organizational behavior.

 Societal Culture Is Complex and Multilayered

 Culture Is a Subtle but Pervasive Force
 Culture Overrides National Boundaries
Societal Culture Is Complex and Multilayered
 Culture is difficult to grasp because it is multilayered.
 Culture comes in layers, like an onion. To understand it you have
to unpeel it layer by layer.
Culture Is a Subtle but Pervasive Force
 Culture generally remains below the threshold of conscious awareness
because it involves taken-for-granted assumption about how one should
perceive, think, act and feel.
 As much of culture operates outside our awareness, frequently we don’t even
know what we know. We pick expectations and assumptions up in the cradle.
 We unconsciously learn what to notice and what not to notice, how to walk
and talk and use our bodies, how to behave as men or women, how to relate
to other people, how to handle responsibility.
 We assume that they’re part of human nature. What we think of as “mind”
is really internalized culture.
 In sum, “You are your culture and, your culture is you”
Culture Overrides National Boundaries
 Societal culture is used instead of national culture because the boundaries of
many nations-states were not drawn along cultural lines. Instead they
evolved through conquest, migration, treaties, and geopolitics.
 If we could redraw the world map along cultural lines instead of along
geographical and political lines, we would end up with something very
strange and different.
 So, the point is when preparing to live and work in a different country, be
sure to consider more than national boundaries – study the culture.
A Model of Societal and Organizational Cultures
A Model of Societal and Organizational Cultures
 Employees bring their societal culture to work with them in the form of
customs and language
 Organizational culture affects an individual’s values, ethics, attitudes,
assumptions, and expectations
 Mixing of societal and organizational cultures can produce interesting
dynamics in multinational companies.
 Eg.
 With American and French employees working side by side at General Electric’s
medical imaging production facility, unit head witnessed some cultural shock.
 American workers’ cultural orientation towards quality improvement differs
significantly from the Japanese cultural pattern.
Ethnocentrism
 A belief that one’s native country, culture, language, and behavior are
superior to all others.
 Militant ethnocentrism led to deadly “ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia and
Kosovo and genocide in African nations of Rwanda, Burundi, and Sudan.
 Less dramatic, but troublesome, is ethnocentrism within managerial and
organizational contexts.
 Ethnocentric managers have a preference for putting home-country people
in key positions everywhere in the world and rewarding them more
handsomely for work, along with a tendency to feel that this group is more
intelligent, more capable, or more reliable.
 This is not too surprising, since most executives know far more about
employees in their home environment.
Ethnocentrism
 A survey of companies in Europe, Japan and the U.S. found ethnocentric
staffing and human resource policies to be associated with increased
personnel problems.
 Those problems included recruiting difficulties, high turnover rates, and
lawsuits over personnel policies.
 Current and future manager can effectively deal with ethnocentrism through
education, greater cross-cultural awareness, international experience, and a
conscious effort to value cultural diversity.
“A Cultural Roadblock in the Global Economy”
 High-context cultures and
Low-context cultures
High-context cultures
 Rely heavily on situational cues for meaning when perceiving and
communicating with others
 The rule of communication are primarily transmitted through the use of
contextual elements (i.e. Body language, a person’s status, and a tone of
voice)
Low-context cultures
 Written and spoken words carry the burden of shared meanings
 Information is communicated primarily through language and rules are
explicitly spelled out.
High-context cultures and
Low-context cultures
High-context cultures and
Low-context cultures
Cultural Perceptions of Time
 Cultural Perceptions of Time - Monochronic
Cultures
 Monochronic Cultures like to do just one thing at a time.
 They value a certain orderliness and sense of there being an appropriate time and
place for everything.
 They do not appreciate interruptions.
 They like to concentrate on the job at hand and take time commitments very
seriously.
 A second gone, is a second lost. You are never going to get it back ever again.The
phrase “Time is money” must have originated from a mono-chronic culture.
 If you live in the United States, Canada or Northern Europe, you live in a
monochronic culture.
 Cultural Perceptions of Time - Polychronic
Cultures
 Polychronic cultures like to do multiple things at the same time.
 A manager’s office in a polychronic culture typically has an open door, a ringing
phone and a meeting all going on at the same time.
 Though they can be easily distracted they also tend to manage interruptions well
with a willingness to change plans often and easily.
 People are their primary concern (particularly those closely related to them or their
function), and they have a tendency to build lifetime relationships.
 If you live in Latin America, the Arab part of the Middle East or sub-Shara Africa,
you will be used to this behavior.
Monochronic Vs Polychronic Cultures
Cultural Perceptions of Time
Interactions between the two types can be problematic
 Monochronic business people cannot understand why the person they are meeting
is always interrupted by phone calls and people stopping in unannounced. Is it
meant to be insulting? When do they get down to business?
 Polychronic business personnel cannot understand why tasks are isolated from the
organization as a whole and measured by output in time instead of part of the
overall organizational goal. How can you separate work time and personal time?
Why would you let something as silly as a schedule negatively impact on the
quality of your relationships?
Hofstede’s Framework: Cultural Dimensions
Individualism versus Collectivism
Power Distance
The extent to which a society accepts that
power in institutions and organizations is
distributed unequally.

Low distance
 Relatively equal power between those
with status/wealth and those without
status/wealth
High distance
 Extremely unequal power distribution
between those with status/wealth and
those without status/wealth
Masculinity V Femininity
Uncertainty Avoidance
The extent to which a society feels
threatened by uncertain and ambiguous
situations and tries to avoid them

High Uncertainty Avoidance

 Society does not like ambiguous
situations and tries to avoid them
Low Uncertainty Avoidance
 Society does not mind ambiguous
situations and embraces them.
Time Orientation
Indulgence V Restraint
Some Selected Hofstede Culture Indicators

Look up your country.

What would you change?
Cross-Cultural Communications
 Cross-cultural communication has become strategically important to companies
due to the growth of global business, technology, and the Internet.
 Understanding cross-cultural communication is important for any company that
has a diverse workforce or plans on conducting global business.
 This type of communication involves an understanding of how people from
different cultures speak, communicate, and perceive the world around them.
 Language differences, high-context vs. low-context cultures, nonverbal differences,
and power distance are major factors that can affect cross-cultural communication.
Language and Cross-Cultural Communications
 Language is the most obvious cross cultural communication challenge. Words are
easily misunderstood in verbal communication, either because the receiver has a
limited vocabulary or the sender’s accent distorts the usual
 Eg. For example, during the Cold War, Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev told the American
delegation at the United Nations, “We will bury you!” His words were interpreted as a threat of
nuclear annihilation. However, the intension was “We will overtake you!”meaning economic
superiority.
 Semantics: some words aren’t translatable
 Word Connotations: some words imply multiple meanings beyond their definitions
 Tone Differences: the acceptable level of formality of language
Context and Cross-Cultural Communications
 The context is also important to understanding what is being communicated.
 Low-context cultures rely more on words for meaning.
 People in low context cultures “get down to business” and tend to negotiate
quickly. Examples of low context cultures include Germany, Scandinavia, and the
United States.
 High-context cultures gain meaning from the whole situation.
 People in very high context cultures put a high value on establishing relationships
prior to working with others and tend to take longer to negotiate deals. Examples
of high context cultures include China, Korea, and Japan.
Nonverbal Differences
Across Cultures
 Nonverbal communication
represents another potential
area for misunderstanding
across cultures.
 Eg. in the United States,
looking someone in the eye
when talking is considered a
sign of trustworthiness. In
China, by contrast, a lack of
eye contact conveys respect.
A Cultural Guide
 When communicating with people from a different culture, what can we do to
reduce misinterpretations?
 The following rules can be helpful;
 Assuming differences until similarity is proven
 Emphasizing description rather than interpretation or evaluation
 Practicing empathy in communication
 Treating your interpretations as a working hypothesis
 Components of Successful Intercultural
Communication
 Communicating in a diverse
business environment is not
always an easy task.
 But you can continue to
improve your sensitivity and
build your skill as you
progress in your career.