Cross Cultural

Awareness

Yoomi Consulting Group, Inc Dr. Kristine Marin Kawamura

 Learning objectives
 How cross culturally aware are you?
 Review cultural inventory and cultural genogram/journey.
 What is the business case for developing cross cultural competence?
 What cross cultural challenges may you experience?
 Culture clash.
 Complexity of culture.
 Defining culture and culture shock
 Learn foundations of ethnographic interviewing.
 Culture stretch.
 Make leadership teams.
Global Model for Cross Cultural Competence
Development

(Dolan and Kawamura, 2014)

.
Source: Dolan, S. and Kawamura, K. (2015). Cross-cultural Skills and Global Competence:
A Field Guide and Training Manual for Leaders, Managers, Facilitators, and HR Specialists. UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

©Yoomi Consulting Group, Inc.

What is culture?
What is culture?
 Explains the huge range of human diversity that cannot
be attributed to genetic inheritance.

 Culture is that collection of behavior patterns and

beliefs that constitute “standards for deciding what is,
standards for deciding what can be, standards for
deciding how one feels about it, standards for deciding
what to do about it, and standards for deciding how to
go about doing it” (Patton, p. 100).
Culture is… like an iceberg…it is the personality of a social group/nation/country

Visible-Observable
• RESULTS • RITUALS
• ACTION • SYMBOLS
• BEHAVIOR • CEREMONIES
• LANGUAGE
• FOOD
• CLOTHING
Hidden
• ATTITUDES
• RULES
• VALUES

Invisible
•BELIEFS

6
FORMS OF EXPRESSION:

 The nucleus Symbols

 Defines its Heroes
orientation
Rituals
Norms

VALUES
 Observed practices
Habits  Visible
 Explicit interpretation
of culture

(Hofstede,1990,2010)
 Symbols
Words, gestures, images, objects, dress codes,
social positions

Maestría en Administración MBA Curso ODM - Mayo 2012

(Hofstede,1990,2010)
Racheli Gabel Shemueli Ph.D
 Heroes
People alive/dead, real/imaginary with noticeable
features – behavior models

Maestría en Administración MBA Curso ODM - Mayo 2012

(Hofstede,1990,2010)
Racheli Gabel Shemueli Ph.D
 Rituals
Collective, social or religious activities show
respect or they way of greeting someone

Maestría en Administración MBA Curso ODM - Mayo 2012

(Hofstede,1990,2010)
Racheli Gabel Shemueli Ph.D
 Values
preference, importance, priorities, criteria
tendencies

(Hofstede,1990,2010)
Maestría en Administración MBA Curso ODM - Mayo 2012
Racheli Gabel Shemueli Ph.D
Group: Review cultural intelligence
test
 Did the results surprise you?
 How culturally intelligent are you?
 Where are you strengths? Weaknesses?
 How can you improve your cultural intelligence?
Do in-class exercise from handout!
Culture Clash
What is culture clash?
 Have you every experienced it?
 Why/what happened?
 What did you do about it?
 How could you have handled it better?
Culture clash
 People are both similar and different.
 Similar: human beings with same basic human values: self-
direction, pleasure, stimulation to power, security, conformity, and
benevolence (Schwartz, 1992)
 Different: cultures, families, systems and organizations.
 Conflict occurs in: management styles, views on pay scales and
expenses, perceived role of the domating firm (in M&A), perceived
performance of the “other” firm, disappointment in mergers’ results.

 Of top 10 reasons for M&A failure, cultural integration issues #2.

60% leads to delayed deal integration and implementation
(primary direct driver of deal failure). 60% said they had no
strategy for assessing and integrating culture during the due
diligence process.
Culture clash costs…
 According to a US State Department report (2010), “Ignorance of foreign
languages and cultures costs US companies over fifty billion dollars a year in
lost sales. . . . And they are still paying the price in Iraq or in Afghanistan.”

 In Global Smarts, Sheila Hodge (2000) cites a Los Angeles Times article
about the merger of Daimler-Benz and Chrysler Corporation, which noted that
cultural tensions were the main cause of failed cross-border joint ventures.
Additionally, Daimler’s own extensive premerger research suggested that 70
percent of cross-border mergers failed within the first three years.

 Hodge (2000) also writes that according to Fortune magazine, a majority of

CEOs and senior executives state they need more strongly globally minded
leaders to strengthen their firms’ competitiveness, yet they are poor at
cultivating the necessary skills. In a study of 1,500 executives from global
firms that assessed performance in thirty-four areas essential to global
competitiveness, executives rated their performance to cultivate a global
mind-set at thirty-fourth out of the thirty-four dimensions.
Culture and Diversity (and bias, stereotypes, and prejudice)
Diversity (read quote p. 34-35)
 Life, work, world become more culturally diverse: marriages, travel, migration,
cultural experiences/foods.

 Diverse: the composition of social units such as work teams, including personal
attributes, demographic and psychological characteristics.

 Discuss relations-oriented versus task-related dimensions; readily detected

(surface level) versus underlying (deep level) diversity.

 People of color reached 100 million in US (2007).

 White: 18% of the 2.9 m total growth 2005-2006
 Asian: 3.2%
 Black: 1.3%
 Hispanic: 50% (1.4 million)

 Empowered managers and leaders who empower others increase innovation;

think more creativity; move from either/or thinking.

 Diversity enlarges the labor pool, helps cope better with globalization as
expand cultural horizons and capabilities, and gives a competitive edge.

©Yoomi Consulting Group, Inc.

Bias vs. Prejudice
 Bias: our personal preferences, values, etc.
 Prejudice: treating others unfairly/illegally based on
your biases.

 We all have biases , but we must be aware of them and

be careful how they might lead us to unfairly treat
others.
Diversity: bias and prejudice
 What is bias?
 What is prejudice?
 Where does it come from?
 What happens if you don’t speak English as well as
others (as an example)?

©Yoomi Consulting Group, Inc.

Share cultural genogram
Questions after sharing
 When you think about your roots, what place(s) of
origin do you identify for your family?

 Have you ever heard any stories about how your family
or your ancestors came to the place where you grew up
or how they came to your home country? Briefly, what
was the story?

 Are there any foods that you or someone else prepares

that are traditional for your place of origin or some other
aspect of your heritage? What are they? What is their
significance?
Discuss Cultural Journey: Origins
 Are there any celebrations, ceremonies, rituals, or
holidays your family continues to celebrate that reflect
your place of origin or some other aspect of your
heritage? What are they? How do you celebrate them?
 Do you or anyone in your family speak a language
other than English because of your origins? If so, what
language?’
 Can you think of one piece of advice that has been
handed down through your family that reflects the
values your ancestors held? What is it? Does it reflect a
cultural, religious, or individual value?
Beliefs, biases, behaviors
 Have you ever heard anyone make a negative comment
about people from your place(s) of origin or about another
aspect of your heritage? How did you handle it?

 As you were growing up, do you remember discovering that

your family did anything differently from other families
because of your culture, religion, or ethnicity? If so, what
was it?

 Have you ever been in a work situation with someone who

did something because of his or her culture, religion, or
ethnicity that seemed unusual to you? What was it? Why did
it seem unusual?
Beliefs, biases, behaviors
 Have you ever felt uncomfortable, upset, or surprised by
something you saw when you were traveling in another part
of the United States or the world? If so, what was it? How
did it make you feel? Pick some descriptive words to explain
your feelings. How did you react? In retrospect, how do you
wish you would have reacted?
 Have you ever done anything that you think was culturally
inappropriate when you were in another country or with
someone from a different culture? In other words, have you
ever done something that you think might have been
upsetting or embarrassing to another person? What was it?
What did you try to do to improve the situation?
Imagine
 Imagine that for a week out of this year you will become a
member of another cultural or ethnic group. Which group
would you choose to be part of for that week? Why?

 What is one value from that culture or ethnic group that

attracts you to it?

 Is there anything about that culture or ethnic group that

concerns or frightens you?

 Name one concrete way in which you think your life would
be different if you were from that ethnic or cultural group.
Business case for
CCC
What is the Business Case for
CCC
 What kinds of value will people and organizations
gain—in terms of reducing costs and increasing
financial, social, and human wealth—when they
increase their level of cross cultural competence?

 What is the business case for acquiring these skills?

Business case - trends
 Expatriate placements are up. A study of seven hundred companies worldwide in sectors
such as energy, engineering, financial services, manufacturing, mining, retail trade, and
telecommunications show that more than 70 percent of them planned to increase short-
term expatriate assignments in 2013 consultancy (major destinations for expatriate
assignments included Australia, Brazil, China, the United States, and the United Kingdom)
Maurer, 2013).

 Global business travel is up. After the worldwide global recession, new opportunities are
opening up that require global business travel. In fact, global spending on business travel
was forecast to reach $1.12 trillion in 2013, a 5.4 percent increase from 2012, with travel
spending stabilizing after a year rocked by worldwide economic and political uncertainty.
Furthermore, steady business travel spending in the second half of 2013 is expected to lay
the foundation for 8.2 percent growth in 2014, followed by 7.6 percent, 7.2 percent,
and 7.1 percent growth in 2015, 2016, and 2017 respectively. And it’s growing faster in the
BRIC countries than in developed countries (GBTA, 2013).

 Two main causes of international business failure are a high failure rate for expatriates and
the inability of headquarters managers to appreciate the cultural challenges of doing
business overseas (Johnson, Lenartowicz, & Apud, 2006).

 We can project that the need for cross cultural competence is only going to increase!

30
 Benefits of CCC
 Being aware of how languages express differences in perceptions of
time, space, material possessions, friendship, and business
agreements will enhance cross cultural communication, help avoid
misunderstandings, and help managers conduct business overseas,
build relationships, and complete deals.
 Building trust can improve cross cultural negotiation as parties are
better able to freely share information about interests and goals.
 Reconciling cultural differences can cause whole organizations to
grow healthier, wealthier, and wiser.
 Reducing the level of emotional hangovers—strong feelings arising
from cultural biases and prejudices (unrelated to negotiation
themselves)—can lead to better judgments and better deals, as the
negotiator’s judgment is not distorted. On the other hand, culturally
based snap judgments can erode trust and weaken one’s ability to
get the most from a relationship.
 Benefits of CCC
 Improving cultural competence has been found to reduce
ethnic and racial disparities in delivering health care.
 Improving levels of cultural awareness spells the difference
between surviving and perishing in the new global economy.
 Being able to open up to new ideas, being optimistic, and
appreciating cultural differences are important elements in
successfully communicating, building teams, and negotiating
in cross cultural environments.
 Reconciling values that are in conflict between people of
different cultural backgrounds has led to wealth creation.
 Integrating instead of further polarizing the values that differ
between cultures allows managers to make better business
decisions.
Benefits of CCC
 Managing cultural diversity can provide competitive advantage by
reducing the cost of integrating the workforce (for example, women
and racially different workers); improving company reputation and
winning the competition for the best personnel; improving the ability to
market to subpopulations within domestic operations; improving the
level of creativity; improving decision making through widening the
range of perspectives and more thoroughly analyzing issues; and
creating greater flexibility to react to environmental changes.

 Valuing differences as a companywide capability may lead to enabling

all employees to “do the right thing” as empowered managers and
leaders empower others across the organization.

 Managing cultural diversity allows firms conducting mergers and

acquisitions to more successfully integrate the companies’ cultures,
management systems and processes, and organizational structures.
How to interview
cross cultural
leaders?
Ethnography and Culture
 Ethnography is to grasp other’s point of view
 Asks: what is the culture of this group of people? How
does culture explain their perspectives and behaviors?
 Assumes that any human group of people interacting
together for a period of time will evolve a culture.

 Researcher becomes student

 Ethnography starts with a conscious attitude of almost
complete ignorance

 Focus is to discover the meaning of actions and events

Fundamental aspects of culture to
be studied
 What people do – cultural behavior
 What people know – cultural knowledge
 Things that people make and use – cultural artifacts
 Usages for this class:
 Can use this to study corporate environments, consumer
behavior, and/or leadership behavior
Meaning is Basic
 Culture transmits meaning
 Humans act toward things based on the meanings
those things have for them

 The meaning of such things derive out of social

interactions

 Meanings are handled and modified through an

interpretive process

 Ethnography is designed to investigate meaning

Participant Observer
 One becomes a participant observer—overcoming
years of selective inattention.

 This means the investigator is immersed in the culture

under study.

 This is a “way of seeing!”

Question—Observation
 Basic unit of all ethnographic inquiry is question—
observation

 Questions
 Descriptive questions = what is happening?
 Structural questions = similarities. How is it organized?
 Contract questions = elicit objectivity
Ethical Principles
 Consider informants first
 Safeguard informant’s rights, sensitivities, interests
 Communicate research objectives
 Protect privacy of informants
 Don’t exploit informants
 Make reports available to informants
Other/related methods of
ethnography: auto-ethnography
 How does my own experience of my culture offer insights about
this culture, situation, event, and way of life?
 The focus is not just on the other, or the insider’s perspective in an
organization. You use your own experiences to garner insight in
the larger culture or subculture in which you are part.
 Study of one’s self and oneself as part of the culture. Physical
feelings, thoughts, emotions.
 Questions, what does this say about me? Write in first person
voice.
 So, first focus outward on the social and cultural aspects of your
personal experience, then, look inward, exposing a vulnerable self
that is moved by and may move through, refract, and resist
cultural interpretations..
 Zoom backward and forward, inward and outward, cultural
distinctions blur.
 Substantive contribution; aesthetic merit; reflexivity impact
(emotionally, intellectually, generate new questions, move me to
act, change, etc.); and expression of a reality.
Ethnographic interview field study
 See/observe/ask
 Involve other in a way that elicits information and
uncovers meaning

 Note that the information should be about both

observable data and attitudes
Ethnographic Interview
 Remember business focus = Central questions about
culture, organization, and leader (interrelated)
 Greater cultural context
 Cultural context and impact on leadership style,
competencies, effectiveness, and style
 Business context, business challenge/opportunity, and
business solution

 Involve those studied so that one overcomes “selective

inattention” noted above
Cross-cultural interviewing
 “Culture and place demand our attention not because
our concepts of them are definitive or authoritative, but
because they are fragile and fraught with dispute.” p.
480

 Adds layers of complexity; possibility for

misunderstandings is much greater.

 More problematic in short term studies (like our field

study).
What are some challenges in
cross-cultural interviewing?
 Language differences…untranslatable words and phrases.
 Differing norms and values
 Context of communications
 Attention to time and “being on time”
 Engaging in pre-interview “small talk”
 Eye talk
 Physical proximity
 Gender issues
 Nonverbal gestures
 Who grants permission for interviews
 Appropriate topics for inquiry
 Gift giving and food sharing
 What words can be used
Culture stretch: Native American
culture videos
 Pow wow dance (4 minutes)
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vioh7ML75Cg
 Sun dance (6 minutes)
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vioh7ML75Cg
 Tragedy at Wounded Knee (17 minutes)
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EdRT56WK7Q
Make leadership teams
 2-3 people
 Next week: Sept. 16 – no class. Have a cultural
experience with your leadership partner. Send me a
photo
Review following week assignments:
Sept. 23rd
 Why do leaders need cross cultural competence?
 Cultural frameworks and their importance for leaders: Globe,
Hofstede, and Schwartz models.
 Leadership analysis practices.
 Discuss in-the-field experiences.
 Culture Stretch and In-class case study. In-class reflection.
 Read Chapter 9 (251-291)
 Read Grove: Introduction to GLOBE (posted) (7 pages).
 Read Hoppe: Culture and Leader Effectiveness: Introduction to
GLOBE (posted) (7 pages).
 Read Friedman 5-6.