INTRODUCTION
This report is structured into two parts, in the first part importance of cross-cultural management is discussed from the perspective of accepted and popular models of cultural dimensions. In this part further the cultural difference of USA and China are discussed using cultural model of Hofstede. In the second part, cross-cultural human resource management is discussed from the specific perspective of expatriates training. Further, it is as well discussed, as how USA multinational companies can effective offer training to the expatriates.
MAIN BODY
Part I
Today in the age of globalization, international business is getting momentum, as companies in different parts of the world have more opportunities to grow and enhance profitability through forming more and more international operations. However, international operation of the company is quite different from the domestic operation and the success of international operation can not be achievable with the strategies put into practice in the domestic market. The drift towards internationalization has had been rising globally and this speedy pace of internationalization is giving opportunities to the companies in various parts of the world and accordingly companies are entering various global markets. One facet of the internationalization procedure is the capability of the companies to build up and keep up business relations and business systems in a cross-cultural background. It is in this context that the value of cross-cultural management lies as regards the on-growing co-operation amid companies in various parts of the world where complexities might come up due the diverse cultural upbringing.
In relation to cross-cultural communication, a prevalent cultural model has been presented by Hall (2000), who lies down that every culture may well be positioned in regard of one another in the course of the flairs in which they communicate. For case in point, in certain cultures, in the forms of Germans and French communication takes place mainly in the course of clear declarations in transcript and dialogue, and therefore classified as low context cultures. On the other hand, in other cultures, in the form of the Indian, communications comprise additional open cues in the form of body language and the habit of quietness. These cultures involve high context communication inferring a memo which is not expressed but interpreted in terms of conduct and para-verbal indications. As Adler (2008) aptly puts that cross-cultural management explicates the conduct of individuals in companies in the regions of the world and demonstrates individuals how to work in companies with staff and clients from several diverse cultures. Cross-cultural divergences curtail from the diverse conditions of every culture, where cultural diversities might be observed in the place of work, and there are additional factors brought in as fulfilling targets of business, meeting up time limit, cost effective operational requirement, which might create conflict. Due to the variations in cultures, there may be various sorts of misunderstanding amongst individuals working in the similar company because of their diverse values, traditions and beliefs. In this context, Reynolds and Valentine (2011) suggest that for a thriving running of an international business entity, any individuals deployed ought to be competent to work with individuals from diverse cultural backdrop, irrespective of what their cultural orientation I, where a substantiation regarding this is the unbeaten management of several western companies running in diverse parts of the world and interestingly they rare able to come up with first-rate managerial r practices. our purpose here is to through light on several such practices , but before that we need to discuss the cultural aspects of international business.
Cultural differences demonstrate themselves in a number of modes. In this regard, Hofstede (2001) discerns cultural identities in the forms of symbols, heroes, rituals and values. Surrounded by these, the fundamental values are indistinguishable. Even though values are all the time imperceptible and possibly will be tough to assess, they frequently play an imperative role whilst the marketers attempt to compose decisions, which facilitate to come into a foreign market. The cultural model of Hofstede originally includes four measurements namely Individualism/ Collectivism, Uncertainty Avoidance, Masculinity/Femininity, and Power Distance (Hofstede 1980). In simple interpretation, individualism gives worth to freedom, and incline to consider that individual objectives and benefits are more imperative than group benefits, however on contrary collectivism incline to vision as associates of an comprehensive clan or body, and put collective benefits ahead of personal benefits. Cultures with greater ranks of uncertainty avoidance touch a grander requirement for agreement and transcribed guidelines, and are bigoted of eccentricities from the standard, however, on contrary cultures featured through low-slung uncertainty avoidance depend not as much of inscribed guidelines and are extra possibility lenient. On the other hand, masculine cultural led persons are extra belligerent, go-getting, and modest; while persons in womanlike cultures are additional unassertive, diffident, and fostering. Last but not the least, persons in cultures featured through greater ranks of power distance incline to track prescribed codes of conduct, and are unwilling to upset with superiors; however persons in cultures that are poorer in power distance fail to touch as forced by apparent or real variances in standing, supremacy, or situation. Power distance links to the grade to which imbalanced sharing of power and wealth is endured. This may well be settled on by the rank of hierarchy in offices and distance stuck between social strata. Individualism measures regarding individuals fondness to work unaccompanied or in groups signifying the grade of social/community incorporation. Home-grown nations incline to be collective where the inventive culture has not developed cracked. This arrives from a cultural background which supposes individuals to be self-governing at a very initial phase. Masculinity measure does not mention, unconditionally, to the supremacy of masculinity and portrays the grade to which masculine characteristics such as power, confidence; performance and success are favored to female traits such as individual relationships, excellence of life, service and welfare. Uncertainty avoidance is the degree to which individuals are vulnerable to the absence of structure or by uncertain proceedings and implies the approach in which individuals will handle the future, whether they have intrinsic control, or whether proceedings are outside their control. On the other hand, individuals with low uncertainty avoidance will necessitate structure and instruction with strong guidelines and rules.
Source: Hofstede, 2001
On the basis of Hofstede Model , the two countries cultures that is researched in this study are USA and China, demonstrating big cultural differences in most of the cultural dimensions, with the exception of the masculinity dimension, and the uncertainty avoidance dimension. Henceforth , an USA based company operating in China will need to close consider the cultural dimensions of individualism, power distance and confucian dynamism. As Lee-Ross (2005) aptly put that intercultural understanding which is an insolence that allows a person to interrelate efficiently with individuals from diverse cultures is a skill that may well be defined, measured and attained.
Part II
The culture is influenced by the climate, geography, religion, economy trade and history, and as according to Lowe et al.(2008), all these have a very strong bearing on the evolution and development of the culture , where cultural difference can be felt at different levels in which individuals are fostered. In relation to managing business operation in cross-cultural environment , Mooij (2004) puts that the values that set apart a society might not be observed unswervingly. They may well be inferred from a range of cultural products or through asking people of society to attain own values by means of stating their penchants amongst options, and subsequently measuring the innermost propensity of the responses. Whilst it comes to marketing, the value idea is generally applied in an ethnocentric approach. Above and beyond, values are attained without thinking, people are just partially conscious of them, and calculating values is not a trouble-free work . generally , the tribulations they face are an effect of their erroneous supposition that foreign markets will be comparable to the home market, and consequently they might carry out the business in a parallel approach. Further Doole and Lowe (2008) view that the values of a culture satisfy needs and wants of people in that society for order, direction and guidance, where culture define the principles shared by noteworthy parts of that society which eventually set the system for function in that market. Culture is generally delineated as a classification of values with that of a determinant of people’s decision as consumers in the marketplace. Associates of a specific culture make over their practices with their physical and social setting to a conceptual rank of conviction in relation to what is sought-after and what is not. Such determined attitude, called values, performs as a broad-spectrum conduct for day by day behaviors, comprising those relating to purchasing and consumption. Cultural values diverge amid nations all along Hofstede’s (2001) four dimensions of national disposition. The rising total of international business has augmented the necessity to recognize consumer behavior from a cross-cultural standpoint. Cultural difference can be felt at different levels in which individuals are fostered, and organizations those are performing well, getting customer centric by understanding cross cultural difference. Different cultural elements guides to the cross cultural process and from cross culture to design effective cross-cultural management.
Lee and Lee (2007) have identified six such practices that a firm focus to improve its business performance and these six practices are human resource planning, training and development, performance appraisal, rewards and incentives, team working and job security. If these practices are put into application effectively, firms have opportunity to improve organizational business performance in terms of output, quality and flexibility. Nevertheless, as per Lee and Lee (2007), there are three practices of human resource management that have ample evidences of effecting performance in most cases and these practices are human resource planning, training and development and rewards and incentives. On the other hand, a few additional studies too reveal that definite human resource management practices have momentous correlation with flexible and quality performance (Kuo, 2004; Sang, 2005). So the general interpretation of these studies is that firms may achieve desired and quality performance through putting into application the effective human resource management practices, where practices explicitly human resource planning, training and development and rewards and incentives have proven track record of improving organizational and business performance. it is challenging to transform the frame of mind when it comes to human resource practitioners working in developing countries in order to put into practice the suitable human resource management practices to improve their firms’ organizational and business performance. The fact is that under the influence and control of globalization, firms operating in developing countries are as well increasingly recognizing the importance of human resource management practices in improving organizational and business performance. More importantly human resource practitioners in these otrganisations are now realizing that putting into practice suitable HRM practices is key to their success and prosperity, together with their firms’ organizational and business performance.
Cultural difference between two and more than two nations and regions have been studied by some scholars and based on the cultural difference, the differences in consumer behaviors have also been studied taking various factors into consideration such as values, needs and buying behaviors. Kim et al(2002) in their research titled Cross-cultural consumer values, needs and purchase behavior , have investigated the relationship amongst the consumer values, needs and buying of people. It was found that their buying behaviour in different cultural environment is definitely affected by cultural values and needs. Consumer’s behaviour are assumed to be culture bound as consumer’s decision to buy certain commodity or product, is subject to number of factors where there is only one kind of culture prevails. Doole and Lowe (2008) have suggested related motivational factors in culture, specific pattern of behaviour, evaluation promotion processes that the appropriate to the culture and constitute desired and relevant institutions for this product in the wits of the consumers. Cultural difference is invariably considered as one of the most important factor while marketers discuss international marketing strategy. In the context of internal marketing, the culture has been defined as the summation of all the learned beliefs, values and customs that governs the consumer behaviour in one particular country’s market. Therefore while selecting and international marketing strategy, one of the most important issues that are taken care of seriously is the cultural difference.
As it has been pinpointed by Okpara and Kabongo (2010), it is even more important to take cognizance of the fact that multinational corporate establishments grapple with a lot many problems when it comes to retaining different sets of expatriates for numerous worldwide operations launched by them. The situation gets genuinely compounded when most of the expatriates sent abroad to undertake overseas assignments under numerous multinational corporate establishments get back home before the stipulated deadlines for completing their tasks. Furthermore, one major reason for the failure of the expatriates is probably their inability to adapt themselves to the culture of the host-country. As a result, training of cross-cultural type imparted to expatriates by various multinational companies has become extremely significant for the flourishing global business operations. Increase in the globalization of various business operations has led managers as well as workers to be sent abroad on foreign assignments more than ever in the past, with suggestions from every corner that employing expatriate workforce might broaden the purview of corporate operations in the days to come. Multinational companies willing to effectively and efficiently employ expatriates require greater focus on capitalizing on their potential by way of laying stress on various opportunities they might get and challenges they would face. In the opinion of Waxin and Panaccio (2005), the key objective of training of cross-cultural nature is to impart training to the affiliates belonging to a particular culture so as to make them collaborate in an efficient manner with the affiliates from some other culture. Another objective of such training is also to create among the trainees an inclination towards a quick fine-tuning to the novel positions they might get. Whilst investigating the impact of such training, Waxin and Panaccio (2005) observe that the extent to which intercultural training is effective is obviously determined by the scale of global experience which the expatriates has had earlier. Despite that, only a handful of researches have so far dwelt upon and extensively highlighted the impact of numerous ways in which cross-cultural training is imparted on different dimensions of expatriate and opportunities challenges. To fill in this void in the context of literature, the proposed research will bring to light the opportunities and challenges appertained to the training of cross cultural nature for various expatriates in the arena of multinational companies.
Motivating and retaining employees in outsourcing firms require central focus on career development of employees. The choice of developing a long-standing career path for employees will help out motivate employees in outsourcing firms to perform their best and committed. It is in this course of action that a number of foremost outsourcing firms are positively revolving around career development of employees where they have a guru system and help employees reassess their career options . Career development practice of human resource management for such firms ought to be focused towards offering educational support, offering multi-faceted training, paving way for sideways opportunities for the employees, from a human resource management standpoint, it is imperative to decide drivers that have most likely to control the output of employees of multinational companies in China (Selmer ,2004).
So far as the case of USA multinational companies in China is concerned, managing human resources would be an uphill task considering the deep and large number of cultural differences . Obtaining and retaining qualified managerial staff in China will be the most challenging. In this context, Selmer (2004) suggests that in order to obtain and retain competent expatriates , USA based multinational companies ought to first of all give more notice on the recruitment process to make cert their abilities and skills linked to Guanxi which is developing into more and more vital in Chinese society.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
To put it precisely, the culture is influenced by the climate, geography, religion, economy trade and history, and therefore all these aspects need to be incorporated in cross-cultural management of a multinational company. Cultural difference is invariably considered as one of the most important factor while marketers discuss international marketing strategy. Buying behaviour in different cultural environment is definitely affected by cultural values and needs, and therefore international marketing of a multinational company should be centrally focused towards the cultural values and needs of the customers in the location. When it comes to retaining different sets of expatriates for numerous worldwide operations launched by companies, cross-cultural training is a must. The situation gets genuinely compounded when most of the expatriates sent abroad to undertake overseas assignments under numerous multinational corporate establishments get back home before the stipulated deadlines for completing their tasks. The key objective of training of cross-cultural nature should be to impart training to the affiliates belonging to a particular culture so as to make them collaborate in an efficient manner with the affiliates from some other culture. Cross-cultural management explicates the conduct of individuals in companies in the regions of the world and demonstrates individuals how to work in companies with staff and clients from more than a few diverse cultures. Cross-cultural divergences curtail from the diverse conditions of every culture, where cultural diversities might be observed in the place of work, and there are additional factors brought in as fulfilling targets of business , meeting up time limit, cost effective operational requirement , which might create conflict.
The cultural model of Hofstede originally includes four measurements namely Individualism/ Collectivism, Uncertainty Avoidance, Masculinity/Femininity, and Power Distance. On the basis of Hofstede Model, USA and China, demonstrating big cultural differences in most of the cultural dimensions, with the exception of the masculinity dimension, and the uncertainty avoidance dimension. For USA multinational companies in China, managing human resources would be an uphill task considering the deep and large number of cultural differences . Obtaining and retaining qualified managerial staff in China will be the most challenging. In this context, it is suggested that in order to obtain and retain competent expatriates , USA based multinational companies ought to first of all give more notice on the recruitment process to make cert their abilities and skills linked to Guanxi which is developing into more and more vital in Chinese society.
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