IHRM – UNDERSTANDING CULTURE AND MULTICULTURALISM

Rohini M Budhiraja

Influence of National Culture on organisation culture

• Organisation behaviour shaped by cultural preferences of employees and leaders

• National Culture influences the extent to which leadership, teams and employees are socially valued and supported

• Directive styles of leadership fail in North America, North Europe, Australia and New Zealand

• Sweden and Japan support employee Involvement

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Influence of National Culture on organisation culture – The Family Culture

• Person-oriented• Face to face and Hierarchical: father-children

relationship• Work in this time is more like home• Japanese recreate the family in their corporate

culture• Indulgence to younger and respect to elder• Pressure is moral rather than legal• Relationship is for long term and one of loyalty• Culture clusters: Greece, Italy, Japan, Singapore,

South Korea, Spain, other nations which industrialized late and smaller companies

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The Eiffel Tower Culture

• Hierarchies – Bureaucratic division of roles,coordinated from top of hierarchy.

• Boss has legal authority confined to office• Ascribed status to a role and not to a person• Careers are assigned to professional

qualification• Personal relationships are not desired

• Culture clusters: Austria and Germany

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The Guided Missile Culture

• Egalitarian impersonal and task focussed• Project focussed is undertaken by teams and

groups• Status is achieved• Individualistic • Must do whatever it takes to complete the

project and what is needed is unclear

• Culture clusters: USA, Norway, Ireland

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The Incubator Culture

• Person-oriented organisation is secondary to fulfillment of individual

• Personal Egalitarian• Minimal hierarchies and structure• Creative and spontaneous• Leadership is achieved

• Culture Clusters: Sweden,USA (Silicon Valley), UK (Silicon Glen) and smaller companies

Characteristics of Trompenaars’ Four Types of Corporate Culture

Variables Family Eiffel TowerGuided Missile

Incubator

Relationship between employees

Diffuse relationships to organic whole to which one is bonded

Specific role in mechanical system of required interactions

Specific tasks in cybernetic system targeted upon shared objectives

Diffuse, spontaneous relationships growing out of shared creative process

Attitudes toward authority

Status is ascribed to parent figures who are close and powerful

Status is ascribed to superior roles, which are distant yet powerful

Status is achieved by project group members who contribute to targeted goals

Status is achieved by individuals exemplifying creativity and growth

Ways of thinking and learning

Intuitive, holistic, lateral, and error-correcting

Logical, analytical, vertical, and rationally efficient

Problems centered, professional, practical, cross-disciplinary

Process oriented, creative, an hoc, inspirational

Attitudes towards people

Family members Human resources Specialists and experts

Co-creators

Ways of changing

“Father” changes course

Change rules and procedures

Shift aim as target moves

Improvise and attune

Ways of motivating and rewarding

Intrinsic satisfaction in being loved and respected

Promote to greater position, larger role

Pay or credit for performance and problems solved

Participating in the process of creating new realities

Management style

Management by subjectives

Management by job description

Management by objectives

Management by enthusiasm

Criticism and conflict resolution

Turn other cheeks, save others’ faces, do not lose power game

Criticism is accusation of irrationalism unless there are procedures to arbitrate conflict

Constructive task-related only, then admit error fast and correct

Must improve creative idea, not negate it

CULTURE DIMENSIONS

• Globe Project• The GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organisational

Behaviour Effectiveness) project team identified nine cultural dimensions distinguishing one society to another– Assertiveness - individuals in organisations or societies are

expected to be tough, confrontational and competitive versus modest

– Future Orientation - future-oriented behaviours, delaying immediate gratification.

– Performance Orientation - strive for continued improvement and excellence.

– Human Orientation - individuals are encourage and reward for being altruistic, generous, caring and kind to others.

CULTURE DIMENSIONS

• Globe Project– Gender Differentiation - role differentiation and gender

discrimination.– In-group Collectivism - individuals express pride, loyalty, and

cohesiveness in their organisations or families.– Collectivism/Societal - organisational and societal practices

encourage and reward collective distribution of resources and collective action.

– Power Distance - power should be unequally distributed.– Uncertainty Avoidance - relying on social norms, rituals and

bureaucratic practices lo minimize the unpredictability of future happenings

Kluckhohn and Strodthbeck

• Pattern of behavior and thinking

S.No Orientation of People Pattern of Behaviour and Thinking

1 What is the nature of people?

Good ,Evil, Mixed

2 What is a persons relationship to nature?

Dominant, harmony or subjugation

3 What is the persons relationship to others?

Hierarchial, collectivist or others?

4 What is the modality of human activity?

Doing, being or containing

5 What is the temporal focus of human activity?

Future,present or past

6 What is the conception of Space?

Private,Public or mixed

1) What is the nature of people

• Doughlas MC Gregor “Human side enterprise” 1960 descibed the theory X and theory Y

• Task is change organisation structure,management practice,HR practice to allow individual potential to be released

Evil -Self centered, Indiff to org needs,lazy,lack ambition,dislike resp

Good-Potential to develop and assume resp,persue org goals, democracy exists with delegation of authority(Japan & Saudi Arabia)

Mixed – Middlemen exist and business contracts are specific legal contracts are flourishing(America and India)

2) What is persons relationship with nature

• Locus of control is external or Internal- Dominant,Harmony or Subjugation

• Americans dominant by nature think everything can be controlled and spend huge amounts of money on space research,weather control and biotech

• Diff of views is encouraged,org change is easy to implement and consultants play an imp role

• Eastern Countries believe in harmony and there should be peace in man and nature avoid conflicts

• Middle east and India have subjugation believe in destiny and god is controlling everything,astrology affects success and failure god

3) What is persons relationship with other

• Hierarchial, collectivist and others/individualistic• Importance of hierarchy, seniority age and sex,

Official Position• Thialand, China,Indonesia have follower ship

than leadership• Org culture taller and communication is top

down• Seniors are obeyed and diff of opinion is avoided• America is individualist and individual excellence

is valued in societyThe needs of group are uppermost and people

strive to consensus

4) What is modality of human activity

• Doing,being or containing• Doing- German, Americian, and English self

identification is imp and focussed on actions and performance

• Rate of Innovation is high• Being- People are philosophical and spend time

in abstract thinking • Middle East,India and China Status is from

birth,age and sex,family and social connection• Japan and Thailand focus on self control balance

between feeling and doing

5) What is the temporal focus on human Activity

• America is future oriented and believe it can be planned and controlled

• India ,Pakistan and Middle east countries base decisions on past

6) What is the Conception of Space

• China space is public• Western countries space is private

Hofstede

• 1,16,000 employees, 70 countries 3 regions East and West Africa, Saudi Arabia

• AssumptionsWork related values are not universalUnderlying values persisit where MNC

tries to impose same norm on foreign interest

Local values determine how headquarters are interpreted

MNC that insist on uniformity is in danger of creating morale problems and indifferences

Power Distance

• Less powerful member accept power is distributed unequally

• Distance b/w individual at different levels of hierarchy• Countries that obey blindly orders of superiors have high

power distance• Eg Mexico,India,South Korea,Finance,Indonesia and

Singapore have high PD• Greatest in Malaysia and least in Ireland and Austria• If the supervisory levels are less then highly qualified

people are employed • Salary gap is higher• Symbols and status will be highly valued and have high

motivation appeal• Organisations with low PD are decentralised, flatter

structure• US, Austria, Ireland, Norway,New Zeland

Uncertainty Avoidance

• People feel threatened by ambiguous situations and have created beliefs and instructions and avoid these

• High uncertainty oriented nations tend to have high need for security and strong belief in expert and knowledge

• Germany, Spain and Japan are anxiety prone and have stress, high premium on job security career planning and health insurance

• Clear rules and regulations are welcomed and those who give clear instructions are respected, low labour turnover, less ambitious employees

• Low uncertainty are more entreprenuerial,innovative and exhibit less emotional resistance to change- Denmark,Britain

• Swedes are shy and positive and feel suppressing emotions is good and talkativeness is negative they adopt a rational approach, new technology, encourage people to assume responsibity for actions

• Low uncertainty avoidance- US,UK & Sweden

Individualism

• Tendency to look after themselves and family only• Tendency to look after group and feeling of belongingness

in exchange of loyality – Collectivism• Individualist don’t have a strong emotional bond and are

loyal as long as it suits them• Americans high on Individualist score go to court against

authority and claim rights,individual decisions are valued over group

• USA,Canada, Sweden,Denmark are high on individualist score

• Collectivist feel WE “Employer and Employee” are one family and relationship prevails task and duty

• Promotion is on loyality and seniority• Pakistan, Latin America low on individualist score and low

GNP

Masculinity

• Dominant values are success,money and things• Japan high on masculinity lays importance of earning and

recognition,high on job stress• Germany and Spain are large scale enterprises and high

economic growth and low on conservation• Norway low on Masculinty as a cooperative,friendly

atmosphere and has employment security

MULTICULTURALISM

• Multiculturalism means that people from many cultures (and frequently many countries) interact regularly.

• Global firms are repositories of multiculturalism. • Not that the domestic firms have only

monocultures.

Cultural Predispositions

• Ethnocentrism• The home country’s culture is sought to be imposed on

subsidiaries.• The MNC exports its HR policies and practices from home

office to foreign locations.• Ethnocentric policy is justified on the following reasons:

– Need to maintain a unified corporate culture among all subsidiaries.• An ethnocentric policy - disadvantages:

– Expatriate managers may not be able to adapt to local conditions easily and early.

– Expatriate managers are often poorly trained for international assignments and tend to commit mistakes.

Cultural Predispositions

• Polycentricism• Multinational Corporation seeks to adapt to the local

cultural needs of subsidiaries• Polycentricism is more pronounced in the context of

human resource practices• Does not bestow absolute freedom to subsidiary heads as

stand alone units• Host-country managers visit home offices for extended

periods to get acquainted with the company's culture and are taught how to protect the nuances of corporate culture, respecting of course, the host country's beliefs and values.

Cultural Predispositions

• Regiocentricism• Regiocentric approach operates in the same way

as polycentricism• IHRM practices are applicable to regions.

Cultural Predispositions

• Geocentricism• Subsidiary operations are managed by the best

qualified individuals, regardless of their nationality• The capable managers adapt easily and well to

different cultures and usually arc bilingual or multilingual