The Cost Of Overlooking Culture

For any international organization, understanding cultural differences is very significant in the global context. The article analyzes the role and impact of the cultural perspective when dealing with conflict in the global context. “What seems like a perfectly reasonable approach in one culture may seem ridiculous, disrespectful, inefficient, or unfair to managers from other cultures. Japanese and German managers may be uneasy with conflict resolution preferences that differ from their own.” (Adams, p.110.) The understanding that organizational and global cultures vary results in the connected research supported in several businesses in diverse fields.

Choice of not seeing diversity of culture results in limiting the ability for its management. This involved minimizing the issues being caused while there is maximization of advantages and key benefits allowed (Latimer, 2012). When there is lack of consideration across diversity of culture, foreigners end up becoming mere projections related to organizations.

The organizational culture can encourage or discourage effectiveness, depending on the nature of the values, beliefs, and norms” (Ivancevich, Konopaske, & Matteson, 2011). Organizational culture can be very friendly, very task oriented, competitive or driven to be highly productive or it can be disorganized and unproductive. The culture is based on the history of the company and the atmosphere that is created and nurtured over time. This culture guides the language the employees use their loyalty and many more areas. Organizational culture is an important social characteristic that influences organizations, group, and individual behavior with in a company (Hartnell, Ou, & Kinicki, 2011). The Culture of an organization affects the way people behave, how they address customers, the atmosphere, perception, values, and beliefs. Employee’s performance and effectiveness can also be determined by an organization’s culture. Every organization has its own culture based on shared expectations, values and attitudes and its influence on individuals and groups (Ivancevich et al., 2011). People inside of an organization have a big effect on the culture because of their values, beliefs, and ideology. Companies try to hire people who have the same values as the company so that they will fit into the organization. People stay with organizations that have a

It is critical to organizations because the employees are from different cultural backgrounds. These distinctions have to be considered when making decisions because they have an impact on formal work relationships and performance. This understanding is more paramount to multinational organizations because they have business operations right at the heart of different cultures in the various countries. The success of global firms depends on how well the management handles the cultural differences and uses them to the advantage of the

Culture and the environment affect a business in many ways. Culture is not simply a different language, a different shade of skin, or different styles of food. Culture, and the environment in which you are a part of, affect the running of day to day business operations of all companies’ day in and day out. This paper will assess how Linda Myers, from the article, “The would-be pioneer,” (Green, S., 2011) was affected by the huge culture shock of working for a global conglomerate from Seoul, South Korea. We will discuss what went wrong with Ms. Myers approach to business, Hofstede’s five dimensions of culture as it

“Culture impacts most aspects of organizational life, such as how decisions are made, who makes them, how rewards are distributed, who is promoted, how people are treated, how the organization responds to its environment, and so on”(9)

An Organization success depends on how employees, leaders, groups, and individuals work together. Now a company is usually ran on a set of foundations that have been laid out in terms such as, but not limited to, values, beliefs, norms, language, and habits. In order to have a successful working environment, one must reach out to get to know their employee beliefs, values, most importantly get to know their employees personalities. Happy leaders, lead happy workers, who in turn are more dedicated, and willing to put the work in to make the company a success. In order to maintain a successful running business, you must learn to train, and maintain happy employees. In this paper we are going to look at Geert Hofstede, social psychologist and foremost authority on global and organizational cultures, and how he defines six dimensions: Power Distance, Individualism, masculinity, Uncertain Avoidance, Long Term Orientation, and Indulgence and how all these dimensions tie into a successful business. I intend to give you the two countries that I choose to compare using the Hofstede Six Dimensions of culture, to show you have different cultures impact their work relationships.

The 1986 movie “Gung ho” was able to provide what can be described as a classic example of culture conflict and complications occurring as a result of two cultures clashing against each other, as the Japanese businessman Mr. Sakamto came into the small American town and obtained the factory after a successful bid by Hunt Stevenson (Michael Keaton) for the Japanese to take over the factory and save the small town from economic troubles. Hunt was hired to laisse between the workers and the foreign management, and through him the audience experience how the synergy between the two groups decline as they learn from each other regarding expectations, attitudes and cultural differences which hinder productivity, first I will provide a better understanding for what is culture, and how it play an imperative role in the success of an organization.

Culture plays an integral role in the success of an organization. Human Resource professionals and

Psychologist, Dr. Geert Hofstede developed a framework to link culture and organizational behavior considered the most useful outline for a scholarly community. The basis of his framework is comprehensive research involving 160,000 participants’ of managers and employees from 53 countries throughout the world. The study categorized the five cultural dimensions as Power/ Distance, Individualism /Collectivism, Uncertainty Avoidance, Masculinity / Femininity, and Short-Term / Long-Term Orientation (Khan 2014). Evaluating and understanding that culture has influence on how trade is conducted in a particular country and around the world, is critical in helping to increase a leader’ knowledge and ability to communicate and direct resources, to make viable business decisions globally. In addition, knowledge of the five cultural dimensions can be an effective tool for business leaders dealing with the rapidly growing cultural diversity within their respective countries.

Some of the many cultural issues faced by human resource managers are communication- including communicating company culture, language barriers, understanding the business etiquette in other countries, the concept of ‘face’ that is recognized in many cultures, and that employees may have some amount of fear when they are immersed in the new culture. Geert Hofstede created a cultural framework based on five dimensions of psychology to offer some understanding of different cultural issues (Ahlstrom & Bruton, 2010, p. 47).

A new team of global employees must look at the team dynamics in place and the concerns challenging them, the team, and the business. The specific groups in question is consist of a person from Greece, a person from Iran, a person from Germany, and person from Singapore. In order to examine the group LDR 804 GLOBE task information was collected concerning the personalities of persons from stated countries. This study will look at culture evaluation instruments and how they will be useful to measure the business culture and to find cultural holes associated with this team. There will be an explanation of how my style of leadership, and techniques will be persuaded by the social ethnicity and multiplicity of the team. There will be an explanation of how the social ethnicity of the team will likely persuade job outcomes and efficiency of the team. There will be an explanation of how the social ethnicity and differences of employees in the group will persuade a better business culture.

Cultural assumptions can influence not just an individual 's behavior, but companies ' strategies and the way they choose to structure their organizations. The systems they use to motivate employees and control the organization similarly may be "culture bound," meaning that the underlying cultural assumptions are from the home country. Culture and the systems work as intended there but may not work when they are transferred and used elsewhere. Companies should understand that to be effective their structures and systems need to "fit," or be in alignment with, the culture and conditions of the countries in which they are operating.

Individuals in organizations face different reason for why they do their job the way they do. Effective leaders are able to find what motivates these individuals and get them to go in the direction that they need to go. Without the proper human resource from the organization’s leaders, culture and behavior could become affected in a way that is not in favor for growth.

However, more importantly, it was the cultural clash that brought the JV into a poor state initially. As Adler, Doktor, and Redding (1986) wrote in their article, with the growing shift of business from the Atlantic to the Pacific Basin, East-West cultural differences are becoming increasingly significant. Research in developmental psychology, sociology, and anthropology shows that there are major differences among the cognitive processes of people from different cultures. In the era of the global corporation, cultural diversity has to be recognized, understood, and appropriately used in organizations. It is suggested that cross-cultural management would greatly benefit from comparative studies considering the impact of the cognitive aspects of culture on managerial practice.