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Cross Cultural Issues In

Global HRM

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With the rapid increase in the globalization of business, workforces are becoming increasingly diverse and multicultural because of this there are issues arising for HR managers. With the growing Significance of developing economies in the global business environment, Human Resource Management is facing increased difficulty in managing cross-border cultural relationships. Increasing competition both nationally and internationally have resulted in a deeper focus upon effective human resource management. Organizational leaders and policy makers are required to know how human resources (HR) are managed in different parts of the world and how they should perceive and react to different cultural beliefs and practices.

Introduction

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Latest Trends In HR Culture1. Increased awareness of cultural difference in workplaces.2. Increased need of cross-cultural understanding in business environment;3. Management of global talent;4. Increased popularity of virtual global teams.

These trends have transformed the role of a manager into a much more complex form than it was before. Cultural adaptation issues have become unavoidable alongside the introduction of global business orientations. As India is becoming an increasingly important destination for many foreign investors and multinational corporations it is very important to understand these trends to avoid cross cultural issues.  

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Introduction to Culture 1) A set of ideas, concepts or notions, especially values are shared by the members of a culture.

2) This set of ideas is transferred from one generation to another through symbols.

3) Culture exists from the past actions of members of a group. Culture is always learned.

4) Culture moulds behavior and changes one’s perception of the world.

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Cultural Conditioning After understanding the definition of culture, it is important to realize how people acquire their culture and learn about behaviors and values that are accepted or rejected by their society. This process is known as cultural conditioning, which is specific to particular groups and varies significantly from culture to culture. The process of conditioning starts to develop in early childhood but continues to develop throughout the life of an adult as new behaviors and values are acquired continuously.

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Cultural Comparison Hofstede in 1980 has presented a classic study of work values to compare cultures across different countries. The study is based on attitude surveys of 117,000 IBM employees representing 40 different countries, which later expanded to include 50 countries. Hofstede presented four dimensions derived from differences in national cultures. Each dimension was given a score ranging from 0 to 100. The four dimensions were individualism-collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity-femininity

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The DimensionsIndividualist – It refers to the extent to which an individual identifies one’s self. Characteristics include being self sufficient and self-dependent without the need for reliance on the group. The success of the individual is independent of the success of the group.

 Collectivist – An individual associates himself with a large group or a team, for example, family or work team. The success and survival of the individual is dependent on the team’s success. Cooperation and integrity are required of all the team members in a group. All the group members are similar in their psychological and emotional orientation but this may vary with members of other groups.

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Power Distance – It demonstrates the attitude of the society toward power differences, that is, how cultures perceive the notion of power and status. It comes into play especially in workplace relationships, particularly in the relationship between managers and subordinates. Depending on acceptable power differences, there can be high power and low power distance cultures.

Uncertainty avoidance – This model deals with interpretation of uncertainty of life in various cultures. All societies are affected by uncertainty but the level of threat varies differently among different cultures. Some cultures feel highly anxious about the uncertainty in life and are known as high uncertainty avoidance, while low uncertainty avoidance cultures are more tolerant to threats and anxieties.

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Masculinity-femininity – It is the extent to which cultures differentiate between gender roles. Male orientations are characterized by ambition and excellence whereas female orientations have propensity more toward quality of life and harmony

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Cross Cultural ManagementCross-cultural management describes organizational behavior within countries and cultures; compares organizational behavior across countries and cultures; and seeks to understand how to improve the interaction of co–workers, managers, executives, clients, suppliers, and alliance partners from around the world. Thus here, we can experience that in present day's scenario where people employed in multinational companies (MNCs) are from various cultures and each and every employee is different in his attitudes, practices, behavior and values. Thus it becomes very difficult for a manager to manage his subordinates who are diverse in their culture. There emerges need to understand and gain knowledge on different cultures. It helps employees to know each others' cultures and languages. This helps, in turn, in keeping the employees integrated in the organization so that they cooperate with each other in attaining the goals of the organization.

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Cross Cultural Differences

One of the main tasks of management is solving of problems that appear at encountering individual company and national cultures. Managers of international companies often face challenges of cultural differences. There are three sources of cultural differences.

1. Corporate company culture: The corporate company culture elements are such as history of the company, company's experience, leadership and dominant coalition, ownership, stage of development and business diversity. 

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Continued..2. Professional industry culture: The professional industry culture comprises of two elements; functional orientation and industry norms. Functional orientation includes marketing, finance, engineering, research and development functions. Industry norms include technology, change, key success factors, and types of customers. 3. National ethnic culture: National ethnic culture includes elements such as country history, education, social organization, religion and philosophy.

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Dimensions of Cross Cultural Differences

The major cultural differences could be categorized into two major dimensions. Both approaches propose a set of cultural dimensions along which dominant value systems can be ordered. These value systems affect human thinking, feeling, and acting, and the behavior of organizations and institutions in predictable ways. The two sets of dimensions reflect basic problems that any society has to cope with but for which solutions differ. They are similar in some respects and different in others. The dimensions can be grouped into several categories:

1. Relations between people2) Motivational orientation

3) Attitudes toward time

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Strategies for Managing Cross Cultural Differences

As the managers and the employees in a multinational organization gradually understand the dimensions and differences, it is the duty of both managers and the employees to adopt the strategies to keep the diversity at bay. Following are the strategies which help us to overcome the obstacles of cross-cultural differences;

1)Good knowledge of foreign culture:2)Respect of a foreign culture:

3)Helpful steps in the relationship to a foreign culture:

4)Ignore the cultural differences:5)Minimize differences:6)Managing differences:

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ConclusionAs the globalization is increasing, cultural differences are bound to be found in workforce. It becomes very important for a manager to deal with complex issues arising out of the cultural differences and mould the differences into benefits. The managers and employees in an organization should respect the other cultures prevailing in the workforce. This will enable them to eradicate the differences and unite them which further leads to attain the organizational objectives smoothly. The managers could deal with their employees with sound coordination and delegation becomes easy as well. The cultural differences in multinational companies are taken as positive factor and helps in building synergies. This shapes the organization to equip the best to fight against the rivals and get more competitive advantage of it. Once the cultural differences are managed in proper way by the managers, it becomes easy for the organization to flourish in all cultures across the globe.

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Submitted by –

Amit MittalYogesh KumarAarti SharmaSahil RajpalPriyanka TanwarMamta SinghVansh Kukreja