Doing business across cultures_4 pot

Figure 3.12 shows the proportion who answered “a” (internal con- trol). Our database shows that Western cultures share extremely inter- nally-controlled orientations. It is obvious that most Western managers are selected on the competence (false or not) that essen - tially any environment can be controlled, any market created, and any problem overcome by one’s own doing. You market what we can produce, better known as technology push. Asians, who mostly come from externally-oriented cultures, are supremely equipped to be stimulated by signals from the markets. Correspondingly, they operate under the handicap of often not being the ones pushing the latest technological developments. Thus the dilemma is between “selling what you can make” or “mak - ing what you can sell.” 94 BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES Figure 3.12 Internal versus external control: percentage selecting “what hap- pens to me is my own doing.” GENDER DIFFERENCES The locus of control is one of the few value dimensions where men and women score with any significant difference across cultures. Both in the US as well as in Asia and Europe, males are significantly more inner-directed than females (see Figure 3.13). Women seem to be more motivated by external stimuli while men seem to believe they are in control of their environment by superim - posing their views on it. We use a range of questions of which the following is an example to position people along this dimension: Of the following two statements, which do you believe to be more in line with your reality? (a) Becoming a great success is a matter of hard work; luck has little or nothing to do with it. (b) Becoming a great success often depends on being in the right place at the right time. 95 FURTHER VALUE DIMENSIONS Figure 3.13 Gender differences – degree of internal control Whilst men are equally divided, with 50 percent answering “a” and 50 percent answering “b,” 58 percent of women answer “b” (more outer directed). Internal versus External Lowest (most important variable) Country Industry Job function Religion Gender Age Education Highest (least important variable) Corporate Climate/Culture RECONCILING INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CONTROL The major issue at stake is to connect the internally-controlled culture, arising from the talent of technology push, with the exter- nally-controlled world of market pull in order to achieve a culture of 96 BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES 10/1 The Ultimate Niche: markets without any clients 1/10 At the mercy of your clients Adapting to the environment by being pulled by the market Controlling the environment by pushing technology 0 10 10 Push the technology through the demand of your clients Figure 3.14 Push through pull inventiveness. If we take a consumer electronics company like Philips, nobody will deny its great knowledge and inventiveness in its specific technologies and the quality of its marketing. The problem the company had faced was that its two major functional areas didn’t seem to connect and communicate. The success of an organization is dependent on the integration of both facets. The push of technology needs to help to decide which markets you want to be pulled by. And the pull of the market needs to help you to know what technologies to push (see Figure 3.14). YOUR OWN ORIENTATION ALONG THESE DIMENSIONS Throughout chapters 2 and 3 we have sought to both explain each value dimension and demonstrate how these can describe cultural differences. After recognizing and respecting these differences, we can begin to reconcile them. You can usefully think about your own orientation along these dimensions and how your overseas business partners would score. Then think about where there are differences and ask yourself these questions: “What tensions do these differ- ences produce?” and, thereby, “what dilemmas do I face because of these differences?” You may not be aware of the differences, or maybe you and others have already been able to reconcile them. It is where these differ - ences occur that you will be faced with dilemmas – and these you will have to reconcile. We offer our methodology as the route to the solution. 97 FURTHER VALUE DIMENSIONS CORPORATE CULTURE Corporate culture CHAPTER 4 C ultural factors in business derive not only from differences across national boundaries, but also from those within and between organizations. For many managers, the culture of their organization may dominate over national differences. Consider a young Japanese manager, who typifies Japanese thinking and val - ues, working in Japan for a US company. When he gets promoted to a significant management grade, he travels the world, visiting the HQ in the US frequently. Now he spends his time working and interact - ing with peers, who may be of many different nationalities. It is not their country or nationality differences that dominate, but what they share in terms of the “way things are done in this organization.” Their system of shared meaning is no longer from their countries of birth but from their shared way of working together, from making PowerPoint presentations to colleagues using an in-house style with corporate logos to using their own “corporate language,” from talk- ing in terms of short-term budgets (rather than longer-term Japanese thinking) to e-mail protocols and resource planning systems. The corporate culture of the organization is now the driver. “Man- agement of culture” is now about creating a corporate culture in which people will work together to achieve the organization’s goals, reconciling dilemmas that originate from issues of corporate culture. Of course, this is not free of (national) culture. An organization in one part of the world with a society that ascribes status may choose an organization model that builds initially upon ascription rather than achievement. But what of the global company with a diverse workforce? And what is the link between corporate culture and business? This chapter discusses how one can approach the role and assess - ment of organizational culture. The basic framework is to compare the current corporate culture with some idealized state as a means of 101 eliciting the dilemmas which have to be reconciled. The ideal corpo - rate culture is therefore discussed in the context of business goals and the dilemmas that it provokes. DEFINING CORPORATE CULTURE Organizational culture is an elusive concept, which has been sum - marized by Silvester, Anderson, and Patterson (1999). Definitions include a system of publicly and collectively accepted “meanings,” which operate for a group at a particular time (Trice and Beyer, 1984); a pattern of “basic assumptions” developed as the group or organization learns to cope with its environment (Schein, 1996); and more simply as “the way we do things around here” (Deal and Ken- nedy, 1982). “Yet despite the numerous strategic and culture change programs that have been initiated by organizations in recent years, efforts directed at identifying specific, observable and therefore measurable features of organizational culture have met with far less success. Moreover, the transmission of cultural values also remains a neglected area in organizational psychology and whereas attempts have been made to measure culture at the team level, often called ‘group climate,’ there remains a dearth of research which focuses upon deeper strata of shared culture in work groups” (Silvester, Anderson, and Patterson 1999). The effect of this has been to miti - gate the clarity with which organizational culture, and in particular culture change, is viewed. Only recently have Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars (2000) revealed new generalizable frameworks based on their extensive research data that transcend these lower-order models. THE ROLE OF CORPORATE CULTURE Basic to understanding culture in organizations is that we can define 102 BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES culture as a series of rules and methods, which an organization has evolved to deal with the regular problems that it faces. Organiza - tions face dilemmas in dealing with the tension between the existing set of values and the desired ones – or between partners of a merger or strategic alliance. While cultures differ markedly in how they approach these dilemmas, they do not differ in needing to make some kind of response. They share the destiny to face up to different challenges of existence. Once the leaders have become aware of the problem solving process, they will reconcile dilemmas more effec - tively and will therefore be more successful. It is becoming more frequently recognized that organization devel- opment and business process reengineering have failed too often because they ignored aspects of (corporate) culture. However, sim- ply “adding” the culture component does not suffice. This explains perhaps why culture is very often ignored. Values are not artifacts that can be added. They are continuously created by interactions amongst people and are not “just out there” like rocks. As such, cul- ture is only meaningful in the context in which the members of an organization go about their daily work. CORPORATE CULTURE IN MERGERS, ACQUISITIONS, AND STRATEGIC ALLIANCES Globalization through mergers, acquisitions, and strategic alliances is big business – currently well over US$2,000 billion annually. They are sought after more than ever, not only for the implementation of globalization strategies but as a consequence of political, monetary, and regulatory convergence. Even so, two out of three deals don’t achieve anywhere near the expected benefits that prompted the ven - ture (Trompenaars and Woolliams, 2001). It is common to acquire an organization with less concern for full 103 CORPORATE CULTURE [...]... enable management to appreciate the set of values in use and contrast them with the espoused or desired organizational values 111 BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES The CCAP is designed so that it measures some basic organizational processes ranging from leadership styles, decision making, business models, and the way people work in teams No real organization comprises exactly and completely any one of the extreme... have found with actual clients The tensions from each scenario are generalized from 113 BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES Envisioned future Current organizational culture Implementing new design and define actions Core values Key purpose Leadership competence Ideal organizational culture Reconciliation process Figure 4.2 Business dilemmas Flow of cultural change process real client situations to avoid ethical... vision into rich pictures (both vibrant and engaging), creating an image people can carry around in 115 BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES their heads Once we have attained a level of passion, emotion, and conviction, we are ready to transcend the value side of the equation MAPPING CORPORATE CULTURE TO THE BUSINESS FUTURE All the inputs of the envisioned future – core values and key purpose and between current... highly manipulative and full of intrigue In this political system, the prime logic of vertical differentiation is hierarchical differentiation of power and status Its main characteristics are: 109 BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES • power-orientation • personal relationships • entrepreneurial • affinity/trust • power of person The Eiffel Tower This role-orientated culture is characterized by a high degree of... of four corporate cultures have been based on our Corporate Culture Assessment Profile (CCAP) questionnaire; you can review examples of questions from this CCAP tool on the Culture for Business website (www.cultureforbusiness.com) The CCAP questionnaire has been constantly refined to achieve statistically significant levels of reliability and consistency, and we use this to chart both current and ideal.. .BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES integration simply to purchase its inherent value Increasingly however, motives originate from a range of other expected benefits, including synergistic values (e.g cross-selling,... hidden yet unifying theme which provides meaning, direction, and mobilization and that can exert a decisive influence on the overall ability of the organization to deal with the challenges it faces 105 BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES Just as individuals in a culture can have different personalities while sharing much in common, so too can groups and organizations It is this pattern that is recognized as “corporate... way without some top-down action We might summarize these extremes by saying that on the one hand we need to change the corporate culture to be convergent with our new business mission, while, on the other hand, we need to develop a new business mission that is compatible with our existing corporate culture THE ENVISIONED FUTURE This is what the organization aspires to become, to achieve, to create –... loose and flexible and control takes place through persuasion and mutual concern for the needs and values of other members Its main characteristics are: • person oriented • power of the individual 107 BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES • self-realization • commitment to oneself • professional recognition The Guided Missile This task-oriented culture has a low degree of centralization and a high degree of formalization... manage tensions that owe their origin to issues of corporate culture We often invite our participants to frame the tensions they feel in actual business life and then relate them to the tensions they feel between current and ideal cultures For example, as an actual business tension it is felt that: “Our organization is so much focused on next-quarter results, we don’t have enough time to be creative and . “mak - ing what you can sell.” 94 BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES Figure 3.12 Internal versus external control: percentage selecting “what hap- pens to me is my own doing. ” GENDER DIFFERENCES The locus. given to leader - ship styles, management profiles, organizational structures, working 1 04 BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES practices, and a wide range of perceptions in and of the market place. In short,. tick and what its goals are. 106 BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES People oriented Task oriented Egalitarian Hierarchical Incubator Guided Missile Eiffel Tower Family Figure 4. 1 Four culture types Our model