International Organizational Behavior and Cross-Cultural Management

• Examples of company's approaches to cross-cultural management from lecture (e.g., Walmart)

- Walmart- China

o   Everything (signs) were in English and chines to attract chines people who wanted learn English

o   Walmart built in city centers(because people don't drive as much), multilevel building

o   Offered fresh food

o   Making strong connection with community

o   Air conditioning, playground, book reading for children

• Define ethnocentrism and its impact on business (e.g., staffing, personnel issues, turnover); What areexamples of ethnocentrism?

- Ethnocentrism- belief that one's native country, culture, language, and moods of behavior are superior to all others.

o   Bad for business- survey found ethnocentric staffing and human resource policies to be associated increased. Personal problems, recreating difficulties, high turnover rates law suits over personal policies.

-  Ex. When someone regularly compares other group to their own and assume that best idea come from their own culture. 

• Describe the different cultural dimensions that were identified from the GLOBE studies and Hofstede'sresearch (e.g., low/high context, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, etc.) and their impact onorganizations. How does an understanding of Hofstede and Globe cultural dimensions help managers and employees working cross-culturally?

- Low-context- meaning is derived from written and spoken words. .(add more)

- High-context- primary meaning derived from non-verbal situation cues.(add more)

o   Certainty Avoidance- low risk takers

o   Low certainty avoidance- high risk takers

- Individualism- "I" and "me" cultures. Priority given to individual freedom and choice. Ex countries: US, Australia, Israel, Nigeria, Sweden, Germany, etc...

-  Collectivism: "we" and "us" cultures. Rank shared goals higher than individual desires and goals- subordinate their own goals for social unit.

-  Masculinity- Femininity- Does the culture embrace stereotypically competitive, masculine traits or nurturing feminine traits (money oriented of feminine caring about one another.

o   EX. Of masculine county: US, Japan, Germany.

o   Ex. Of Feminine: France, Denmark, Netherlands, Russia.

- Power Distance- How much do people expect inequality in social institution.

o   Lower power distance- expect power distribution uniformly

o   High power distance accept power distribution unequally in organizations

- Global culture dimension

o   Power distance- How equally should power be distributed

o   Uncertainty avoidance- how much should social norms and rules reduce uncertainty and unpredictability.

o    Institutional collectivism- how much should loyalty to the social unit override individual interest.

o   In- group collectivism: level of loyalty to family/organization

o   Gender equalitarianism- How much discrimination and role inequalities be minimized.

o   Assertiveness- Level of confrontational one should be in social relationship.

o   Future orientation- how much should one delay gratification by planning and saving for future.

o   Performance orientation- how much should one be rewarded for improvement and excellence.

o   Human orientation- how much one should be rewarded for being fair, friendly and kind.

- Dimensions help managers and employee work cross-culturally because they know/understand each other's views and differences. It minimizes misunderstanding between workers.

* What conclusions can we make from the work of Hofstede and the Globe studies on managing acrosscultures? How might the cultural dimensions that have been researched by Hofstede and others be used tohelp reduce ethnocentrism?

- It can greatly reduce ethnocentrism because, employees understand each other's differences and adapt to each other's work styles. They realize that the other person from a different culture is just as productive as they are, but they differ in working styles. Emphasis on different things due to different in culture.

* Describe the differences between polychronic and monochronic cultures

- Polychromic- Preference doing more than one thing at a time because, time is flexible and multidimensional.

- Monochromic- Doing one thing at a time- time is limited precisely, segmented-Schedule Driven

*Campari and contrast ethnocentrism and cultural intelligence. 

- Ethnocentrism is the belief that one's native country, language and modes of behavior are superior to all others.

- Cultural intelligence- the ability to interpret ambiguous cross- cultural situation accurately

o Recognize different values and practices

o Understanding the meaning of others action

o Perspective on one's own way.