11 International Organizational Behaviour

Dr. Harpreet Singh Chahal

1. Learning Outcome

2. Introduction

3. Impact of Culture on International Organizational Behaviour

4. Communication in an International Organizational Behaviour

5. Motivation across Culture

6. Managerial Leadership across Cultures

7. Summary

1. Learning Outcome:

After completing this module the students will be able to:
Understand the impact of Culture on International Organizational Behaviour. Describe the problems in communication between the different cultures.
Understand the difference in motivational cues and managerial Leadership across Cultures.

2. Introduction:

In the recent years, International Organizational Behaviour becoming more important as the businesses is operating across borders. There is a significant difference in the thinking and behaviour of the people between the countries. Management styles, leadership styles differ significantly between European, Japanese, and Chinese from U.S countries. It is important to understand cultural differences and how cultures vary and people behaves within these cultures. This module discusses the familiar concepts like communication, motivation and leadership but in an international context.

3. Impact of Culture on International Organizational Behaviour:

Culture refers to the acquired knowledge used by the people to interpret a specific situation and generate a social behaviour according to it. It is difficult for an individual to adjust in a different cultural background where the values and beliefs of the people are different. People interact and communicate with others according to their cultural values.

The chance of failure during a foreign assignment (expatriate) is more to U.S business houses in comparison to European or Japanese companies because the culture of the U.S countries are more dominating than of Eastern countries.

3.1 Dimensions of Culture:

Self Image: In some countries, people are treated as honest and trustworthy whereas in other countries, people are viewed as distrust and suspicion. When people travel outside their home country, they carry their values with them. People get surprised by the way they are treated by the people of foreign countries.

Relationship with World: In some societies, people try to dominate their surrounding while in other; people try to build harmony with their environment. For instance, people form United States and Canada attempt to dominate their environment while Asian countries work in harmony with their environment. Asian people plant crops in according to environmental conditions.

Individualism versus Collectivism: Some countries of the world have cultural values that encourage individualism. The United States, Great Britain, and Canada are the countries where culture promotes individualism. In other countries, like Japan, China and Israel promote collectivism and emphasize on group harmony, unity, commitment and loyalty. These differences affect the hiring practices. In countries where individualism is important, job applicants are evaluated on the basis of personal, educational and professional achievements. In collectivism supporting societies, applicants are evaluated on the basis of trustworthiness, loyalty and compatibility with coworkers. The employees tend to show high level of commitment toward their organization.

Time Dimension: Some societies are more oriented toward the past while others are more focused on the present. In United States and Canada, people are more concerned with present and the near future. European people give more importance to past in comparison to North Americans. The Japanese firms have a long-term future orientation and when they hire employees, they often retain them for life time.

Public and Private space: In some of the countries, culture promotes the use of public space while in others private space is favored. For instance, people in North America prefer private space. If a manager is more restricted or confined then the individual is considered as more important. People coming to meet the manager has to go to the secretary first then to the manager. On contrary, in Japan bosses usually sit together with their employees in the same room. These cultures are more public oriented.

3.1a) Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions:

According to Hofstede, there are four major cultural dimensions:

Individualism/Collectivism: Individualism is the tendency to take care of oneself and one’s immediate family. Collectivism is characterized by a tight social framework in which people distinguish between their own group and other groups.

Power Distance: In OB, Power distance is the extent to which employees accept that their boss has more power than they do. Power distance is the degree of acceptance by the less powerful members of the organisation toward the unequal distribution of power.

Uncertainty Avoidance: Uncertainty avoidance is the degree to which people try to avoid ambiguous situations and extent to which people feel threatened by vague situations. It can be avoided by

a) Enhancing job stability

b) Establishing more formal rules

c) Avoiding deviant ideas and behaviours

d) Attainment of expertise in a particular area.

Masculinity/femininity: Masculinity refers to the degree of importance; people give to assertiveness, acquisition of money and other materialistic things. Femininity refers to the degree of to importance, people give to relationship among people, concern for others, and interest in quality of work life.

3.1b) Trompenaars’s Cultural dimensions:

Trompenaar’s model is used to understand people from different countries and cultural backgrounds. It helps in reducing misunderstandings between the people of different cultures. Trompenaars’s Cultural dimension is useful in doing business with people of different cultures. There are seven dimensions of culture and they are:

Fons Trompenaars’ Seven Dimensions of Culture

Universalism vs. Particularism: This dimension is used to measure relationships. Universalist societies used to follow general rules and regulations. These people tend to follow the rules in all the situation and try to find the single best way of dealing with all cases. People assume that the standards followed by them are the correct standards and try to change the attitudes of others. In Particularistic societies, people give more importance to that particular circumstance than rules. Response of the people to a situation may vary according to the circumstances and the people involved.

Individualism vs. Communitarianism: This dimension is about the conflict between desire of an individual and the interests of the group which they belong. People in an Individualistic culture, take their own decisions and try to satisfy their own needs. In such societies, the quality of life is based on personal freedom and individual development. The decisions taken by the people are often on the spot and without prior consultation from others. While in communitarian society, people be a part of a group which provide them help and protection. People show a strong sense of loyalty toward the group from which they belong. People believe that the quality of life of individuals improve when take care of each other. People give more importance to community and people are mainly oriented towards common goals and objectives. Decisions are based on consensus. Individualism is very much evident in modern society, whereas Communitarianism is a part of traditional societies. But exceptions are always there, even some modern societies such as Japan which has a strong communitarian orientation.

Specific vs. Diffuse: This dimension concerned with the view of people toward life and the degree of involvement in relationships. In specifically-oriented cultures, people analyze elements separately, then put them back together again. In contrast, people from diffusely-oriented cultures see each element in the perspective of the complete picture. They consider that all elements are related to each other. On the relationship level, specifically-oriented individuals affecting single levels of personality and engage others in specific areas of life. Diffusely-oriented individuals affecting various levels of personality at the same time and engage others in multiple areas of life. In such societies, every life space and level of personality tends to be interwoven.

Neutral vs. Emotional: Neutral vs emotional focus on the degree to which people express their emotions, and the interplay between reason and emotion in human relationships. Every culture has strong norms about how easily emotions should be revealed. In culture high on affectivity, people freely express their emotions. In a neutrally-oriented culture, people are taught that it is incorrect to overtly show feelings. In such a culture, it is accepted to show one’s feelings spontaneously.

Achievement vs. Ascription: This dimension is concerned with assignment of personal status of the people in a society. In some of the societies, people drive their personal status on the basis of their performance, whereas in other societies status is based on gender, age, social standing, education, and so on. When the status is based on what the individual does then is called Achieved status while ascribed status based on what they are.

Sequential time vs. Synchronous time: The time dimension has two parts, the relative importance cultures gives to the past/present/future, and their approach to structuring time. If a culture is past oriented, then future is considered as a repetition of past experiences. In a culture focused more towards the present, daily experiences are likely to direct lives of people. In a future-oriented culture, most human activities are directed toward future prospects. In such cultures, the past is not considered to be much significant to the future.

People who structure time sequentially view time as a series of passing events. They tend to do one things at a time, and prefer planning and keeping to plans once they have been made. Time commitments are taken seriously and staying on schedule is a must. People structuring time synchronically view past, present, and future as being interrelated. They usually do several things at once. Time commitments are desirable but are not absolute and plans are easily changed.

Internal directed vs. Outer directed: This dimension is related with the importance people give to their environment. Internal directed people take the responsibilities of their deeds and view themselves for determining the right action. While in outer directed people try to match their actions with actions of others. This is also called “organic” view and people give more importance to their surrounding instead of themselves.

4. Communication in an International Organizational Behaviour:

Effective communication is a difficult task to perform even within a country between the people of same culture but it become more complex and difficult when employees communicate in different languages and are from heterogeneous cultural background. For instance; Japanese managers hardly encounter a situation of a direct ‘No’ on another request.

4.1 Communication problems across Cultures:

Perceptual Problems: Perception affects the way people see and interpret the reality related to a given thing or situation.

Stereotyping Problems: Stereotyping is a phenomenon where it is perceived that a particular person belongs to a particular class. Stereotyping ignores individual differences within a culture. It is a kind of communication barrier. It is used to develop an overall profile of other people.

Ethnocentric Problems: The sense of superiority that lies in the mind of the members of a particular culture and is known as Ethnocentrism. For instance; people from U.S countries believes that they are best in all the areas. All cultures promote ethnocentrism and it leads to communication problems when people of different cultures interact with each other.

4.2 Improving Communication effectiveness across Cultures:

Source: Slideshare

It is important to learn the culture of foreign country before visiting there. Some of the firms use the techniques of ‘Cultural assimilator’ to make the participants able to deal with situations that they are likely to face in the foreign countries. In this technique, participants are asked to read about a particular situation and then they have to choose a language and action to deal with it. The right answer related to that particular situation is explained to the participants.

The employees are provided with the study materials related to social structure, religion, values, language and history. It is known as ‘Complementary Approach’. It helps the participants to develop an understanding of a culture of foreign country where they are about to visit. For instance; in Japan, if a foreign lawyer expatriate often mention that she had done her graduation from a reputed university and discuss the important cases she had worked on then it will help her to build status and effective in giving immediate respect.

The expatriates are trained in pro-social behaviour of a specific culture. Pro-social behaviour includes introducing, thanking or apologizing to someone or asking for a favour. It is known as ‘Skill Streaming’.

5. Motivation across Culture:

The frameworks of motivational theories work across all the cultures. The people of all the cultures have a hierarchy of needs (Maslow), factors that prevent dissatisfaction and lead to motivation (Herzberg), and a level of achievement motivation (McClelland). But the content and application of these theories vary across the cultures. It means all cultures have a hierarchy of needs but the ordering of these needs may differ from culture to culture.

5.1 Motivational difference across Cultures:

Religion: The difference in religious values has direct and sometimes indirect impact on the motivational levels of its followers. For instance; in the Hindu religion followed in India, it is believed that events happens by their own so one should let the things happen whereas in North America, people follow the religion to control the events. Some religion promotes collectivism while other believes that individualism is important for getting the capabilities to help others. These religious values affect the working style and ultimately the growth of the economy.

Uncertainty: The motivational differences are influences by cultural consideration related to ambiguity and uncertainty. If the cultural values of an employee support him to live in uncertainty then he will be switching the jobs frequently and least bothered with the security of the job. While the people having high uncertainty avoidance will prefer to specialize, avoid conflicts, interact with the people around to understand the current scenario of the company.

Power distance: The motivational difference is affected by the power distance that is whether the people of country accept the fact that others are more powerful from them or not. It is observed that the people from U.S, Britain, and Canada have trouble in accepting the fact that others are having more power than them. So the empowerment programmes are more successful in these countries.

6. Managerial Leadership across Cultures:

Leadership is process of influencing others to direct their efforts toward the fulfillment of particular goals. Due to globalization, the understanding of difference in the leadership styles of different countries become more important. Leadership is concerned with the managerial activities and style. The leadership styles remains the same across the culture but the approaches and applications of it may differ from culture to culture. The factors leads to difference in the leadership styles are;

Personal value: The personal values of managers help them to shape their perception toward a situation and influence the process of finding solution to a particular problem and have an effect of decision making abilities. The personal values of employees affect the working of managers. Personal values affect the acceptance level of authority, power distance, loyalty and commitment of the employees. These personal values of both managers as well as subordinates vary from culture to culture. For instance; the person from individualistic culture is likely to follow the leadership style which is more driven by the self-interest and take personal responsibility whereas collectivistic leaders are more team oriented and take joint responsibility.

Managers’ Backgrounds: Managers’ background influence the way they led their subordinates. In U.S managers come from all economic backgrounds and colleges. They all have equal chances of promotion whereas in Japan, the person from prestigious school has a higher chance of becoming top manager of a company. The family background also makes difference. In U.S mangers come from all the classes while in Poland, business leaders are from middle-class and in Turkey, most of them are from upper-class. The family upbringing and values also affects the leadership style. In India, it is common to accept the authority of elders. The leadership style is more directive and little delegation of authority. On the contrary, the people from liberal family backgrounds are more likely to take decision in participatory manner and delegate the authority.

Interpersonal skills: An effective leader must be aware and sensitive to the gestures and behaviour while dealing with the people of other countries. The mangers differ significantly across the cultures in relation to their interpersonal skills. Spanish managers are more concerned with the welfare of their subordinates while Germans and French are less willing to do such things. The managers in India find themselves more dependent on higher positional level while Germans find themselves more independent. It is important to deal with the issues of local employees well on time by the expatriate managers.

Trans-nationally competent managers: It is observed that the traditional leadership styles are not really effective at the international level. Managers are required to learn some of the transnational skills to survive in the global economy. The manager needs to understand the cultural, communication, motivational and leadership differences between the different countries. The transnationally competent managers must have the following;

a) The perspective of managers should be global while understanding the business worldwide.

b) Managers should learn foreign cultures, technologies, trends, approaches to conduct business.

c) Managers should be competent in dealing with people of different cultures.

d) Managers should be able to adapt in the cultures of other countries and also need frequent visit to the different countries.

e) Managers should daily interaction with foreign colleagues and clients.

Summary:

In the recent years, International Organizational Behaviour becoming more important as the businesses is operating across borders. There is a significant difference in the thinking and behaviour of the people between the countries. It is difficult for an individual to adjust in a different cultural background where the values and beliefs of the people are different. The dimensions of culture lead to differences in the organizational behaviour of the employees. People interact and communicate with others according to their cultural values. It becomes more complex and difficult for the employees to communicate in different languages and when they are from heterogeneous cultural background. Perception, stereotyping and ethnocentrism affects the communication between different cultures. The frameworks of motivational theories work across all the cultures. But the content and application of these theories vary across the cultures. Due to globalization, the understanding of difference in the leadership styles of different countries become more important. It is important to learn the culture of foreign country before visiting there. The employees are provided with the study materials related to social structure, religion, values, language and history. The perspective of managers should be global while understanding the business worldwide. Managers should learn foreign cultures, technologies, trends, approaches to conduct business.

Learn More:

1. Stephen Robins (2012). Organizational Behavior. New Delhi-110092: Prentice Hall publications.

2. Aswathappa, K. (2003). Organisational Behaviour. Himalaya Publishing House.

3. Nair, S. R. (2010). Organisational Behaviour (text & Cases). Himalaya Publishing House.

4. Prasad, L. M. (2014). Organizational Behaviour. Sultan Chand & Sons.

5. Greenberg, J. (2003). Organizational Behavior: The State of the Science. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

6. Miner, J. B. (2002). Organizational Behavior: Foundations, Theories, and Analyses. Oxford University Press.

7. Pareek, U. (2014), Understanding Organisational Behaviour, Oxford University Press (Revised and Updated by Sushama Khanna)

8. http://www.bput.ac.in/lecture_notes/ob.pdf

9. Ivancevich, J.M., Konopaske, R. and Matteson, M. (2012), Organisational Behaviour and Management, Mc Graw Hill.

10. Moshal, B.S. (2015), Organisational Behaviour, Anne Books.

11. Prasad, L.M. (2007), Principles and Practice of Management, Sultan Chand & Sons

12. Aswathappa, K. (2011), International Human Resource Management, Tata McGraw Hill.