The Interaction between Organisational Culture and National Culture

1. The Interaction between Organisational Culture and National Culture Organisational and Professional Cultures and Diplomacy. Malta, 13-15 February 2004 Marie-Thérèse Claes ICHEC Brussels Business School UCL University of Louvain marietherese.claes@ichec.be

2. Overview of the presentation • The multiple spheres of culture • Globalisation: a controversial concept • Globalisation and the intercultural challenge at organisational level • Three new concepts in organisational culture • The future direction of ICC

3. Changing global environment(Kurbalija) • Globalisation • Information Technology • Knowledge Society • Learning Society • Transnational management • ICC no longer seen as management of cultural differences in the popular sense

4. Conceptual shift in ICC • The need for ‘a conceptual shift from a hierarchical perspective of cultural influence, compromise and adaptation to one of collaborative cross-cultural learning ’ (Bartholomew and Adler, 1996)

5. Why this conceptual shift? • The anthropological conception of culture in terms of national culture does not take into account that national culture is not easily distentangled from organisational and professional culture

6. Why this conceptual shift? • Intercultural training uses a narrow concept of culture and cultural difference, and doesn’t handle the interplay of the different forms of culture • Intercultural training focuses on behavioural (communication) skills, especially negotiation • ‘culture shock prevention industry’

7. Multiple Spheres of Cultureor ‘interfaces’ (Saner) National/regional Professional Functional Industry Company

8. National Cultures(Hofstede) • Country clusters: • Anglo • Germanic • Nordic • Latin European • Latin America • Arab • ...

9. Regional Cultures • Geography: east-west, north-south • History: Québec • Political and economic forces • Climate • Religion • Language

10. Industry Cultures • Banking vs high-tech: • dress codes, behaviour, innovation, interaction • Sources of competitive advantage • financial, human, intellectual • Rates of technology change • Nature of product/ market: • protect patents vs standardise • Regulation & state intervention (subsidies)

11. Nature of decision -making: degree of risk vs speed of feedback (payoff) Differences in Industry Cultures bond trading biotechnology high degree of risk retailing Accountingconsultants low high low speed of feedback

12. Industry Culture and National Culture • USA = entertainment industry (music, film) • Japan = hardware

13. Professional Culture • Education: generalists vs specialists • Appropriate training • Selection: ‘right’ schools • Socialisation: proper behaviour American MBAs British accountants German engineers French cadres

14. Professional cultures and Diversity • ‘Professional cultures create a kind of thinking’ (Tanovic) • Diversity: attract and value people with diverse educational, professional, cultural backgrounds. • Difference (diverse groups) as a resource to tap into (Saner, Kurbalija)

15. Functional Cultures • Nature of task: production / finance • External environment: stakeholder demands • Time horizon: strategic requirements change • 1950s: production line managers • 1960s: financial executives • 1970s: legal experts • 1990s: entrepreneurs • 2000: MNC, corporate diplomats, good governance

16. Functional and national culture • Which functions are valued: • Finance: # 1 in Britain, # 5 in Germany • The Netherlands: sales • France: marketing • Germany: R&D (bottom in Britain)

17. Corporate Culture • Values and beliefs of the founder • Anita Roddick and Body Shop • Strong leaders: Percy Barnevik and ABB • Administrative heritage • Ford: vertical integration, centralised control • General Motors: mergers, diversification • Nature of product/ industry: • telecommunication vs cosmetics • Stage of development: organic vs structured

18. Corporate and National Culture • LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy):French refinement and elegance • IKEA: low-cost, home-assembly, unfussy:Scandinavian egalitarian and pragmatic values • BMW, Audi: German engineering • Tokyo Disneyland: Japanese drive towards perfection (courtesy, efficiency, cleanliness…)

19. Globalisation: a very controversial concept • civilisation-friendly sense of connectedness (thanks to TV, IT, tourism, etc) • Western (American) economic hegemony over the rest of mankind

20. Globalisation in practice • Worldwide intensification of competition rather than globalisation of markets • IT-supported world-wide quest for resources (networking) • Resources: human capital, technical know-how, physical assets, access to mandarins anywhere

21. Globalisation: five key management tasks • Providing services to create stakeholder value • Developing a learning support structure • Monitoring and controlling • Realising multicultural synergies • Allocating resources: especially into networks

22. Globalisation at the organisational level Key competencies at the organisational level: • developing pathways to resources: networking • mediatingknowledge from anywhere • developing organisational learning

23. Global manager: new concepts of operational functions • Champion of international strategy • Cross-border coach and mediator • Intercultural mediator and change agent (Barham and Heimer, 1998)

24. Global management: ‘new’ dispositions • Handling cognitive complexity • Emotional energy • Psychological maturity • Applying intelligence and tact (based on: Barham and Heimer, 1998)

25. Communicative tasks in the global economy • A relationship- supporting activity(intra- and interorganisational bonding processes) involving: • Multi- task exchange process • Intercultural knowledge sharing, networking and collaborative learning.

26. Intercultural communication • Far more than ‘effective communication’ across linguistic and cultural boundaries • A form of knowledge for identifying and restricting the undesirable effects of noise • A form of cross- cultural networking behaviour for creating productive interpersonal exchanges of ideas and experience (Holden, 2001)

27. International Negotiation • Conceived mainly in terms of ’language’ use in discrete episodes, less so in terms of recurrent encounters which underpin relationship management, interactive networking and organisational learning processes. • An intercultural blunder of less importance than common goal: ‘both of us tried to help our team win’ (Nicolae)

28. Four crucial points about international communication • 1. Connectivity is more important than what is communicated • 2. Communication activities are future-oriented, goal- related (personal, professional and organisational), and increasingly electronically mediated

29. Four crucial points about international communication • 3. Communication activities involve continuous acts of translation and negotiation • 4. More nationalities, cultures and languages are in articulate communication now than ever before in human history: mainly to link organisations together.

30. The role of intercultural communication • Intercultural communication facilitates collective acts of knowledge sharing, group learning and networking • It is concerned with reducing noise • It appears to inform acts of translation and negotiation about contextual meaning and future arrangements

31. Three new concepts in organisational culture • Participative competence • Interactive translation • Atmosphere (Holden, 2001)

32. Participative competence • Adeptness in cross- cultural communication in multicultural activities • Ability to contribute equitably to common tasks • Ability to share knowledge and experiences and stimulate group learning .

33. Interactive translation • A form of cross- cultural work, in which participants negotiate common meanings and common understandings and learn how to be able to work in multicultural teams

34. Why translation and negotiation? • Two kinds of translation activity are taking place: • a cognitive, literal process as a personal experience and a personal and shared experience of interpreting situations • joint translation/ interpretation process about future cooperationand today’s crisis

35. Atmosphere • Pervasive feeling, based on past experience and in anticipation of future activity • An outcome and determinant of participative competence and interactive translation

36. The important point about theseconcepts • They identify more with organisational processes than with ’culture’ • They are not prescriptive • They see culture as dynamic, not static or deterministic • They do not contradict traditional notions of intercultural communication, but extend them

37. The future direction of ICC • Global networks can inflict on mankind new forms of alienation (non-recognition, Baldi) • Future of ICC studies lies in the study of the global interactive networks

38. The future direction of ICC • Be conscious of the power and unpredictability of the ‘non-globalised economy’, ie the non-Western world, and the sharp sense of real or percieved injustices in the access to, control and use of the world’s resources

39. References • Barham, K. and Heimer, C. (1998). ABB The dancing giant. London: Financial Times/Pitman • Bartholomew, S. and Adler, N. (1996). Building networks and crossing borders: the dynamics of knowledge generation in a transnational world. In: Joynt, P. and Warner, M. (eds). Managing across cultures: Issues and perspectives. London: International Thomson. • Ghoshal, S. and Bartlett, C. (1998). Managing across borders. London: Random House • Holden, N. J. (2002). Cross- cultural management: A knowledge management perspective. Harlow, UK: Financial Times/ Prentice Hall • Schneider, S. and Barsoux, J-L. (2003). Managing across Cultures. Financial Times/PrenticeHall.