MGTO 630B Managing People Globally for Competitive Advantage

1. MGTO 630BManaging People Globally for Competitive Advantage Instructor: Dr. Christina Sue-Chan Demonstrator: Michelle To, MPA Introduction: Chapter 3 Saturday, February 15, 2003

2. Groups • Ferodo: Beiske, Ben; Ilmonen, Jack; Kwan, Michael; Lui, Tommy • Black & Decker: Chan, Elma; Cheung, Gordon; Desombre, Jean; Mow, Sammy; NG, Agnes • LG Group: Brunskill, Tamara; Cheung, Jacqueline; Nanton, Jason; Quach, Seav-Eng; Sero Quintana, Euric

3. By the end of today’s class, you should be able to: • Identify selection criteria for expatriates • Know what to do to make an expatriate assignment more effective • Evaluate the impact of cultural differences on global staffing

4. Recall • Duality, institutional, cultural values  end goal is survival of the firm but different prescription for how to achieve that goal • Duality  need the right tension • Institutional  conformity to gain legitimacy • Cultural values  local adaptation

5. Figure 3-1. The Purpose of Expatriation

6. Recruitment Strategies • Ethnocentric • Parent-country nationals (PCN) only • Polycentric • Host-country nationals (HCN) manage own countries; PCNs at HQ • Regiocentric • divide operations into geographical regions; transfer staff within these regions • Geocentric • ID best people for key jobs, regardless of nationality

7. What are the selection criteria to be used for choosing expats? • Europa construction exercise

8. Guidelines • Don’t assume that a job requires the same skills from one location to another • Don’t underestimate the effect of local culture and physical environment

9. Key Issues In Expatriate Staffing • Legal Constraints, Government Regulation of personnel selection • Job Requirements • Personality, Skills, Attitudes, Motivation

10. Selection Criteria • Personality Characteristics • Perseverance & Patience • for when everything falls apart • Initiative • no one will be there to indicate what to try next • Flexibility • to accept and try new ways

11. Technical Skills • Communication - home and host-country language, verbal, nonverbal, written • Stress management – to overcome “culture shock” • Interpersonal Skills - concern for other members of a group, tolerance for ambiguity, respect, nonjudgmental

12. What are some of the things that can go wrong on an expatriate assignment? • Fred Bailey mini-case

13. Cultureis something that: • Distinguishes one group from another, not only national, but also regional, organizational, professional, even gender cultures • You learn through socialization • Is relatively stable

14. Understanding Cultural Differences: Cultural Dimensions • Tight cultures versus loose cultures (Triandis, 1989, 1994) • The extent to which members of a certain culture share the same values and norms • Hofstede’s dimensions (1980): power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, masculinity and long-term orientation

15. Understanding Cultural Differences: Communication Style • Implicit versus explicit language (Rosch & Segler, 1987) • Implicit language instills messages with positive tone to decrease chances of unpleasant encounters and direct confrontation (Gibson, 1997) • Explicit language communicates directly what it means, even if resulting message is negative or harsh • People from collective cultures tend to adopt an implicit language (e.g. China, Japan, Brazil)

16. Culture Impact of Nature of Constructs: Communication • Delivering negative information honesty and openly • Important for effective performance in individualist cultures where explicit and direct communication is encourage. • Inappropriate in collectivist cultures where implicit and vague language is used in order to avoid unpleasant situations and preserve group harmony

17. Understanding Cultural Differences: Cognitive Style • Low versus high-context cognitive style (Hall & Hall, 1987; Witkin & Berry, 1975) • High-context: perceptual tendency to focus on the context in which the event, object, or experience is embedded • Low-context: tendency to organize conceptual field into discrete parts and to the abstract from the context and generalize to other settings

18. Cognitive Style and Culture • Societies that encourage social conformity and socio-cultural stratification also tend to nurture high-context (e.g. China, Japan, Indonesia) • Societies that encourage self-reliance and self-control tend to nurture low-context (e.g; Switzerland, Germany, US)

19. Interviews: Culture and Cognitive Style • Instructions and questions need to accommodate the culture’s preferred cognitive style • In individualist cultures, instructions and questions can be direct and abstract • In collectivist cultures, instructions and questions need to be embedded in context relevant to the participants (use examples representative of local reality)

20. Figure 3-4. Human Resource Practices That Support Effective Expatriation

21. References Berry, J. W. (1969). On cross-cultural comparability. International Journal of Psychology, 4, 119-128. Erez., M. & Early, P. C. (1993). Culture, self identity, and work. New York: Oxford University Press. Gelfand J. M., Holcombe, K. M., & Raver J. L. (2001). Methodological issues in cross- Cultural organizational research. In Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Research Methods.   Gelfand J. M., Fitzgerald, L. F., & Drasgow, F. (1995). Theory and measurement of sexual harassment: A confirmatory analysis across cultures and settings. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 47(2), 164-177. London: Erlbaum. Gibson, C. B. (1997). Do you hear what I hear? A framework for reconciling intercultural communication difficulties arising from cognitive style and cultural values. In P. C. Early, & M. Erez (Eds.) New perspectives on international industrial/organizational psychology. San Francisco, CA: The new Lexington Press. Hall, E. T., & Hall, M. R. (1987). Hidden differences: Doing business with the Japanese. New York: Doubleday.

22. References, Cont’d Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work related values. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. London: McGraw Hill. Hough, L. M., & Oswald, F. L. (2000). Personnel selection: Looking toward the future -Remembering the past. Annual Review of Psychology, 51, pp. 631-664.  McGrath, J.E. (1982). Dilemmatics: The study of research choices and dilemmas. In J.E. McGrath J. Martin, and R.A. Kulka (Eds.) Judgment Calls in Research. 69-102. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.   Obake, R. (1983). Cultural assumptions of East and West: Japan and the United States. In W. B. GudyKunst (Ed.), Intercultural communication theory (pp. 123-145). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Rosch, M., & Segler, K. G. (1987). Communication with the Japanese. Management International Review, 27(4), 56-67. Ryan, A. M., McFarland, L., Baron, H., & Page, R. (1999). An international look at selection Practices: Nation and culture as explanations for variability in practice. Personnel Psychology, 52, pp. 359-391.

23. References, Cont’d Shweder, R. A., & LeVine, R. A. (1984). Culture theory: Essays on mind, self andemotion. New York: Cambridge University Press. Triandis, H. C. (1983). Essentials of studying cultures. New York: Pergamon Press. Triandis, H. C. (1989). The self and social behavior in different contexts. Psychological Review, 96, 506-520. Triandis, H. C. (1994). Cross cultural industrial and organizational psychology. In H. C. Triandis, M. D. Dunnette, & L. M. Hough (Eds.) Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (2nd ed., vol. 4, pp. 103-172). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press. Ueda, K. (1974). Sixteen ways to avoid saying “no” in Japan. In J. C. Condon, & M. Sato (Eds.) Intercultural encounters with Japan (pp. 185-192). Tokyo: Simul Press. Witkin, H. A., & Berry, J. W. (1975). Psychological differentiation in cross cultural perspective. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 6, 4-87.