Group Homework (30/3/2022): According to the theories of Cultural norms, cultural

diversity, and relative cultural distance (Slide 15-Topic 4), you need to find some
cases/examples to analyze the impacts of culture on workgroups.

1. Cultural norms:
● Speaking Native Language at Work: In a scenario where all existing team
members are Chinese, speaking Chinese at work is a norm. However, two
Indian coworkers who recently joined the team might find this disrespectful.
Although both the new coworkers and existing team members are Singaporean,
this preference for Chinese speaking is indicative of Chinese culture and not
Singaporean culture. Thus, instead of communicating in English, the mostly
used language, Chinese, causes a factional division between the Chinese and
the Indian teammates.
● Punctuality: For the Japanese, punctuality is commonly expected in various
fields such as daily life, business meetings, and railway service. Since
punctuality is that dominant amongst the Japanese, any new individuals
wishing to work in a Japanese-themed environment would have to adjust
themselves accordingly, including punctuality. If they fail to adjust themselves
to be perfectly punctual, it is likely that they would be eliminated from their
 organization after some time because an organization’s dominant culture
determines its norms.

2. Cultural diversity:
● Cultural diversity leads to process losses through task conflict and
decreased social integration when groups act face-to-face. For example,
groups have the ability to ignore an expert on a subject and democratize
decisions. If the majority feel one way, they may reach a decision regarding a
subject about which they have no expertise, thus, performance efficiency is
affected.
● Groups with high or low cultural diversity have been found to perform
better than those with moderate amounts of diversity. In case of high
diversity, members of a group appreciate and value the diverse cultures that
each individual within the team has, therefore, innovation is an edge of this
team’s performance. On the other extreme, members of a low-diversified group
tend to work well in harmony, thus, creating a sense of security and satisfaction
among workers, so they can be more creative and effective at their job. Lying
between the two extremes, a moderate level of diversification would cause
office factions to exist in the workplace, thus, preventing every member of an
organization from effectively working with each other.

3.Relative Cultural distance:

● National cultural distance: National cultural distance can be defined as the
extent to which the shared norms and values in one country differ from those in
another. Ethnic, racial, national backgrounds, and religious affiliation have a
significant impact on workplace norms. An example of this is communication
behavior in India - the culture of shaking your head when communicating. In
India, shaking the head (which is the opposite of nodding) does not represent
disapproval or negativity like in other cultures. In fact, the act of shaking the
head is an expression of enthusiastic interest or respectful listening to the other
person. While for most other countries, a shake of the head will indicate
 disagreement with that opinion. If we do not know about this cultural
difference in the first place, we will mistake that the Indian partner does not
agree with our ideas in the discussions and takes time to convince and explain
to them, creating an ineffective dialogue.
● Generational cultural distance: People’s outlook and values tend to vary
based on their generation. Baby Boomers tend to be loyal to an employer and
expect to have a long-term career at a single workplace. Millennials highly
value work-life balance and seek consistent opportunities for growth, even if
that means moving on to another company, project or position. While no longer
considered to be polar opposites, individualists (Millennials) and collectivists
(Baby Boomers) are known to miscommunicate and conflict with one another.
Therefore, these differences may be a leading cause of the divide between
Millennials and their older coworkers, particularly when a Millennial worker is
not understood by a Baby Boomer manager which leads to inefficient
exploitation of this young-generation worker’s abilities, thus, lower workgroup
performance.
● Educational cultural distance: Education level can be a part of someone’s
background that affects how they fit into a workplace environment. People with
different educational experiences have different types of cultural capital that
they use to solve problems and approach situations in the workplace. Because
many employers hire for positions based on education or equivalent work
experience, this can result in people implementing different methodologies
based on their own educational background. Thus, a coworker who graduated
from a highly privileged university might look down on a coworker with a
vocational degree. Even though the male coworker who graduated with a
vocational certificate is highly skilled at work, a university-degree employee
would criticize his coworker’s method to solve a problem when the two are
assigned to work together. Such prejudice causes division between the two
teammates, time-consuming and inefficient use of both parties’ resources and
capabilities, leading to erosion in team performance. Another example
indicative of the opposite outcome, in 2022, the Korean government has
stepped up efforts to attract more foreign nationals with higher education,
including changing the visa system for foreigners who have completed a
master's or doctoral program in Korea. They guarantee the status of residence
for these people during their job search here. Korea does not care about the
hometown of the workers, but what they are most interested in is their working
level, education, and what the workers can do for the business. Highly educated
employees are highly respected in Korea even though they are young. Older
professionals will also still listen to and respect carefully-selected employees
with higher degrees than them. Therefore, in this case, differences in education
support a workgroup’s performance.