Cultural Traps in the Employee Satisfaction Survey:

Cross-Culture Conflicts in Multi-national Enterprises

Wenping SU, Chang LIU & Lin MA
(The School of Economics and Management, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China)

Abstract: With the development of economic globalization, more and more companies are trying
to seek partnerships worldwide. Management of these international companies tend to be
influenced much by cultural differences, and inappropriate management of cultural differences can
often result in cultural conflicts, and even affect regular operation of the company. This case study
focuses on the cultural conflicts the L&OD manager of an international jointer venture
encountered in conducting the global employee satisfaction survey. The problems confronted by
international human resources management in face of cultural differences are listed, and the
corresponding solutions are discussed to provide some guidance for similar enterprises.

Key Words：cultural difference, cross-cultural conflict, conflict management, global human

resources management

0 Introduction

It was already 12 o’clock midnight on Friday, October 18, 2013. Serena was the only person
left in the office area, and she was still staring at the computer screen, not noticing at all that it
was already midnight. The result of the 2013 Global Employee Satisfaction Survey came out at
last, and Serena could not wait to see the report. She carefully looked through each of the data: the
global average increased by 2 points compared with that of last year, and was better than the
industry average. She analyzed the data, with a satisfactory smile on her face.

However, when seeing the results of the satisfaction survey between regions, she gasped,
because Japanese employees’ satisfaction was significantly lower than the global average and
lagged behind others in every factor. In contrast, Chinese employees’ satisfaction was significantly
higher than the global average. And Swedish employees’ satisfaction is very close to the global
average. Such extremely different results astonished her. When thinking of having to interpret the
report of the survey to the global managers two days later, her head began to ache. “How should I
interpret this report?” she sighed, feeling a little overwhelmed with the report on the computer
screen....

1 Background introduction

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1.1 Background of the company

SE is a venture jointly established by Swedish company E and Japanese company S, with

either company holding 50% of the joint venture’s shares. The new company is committed to
providing innovative and feature-rich mobile phones, accessories, PC cards and other products and
solutions for the global communications market. Currently, the company has set up research and
development centers in Europe, China and Japan.

The parent companies S and E of the joint venture are deeply rooted in Japan and Sweden,
respectively. Therefore, the two companies are significantly different in their national culture and
corporate culture. After more than ten years of cultural integration, SE has developed its own
unique corporate culture. With the strategy of “globalization strategy and local operation”, SE has
set up three R&D centers in Japan, Sweden and China. The three centers boast of their own
corporate culture. The R&D center in Japan, rooted in the parent company S, retains traditional
Japanese culture; the R&D center in Sweden, similar to the other parent company E, shows unique
characteristics of European enterprises; the R&D center in China is more like a whirlpool center
where Japanese and European enterprise cultures conflict and integrate.

1.2 Global Satisfaction Survey

The Global Employee Survey (GES) is an annual survey conducted jointly by SE and a
third-party consulting firm. The company aims to improve and supervise all aspects of enterprise
management, so as to raise work efficiency and quality and enhance the company’s capability for
survival and development. The survey, based on the questionnaire, lists more than 70 questions on
sixteen aspects, such as employee development, salary and welfare, corporate values, innovation,
workplace atmosphere, line leader, etc. According to the scores of the questionnaire, the company
will compare and analyze the results of the industry and that of the last year to find out the places
needed to be improved, and then to develop action plans. The enterprise process regulation can
then be improved to enhance employee satisfaction.

2 Serena’s experience in SE

After graduation, Serena worked at the Human Resources Department of a large private
enterprise. After working as a training specialist and then manager of training and organization
development for seven years, she successfully joined SE as the L&OD manager of Asia Pacific
regions.

2.1 First week of her new job

It was the fifth day since she started a new job. At ten o’clock on Friday evening, after
finishing all work at hand, Serena turned off the computer. Tired as she was, she still thought

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about what her superior Michael had said.

Michael was the L&OD Director of Global Human Resources at SE. Through the
videoconference, this handsome Swedish supervisor extended a warm welcome to Serena by
saying: “I am delighted to see you join our L&OD team. Our company’s HR department is very
professional, and I am sure you will face a lot of challenges here. But you will gain more.”

“Our HR organizational structure is divided firstly according to the function, and then
according to the region. You and L&OD managers in Japan and Europe all report to me directly. In
addition to being responsible for development of L&OD in the region, you will implement a
number of global projects and take charge of promotion and localization of global human
resources organization development strategy. You can seek for my help or for support from local
human resources director if you have any problem at the phase of implementation.”

Serena repeatedly thought of every word of Michael. “We all directly report to the executives
in the headquarter. How can I get support from folks of human resources in China? Is it easy to
apply the global strategy to Sweden, Japan and China? What resources and supports can I get?”
She knitted her brow when questions arose in her mind one after another.

2.2 A crisis due to language barrier

An important task for Serena is a global project, The Global Employee Satisfaction Survey.
The project was launched as early as April, and the questionnaire design of the survey had been
completed. A Swedish colleague was in charge of the project until she had a maternity leave for
one year and a half. The takeover was not smooth, and Serena had to rely on existing documents
and communications with third-party consulting firms to understand the project progress and more
details of the project.

In September 2013, the questionnaire of the Global Employee Satisfaction Survey was
distributed to each employee’s mailbox as scheduled. Serena promoted the survey through a
variety of channels. For example, posters were put up in the elevator on every floor to introduce
the progress of the survey to the staff, and the global president of the SE also personally sent a
letter to encourage each employee to get involved actively. In the first week, the worldwide
response rate was very amazing.

However, she got nervous once again when receiving an e-mail from Suzuki, manager of
Hardware Department, Japanese R&D center:

“Hello, Serena,

I am glad to see that the company launched the employee satisfaction survey. However, it is

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somewhat unacceptable that the questionnaire has only English version. This has caused troubles
to those Japanese engineers who are poor at English. The language problem of the questionnaire
will affect not only enthusiasm of Japanese employees to participate in the survey, but also
objectivity and accuracy of their answers due to some difficult English terms. I hope that you can
solve the problem as soon as possible.”

After reading the mail, Serena immediately checked the completion rate of the questionnaire
in Japan, finding that the Japanese rate is only half of that in Sweden and China. She had no idea
of why the questionnaire did not offer Japanese version, and the 15-day Global Satisfaction
Survey had gone by half. She could do nothing but to find a remedy as soon as possible to speed
up the response rate of Japanese employees.

Serena learned that Suzuki had worked for the company S after graduation and became the
hardware manager of the R&D center nearly 20 years later. He was a traditional Japanese
employee, who worked carefully and paid attention to details. However, he was poor at English,
especially at spoken English. He spoke Japanese in daily work and only used English when
emailing with foreign colleagues.

Mr. Suzuki was a typical representative of engineers at the Japanese R&D center. The Center
retained the traditional culture of Japanese enterprises. English was only one of the evaluation
criteria for promotion of managers, and there was no language requirement for new employees.
Therefore, all mails, website news and so on have the Japanese versions. Making employees in the
center answer the English version of the questionnaire will affect not only their enthusiasm, but
also accuracy of the survey result because of language barriers.

After collecting some information, Serena immediately had an emergency meeting with her
Swedish superior Michael:

“Michael, I do not know why the questionnaire has only English version because I do not
participate in questionnaire design. Now, the completion rate of the questionnaire in Japan is very
low, and more and more local colleagues are dissatisfied with it. We should solve this problem as
soon as possible.” She briefed on the ins and outs with a note of complaint.

After a general knowledge of the problem, Michael did not make a decision immediately, but
comforted Serena: “Take it easy. It was due to the fact that the design of the questionnaire ignored
the actual situation in Japan, and it is possible that those folks wanted to save costs. Now, you are
the project leader, how would you like to solve the problem?”

She suddenly realized that she had just accused her colleagues, and softened her tone
immediately: “We can add language options, but the company has to pay for this extra fee. But,

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will Japanese employees feel being discriminated when the Japanese version is added suddenly?

Michael said: “Lack of Japanese version is because we ignore the actual situation of the
Japanese center. The starting point of the survey is to get credible results, to find out the
company’s weaknesses and then make improvements. If the credibility of the entire survey is
affected due to language barriers, the survey itself will make no sense.”

Then that night, Serena worked with the consulting firm and completed the Japanese version
of the questionnaire. In Sweden, everyone learns English at an early age, so there is no barrier for
Swedish staff to read English. In China, English is a recruitment criterion. The English level of the
Chinese staff is not as high as that of Swedish, but is much higher than that of Japanese. For the
sake of fairness, future projects may need to consider providing both Chinese and Swedish
versions.

2.3 Something hidden behind the data of the survey

After that incident, the Global Employee Satisfaction Survey was quickly completed. Two
weeks later, Serena got the survey report. But she was at a loss after reading the whole report.

Compared with other companies in the same industry, SE’s employee satisfaction was all the
same high. However, she found that the employee satisfaction in Japan scored 55, significantly
lower than the global average; the score is 74 for Chinese employees, significantly higher than the
global average in every factor; the Swedish score is 69, close to the global average (68).

For such an extreme report, Serena had sorts of questions: Is the employee satisfaction really
so low in Japan? Are they so disappointed with the company? To make matters worse, the score
for the company operation efficiency is the lowest for all the three regions, but the Japanese
company scores as low as 28. What’s wrong?

After that crisis of language barrier, Serena did not draw a conclusion hastily based on the
report, but looked into more relevant data. In theory, the lower the employee satisfaction is, the
quicker the outstanding employees will leave, and the higher the turnover rate of talents will be.
However, Japan’s turnover rate is the lowest among the three regions. At the same time, the data
provided by the consulting firm show that the score of the SE Japan is close to that of the industry
in Japan.

“Is employee satisfaction of the industry in Japan generally low? Or is the criterion for
satisfaction in Japanese culture different from that of other countries?” Serena stared at several
sets of data on her computer screen, with a clearer mind. She took out the recent surveys on
employees’ satisfaction with the HR department, and found that 80% of Japanese employees’
assessment of the HR department is neutral, while Chinese employees’ evaluation is

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overwhelmingly high.

Her conjecture was further confirmed by the consultant from the consulting firm who was
responsible for the employee satisfaction survey. The consultant explained: “In the questionnaire,
there are only five options for each question: Agree, Somewhat Agree, Neither Agree Nor
Disagree, Somewhat Disagree, and Disagree. And only 'Agree' and 'Somewhat Agree' are taken
into account in the grading. The reason for the high score in China is that most people choose
'Agree' and 'Somewhat Agree', while the reason for the low score in Japan is that most people
choose 'Neither Agree Nor Disagree'. If we take 'Neither Agree Nor Disagree' into account,
Japanese company’s score would be close to the global average. Compared with Chinese,
Japanese are more inclined to express conservatively, that is, to choose the neutral option.”

Serena reported her analysis and understanding of the survey to Michael, who were very
satisfied with her work, and said meaningfully: “Serena, I am a doctor of psychology, and I often
encounter various types of data in my research. These data will speak, but sometimes they are not
so considerate. So we need to analyze them from different dimensions. And I am glad that you can
take the initiative to explain the cultural differences based on the report this time. I hope you can
also deal with similar incidents well in the future.”

2.4 Embarrassing tripartite meeting

Interpretation of the satisfaction survey did not mean the end of the program. Based on the
score, the survey aims to find out weaknesses in management, develop improvement plans, and
constantly improve the company.

SE’s Employee Satisfaction Survey investigated on employees’ satisfaction with the company,
as well as with their line managers. According to the process, unqualified managers need to
receive the Leadership Acceleration Program, that is, they need to conduct self-examination with
the help of the HR Department. After discussing with the HR department, they are required to
communicate with their team members to find out their own weaknesses in leadership, develop
action plans and make improvement. The entire program, developed by the Swedish consulting
firm specifically for SE, has a clear process and supporting information. Serena’s main task is to
urge all unqualified managers to finish their leadership acceleration program.

She thought that with such a clear process and sufficient information, managers would only
need to follow step by step, and HR would give some professional support. However, after the
formal communication, less than 10% of the managers had finished the program when half of the
scheduled time went by. She was completely bewildered, not knowing where the problems arose.
She quickly got related colleagues from Japan and Sweden together, and began to analyze the

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problem.

Due to time lag, Serena deliberately arranged the meeting at 5 pm (Beijing time), that is, at 6
pm in Japan and 11 am in Sweden. Considering very few Swedish staff would start working on
time, she specifically left some time for the Swedish colleague Eva to make preparation.

Serena came to the video conference room with full preparation. When it was time for the
meeting, Fuji, a human resource business partner (HRBP) in Japan, was already sitting before the
computer in suits. He stared at the computer, dealing with business affairs carefully. However, Eva
had not come yet. In order to break embarrassment, she made some small talks with the Japanese
manager: “Hello, Mr. Fuji, I am sorry that it is time to get off work in Japan now, but the Swedish
HRBP has not come yet. So we have to wait a few more minutes?

Fuji replied politely and simply: “That’s OK! We usually get off work later.” Then he busied
himself with emails.

Looking at the watch, she found that Eva had been late for 10 minutes. She had to talk with
Fuji on the progress of Leadership Acceleration Program in Japan.

“Mr. Fuji, it seems that the Leadership Acceleration Program goes on a little bit slowly in
Japan, do you have any problem? Do you need my help?”

“We are working on this program and will continue to follow up later,” Fuji replied simply.

“But I guess that you have encountered some problems given that the current progress, and I
Can offer you some support?” Serena continued to ask.

“No, thanks,” Fuji replied tepidly.

Serena felt speechless, and the meeting turned to be embarrassing.

Fortunately, Eva broke the embarrassing situation. She listed a lot of dumbfounding reasons:

“Christmas is coming, many managers are on holiday, and I have to urge them to finish the
program only after mid-January next year, when the holiday comes to end. One of managers has
decided to take a vacation for babysitting. You now in Sweden, both parents had a one-year paid
vacation to look after their children. Therefore, we can only carry out the program when he comes
back to work.”

Serena was quite surprised and asked: “Spending the whole year staying home to take care of
children? Why can’t his wife take care of them?”

This made Eva a little bit angry: “Every Swedish attaches great importance to family. Both
parents have responsibility and obligation to take good care of their children and help them grow
up healthily. I think what the manager does is quite reasonable.”

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 Having realizing her mistake, Serena made an apology immediately. The meeting ended
without any progress.

2.5 Story behind Leadership Acceleration Program

After the meeting, Serena analyzed such little information obtained from the meeting:
“Swedish company accepts this model, but will delay the program due to the Christmas holiday.
After the New Year, the completion rate will be much higher. But why the rate is so low in Japan
as the Japanese managers work hard and rarely ask for a leave? ” Serena could not find a way out.

One week later, Serena’s colleague Massa happened to travel from Sweden to Beijing. And
Serena accidentally found a way to solve the problem. Massa is a person with international
background: He is Japanese, but has worked in the United States, Sweden and other countries for
many years. Now he is assigned to work in Sweden, and is very familiar with the situations in
Japan and Sweden.

After learning Serena’s question, Massa said: “In the leadership program, managers need to
analyze the report and listen to the views through face-to-face communications with their teams.
Aren’t Chinese managers resistant to this?

“But it is the process. How can they find their weakness and make improvements if
managers do not communicate with the team face to face?” Serena explained.

Massa patiently said: “Japan has a strict hierarchy for managers and employees. And what
employees need to do is to obey their managers. Will managers be comfortable when employees
point out their weaknesses? Do employees dare to do so?”

Serena instantly found the source of the problem. After approved by Michael, she made a
small adjustment of the process in the Leadership Acceleration Program to avoid face-to-face
feedback from managers and employees, and asked the local HRBP to implement the program
instead. With this change, the completion rate of the Leadership Acceleration Program rose
significantly in Japan.

However, Serena’s workload increased unexpectedly. Although a very clear introduction to

the program, guidance materials and templates were provided, Serena’s email is still flooded with
sorts of problems raised by Japanese managers.

“What is the definition for each item in the report? What are the leadership factors that each
score reflects?” “How can I communicate with my line manager to identify my weaknesses and
make improvements according to the report? Just do this according to the score or discuss with
line managers?” “Do I need to regularly check the completion situation after developing the action

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plan? Whom will I report the progress to? Can you provide a training that can help us know better
about this process?” …

With a variety of questions, Serana began to have a profound understanding of her Japanese
colleagues’ persistence with details. The so-called detailed Leadership Acceleration Program is not
clear enough to Japanese.

Anyway, with gradual progress of the program, Serena’s capability and program were
beginning to get recognized by more people.

3 The end

The Global Satisfaction Survey finally came to an end. Serena embarked on a flight to the
headquarter in Sweden. She would spend a week in Tokyo to get know about her Japanese
colleagues. She applied to Michael for this visit to Japan, claiming that any good idea or perfect
plan cannot be implemented if she herself did not experience the culture and working atmosphere
of each region.

Questions for discussion:

1. Which problems were confronted during the global satisfaction survey?
2. How could you analyze the cultural differences behind the problems? Please try
to provide some theoretical evidence.
3. What kind of strategy by which Serena solve the problems, do you think?
4. Please try to offer the effective solutions by the perspective of SE headquarter.
5. Please try to provide the suggestions on effective international HRM by the
perspective of SE headquarter.