MANAGING ACROSS CULTURES

To be a successful International Manager you

must be able to interpret and adapt to
different cultures.
Suggested Reading
• Trompenaars F, Hampden-Turner C. 2004 Managing
People, across cultures, Chichester, Capestone
Publishing Ltd.
• Trompenaars F, Hampden-Turner C, 1998, Riding the
Waves of Culture; Understanding Cultural Diversity in
Business 2nd ed, London, McGraw Hill
• Hofstede G, Cultures and Organisations: Software of the
Mind, London, McGraw-Hill
• Ferraro G P 2002 The Cultural Dimensions of
International Business 4th ed. New Jersey, Pearson
Education Inc.
Effective entry into
new markets and
countries involves;

• Establishing
licences
• Setting up new
subsidiaries
• Mergers
• Takeovers
• Setting up co-
operative or joint
ventures
To be successful you need:
• good communicative and negotiation skills requiring an in
depth knowledge of the cultures in which you are working
• Development of skills and competences

Hofstede (1995) suggests:

“’hard-nosed(short-term, task/result-orientated)American or
Anglo Saxon approaches to business may work well in
California, they may fail in France and be counter-productive
in Japan”

Morden T, 1995 International Culture and Management in Management

Decision 95, Vol.33 Issue 2, p16
Example of two companies which complement each
other:

Anglo- Dutch organisations:

• Shell
• Unilever
Similar: Power Distance/ uncertainty avoidance/
individualism
Complementary Differences:
Masculine/achievement orientation of the British
People orientation of the Dutch
http://www.economist.com/node/3651687
Geert Hofstede Dimensions
UK and the Netherlands
www.geert-hofstede.com (17.3.2013)
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UK
60 Netherlands
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Status Problems in Management
Ascription
1. France : status is ascribed and considered as
important if not more important than achieved status.

Upper echelons of French companies run by an elite group:

• Graduates from the top colleges
• Retired military officers
• Retired civil servants
Ie. Implementing management based on ‘equality’ and
‘empowerment’ is difficult.
Geert Hofstede Dimensions
France and the UK
100 (www.geert-hofstede.com 17.3.2013

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50 France
UK
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Achievement
2. UK and US – Status is more concerned with
achievement rather than ascription. A shareholder-
dominant view is preferred.
• Employees are treated as equals and empowered to
take responsibility for tasks
• Encouraged to achieve.
3. European ie. Germany. Management is achieved
through industrial democracy where supervisory boards
are the legal requirement.
• The stakeholder- view is preferred.
Geert Hofstede Dimensions
UK/US/Germany
www.geert-hofstede.com 17.3.2013
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 What does a
Manager do?
Management is there to:
 Motivate workers
 Decrease uncertainty
where needed
 Reward good
performance
 Click icon to add picture
Motivation
How do
Managers
achieve targets
through others?
Traditional Motivation Theories
• Maslow
• Herzberg
• McClelland
• Vroom
Cultural and motivation theory
Hofstede suggests that these theories are based on
‘self-interested need/want satisfaction’

What is important are achievement needs which are satisfied

through :
 self-advancement and
 self-satisfaction which is gained through increased material
rewards, increased status, and person
 self-actualization.
US and UK
Management promotes a ‘self-interested need/want
satisfaction’ in its employees which is gained through
individual rewards, and individual success. These
cultures are:
• Individualistic not communitarian
• Masculine/achievement orientated
• Low uncertainty avoidance (high risk)
Germany and Austria
Management sees motivation to work well as a function of
the need to relieve tension and stress. Rules both formal
and informal and supervisory boards reduce uncertainty.
Here we have:
• A formalized performance-orientated masculine society
• Low power distance
• High uncertainty avoidance
Sweden and Holland
These are ‘feminine/quality of life’ societies stress the
importance of interpersonal co-operation and de-
emphasize interpersonal competition: They usually need
less supervision from management. They are seen as
desiring:
• Individual rights
• quality of life in the workplace
• Co-operation in working with others
Geert Hofstede Dimensions
Sweden/Holland www.geert-hofstede.com 17.3.2013

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 Masculine/achievement
Remuneration societies:
in the UK/US
• Payment by results
• Remuneration by merit
• Performance bonus
• Bucks for behaviour

The emphasis is on individual

performance
Remuneration in Japan
Japan is a ‘masculine/achievement’ society but the
emphasis is different as it is also a collectivist society:
• Pay-service relationships
• Pensions and financing retirement
• Economic competition
• Material acquisition
Harmony (wa) is of paramount importance in Japan and
they emphasis consensus decision making (nemawashi).
The team/company is rewarded not the individual.
 External motivation/ ‘carrot or
Motivation stick’:
Theory X
• Employees dislike work
• A means to and end
• Way of gaining wealth
• Employees can’t be trusted
to work
• Little loyalty to the company
• Need constant supervision
and control
 Internal motivation:
Motivation • Employees like to work
Theory Y
• Find work rewarding and
meaningful in itself
• Less need for supervision
• Self-supervise and may judge
their own performance against
professional standards
• Managers trust employees to
work within a framework of
understood rules and constraints
 Theory Z takes Theory Y in a participative direction.
Like theory Y it involves employees in operational
Motivation decision making and assumes consensus and trust
Theory Z can be established. However in theory Z :

• Participation takes the form of teams and groups

• Uses informal and democratic relationships
• Achieves consensus and takes collective decisions
• Supervisor remains responsible for the decisions
and implementation
• The supervisor’s control overcomes the potential
difficulty and delay in establishing collective
responsibility (characteristic of Japanese
management)
• Management is MBWA (management by walking
around)
The Manager’s
Role

To relieve
uncertainty
France and Italy
A comforting super-ordinate/father figure manager role
alleviates the stress of any uncertainty. These cultures as
seen as:
• Communitarian/collectivist
• High in power distance
• High in uncertainty avoidance
Geert Hofstede Dimensions
France/Italy
www.geert-hofstede.com 17.3.2013
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40 Italy

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Strong Leadership
Strong leadership is needed in cultures which are :
• High in power distance
• Masculine/ achievement orientated
• Strong in uncertainty avoidance
Here organisations are:
• Centralised
• Co-ordinated decentralized
• Based on clearly specified and universally applied core values and
core systems to which all are expected to adhere i.e institutions such a
hospitals and universities
Management style will move towards theory X
• Exploitative – authoritative
• Benevolent- authoritative
• Paternalistic
The Leader’s Role
Strong leadership must:
• Formulate and implement rules
• Act as guardian of the rules within a centralised
hierarchical structure
• Manage exceptions (particularly in the case of
‘particularist’ societies where there is a need for
operational flexibility
• Manage innovations and change or manage resistance to
change
Weak Leadership
Strong leadership is less important in cultures who are:
• Collectivist or communitarian
• Lower in power distance
• Feminine/ quality of life orientated
• Low in uncertainty avoidance
Management style will move towards :
• Theory Y – consultative
• Theory Z – participative
Management and Power Distance
• Managers from high power distance cultures with find it
difficult to adapt styles in low power distance
organisations – not used to consulting with staff
• Managers from low power distance will find it difficult in
high power distance organisations and using theory X
motivating strategies
• Managers used to fairly high power distance ie. French
managers will be able to adapt easily in even higher
power distance cultures.
Best fit - polycentricity
Because of cultural diversity, we need to view international
management from multiple perspectives:
1. Best fit: international managers may need to take a
contingency approach to management – use the best
system appropriate to the prevailing local
contingencies
2. Polycentricity
• Acceptance and use of cultural diversity
• Organisation and management are to an appropriate
degree locally adapted
• Other cultures are free to take the best from any one
locality and adapt it to their own circumstances