Blom / Meier Intercultural Management

MBA Essentials
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-3-7543-5539-8
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 176 Seiten

The book contains fundamentals of international corporate policy, communication and cultural concepts as well as an overview on the central functions of international HR Management, Leadership and Managing Diversity. On the one hand, it represents the essential framework conditions and instruments of international corporate management as well as for managers in their responsibility managing departments or project teams with intercultural staff or stakeholders or being as an expat working abroad. In this way, a company, team or a manager can also gain intercultural experience of other diverse related differences as usable diversity potential. The book is based on the 3rd edition of the German-language title of the same name by the Dutch-German team of authors with decades of experience in many countries in corporate projects, management training courses and study programs. The target group are primarily companies and managers, management training courses and study programs such as an MBA, General Management, Entrepreneurship or Project Management.

Herman Blom, Professor at NHL Stenden University in the Netherlands and has decades or experiences in lecturing in Business Schools and Universities of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands and in Germany. He is an author and co-author of many publications regarding communication, cooperation, culture and management.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Blom, Herman

Meier, Harald

Leseproben

2. Cultures and Communication
2.1 Culture and Cultural Studies 2.1.1 Culture 2.1.2 The classic: Cultural classifications (Hall) 2.1.3 The current WVS Study 2.1.4 Critical Reflection on Cultural Studies 2.2 Intercultural Communication 2.2.1 Communication process 2.2.2 Levels in Communication 2.2.3 Intercultural Negotiation und Conflict Management 2.1 Culture and Cultural Studies32 2.1.1 Culture A well-known metaphor describes culture for us humans like water for fish – it remains unnoticed as long as it remains in the water, but if it is outside of its usual habitat, the consequences can be felt painfully. If people are in other cultures, they can for the most part quickly adapt physically and psychologically to the new circumstances – provided they are interested in the other culture. And in the other culture you quickly become aware of your (also unconscious) peculiarities when familiar behaviour patterns no longer fit in the new environment. Example The beginning of culture: a brief history Around 13,5 bn years ago, matter, energy, space and time were created in an event called the big bang. We call the history of these fundamental properties of our universe physics. About 300,000 years later, matter and energy combined to form more complex structures called atoms, which in turn combined to form molecules. We call the history of atoms, molecules and their reactions chemistry. 3,8 bn years ago, on a planet called Earth, certain molecules began to combine into particularly large and complex structures that we call organisms, and the history of these organisms, biology. And a good 70,000 years ago, organisms of the homo Sapiens species began to build up even more complex structures called cultures – we call the development of these cultures now history.33 The Cultural Onion The components or complexity of a culture can also be clearly represented as the skins of an onion (fig. 2.1). Inside the onion are the deepest internalisations of culture, on the surface we find the visible cultural expressions. Fig. 2.1: The Cultural Onion The Cultural Onion model was developed by the Dutch anthropologist and cultural researcher Geert Hofstede in order to depict the dimensions of culture as a model. The onion model shows metaphorically how the inner parts of a culture only become recognisable when the outer rings of the onion are peeled. The experience that the eyes are irritated and watery when peeling onions can also be transferred to the encounter with a foreign culture: Dealing with the hard parts of a foreign culture, which consists of its basic assumptions, is often just as irritable. You are confronted with your own selfevident facts. The analysis of a culture applies to national cultures as well as to organisational or corporate cultures or also to sub-cultures (e.g., Youth culture). Example Discovery of otherness The term globalisation, which became en vogue since the early 1990s, is not new; in our era there has always been long periods of increased exchange of people, knowledge and goods across many cultures and later borders (see chap. 1.1). What they all have in common, and still is today, is the discovery of otherness. Cultural differences are often associated with distant and exotic destinations, but even a few miles across a neighbouring border can reveal significant cultural differences, e.g., between Germany, the Netherlands or France. And also, within a country such as the four-lingual Switzerland or in Belgium between people from the Frenchinfluenced and speaking region of Wallonia and the Dutchspeaking Flanders (and even a small German-speaking area), in Italy German-speaking South Tyrol or in Spain Catalonia region with their own language and very strong movement for independence. Everyone has their own patterns of perception and feeling and they develop or change throughout life. Much is acquired in early childhood, later one has to learn to change these patterns in feeling, thinking and acting, if necessary, which becomes increasingly difficult. Culture becomes visible through the expressions and behaviour of a person or a group (explicit, fig. 2.1). Hofstede, one of the pioneers of cultural studies in Europe, compares culture in analogy to computer programming: mental programming of people in their social environment. It encompasses human thought and action patterns regard to basic attitudes towards nature and society up to everyday actions such as greeting, eating or expressing feelings. People learn all this, consciously or unconsciously, the more intensively the longer they live in a society. Culture is (according Hofstede) ... the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes members of a group or a society from others. Mental programming takes place individually on three levels or is delimited: human nature is inherited (universal), the culture is learned (group-specific), and the personality is experienced and learned (individual-specific).34 Example French-German IT project A German and a French IT company are planning a joint product. The project group meets to develop a concept for cooperation, and the first meeting is led by a French. The Germans have prepared intensively and distribute a 12-page concept right at the beginning as a basis for discussion. The French do not show their anger at this out of courtesy. At the second meeting, the now German chairman repeatedly admonishes the French colleagues to stick to the agenda and stick to the topic. This made them feel that their creativity was being held back and dominated by the Germans. They hide their annoyance in irony by not making their own suggestions and only saying yes to everything, but the Germans do not notice this irony. When they notice that the French are not implementing joint decisions, they get angry, describe their colleagues from France as unreliable and are on the verge of ending the cooperation.35 The escalation is mainly explained, by the different understandings of concept, translated in the project language English with concept. In German it has the meaning of an idea to a proposed procedure. For the French, however, it is just an idea that one would never formulate before a first joint meeting in order not to confront the partner with a quasi-finished accomplish (which the partner may not have intended at all). This is a typical situation of intercultural misunderstandings in language and manners. It shows itself in a common language between Englishmen, Australians, US-Americans etc. with the supposedly same mother tongue – 99% of which is the same, but 1% of the words are having a completely different meaning – just it is as the explicit and implicit language, gestures, etc. with their huge differences between cultures (see also chap. 2.2.3). In international and intercultural cooperation as well as in purchasing or selling products, cultural differences are the greatest challenge. Differences and supposed problems such as political-legal aspects, management instruments, language, infrastructure, technology etc. follow far behind and are considered to be easier to solve.36 A culture can be linked as a national community (country culture) or ethnicity (Kurds, Palestinians), ethically (religion) or politically (party), as well as socially (workers or student culture), age (youth culture), gender (women's culture) or organisations (Corporate, organisational culture). Culture is always connected with social systems, as it were as a product and property of the social system. Culture manifests itself in different ways: some things are visible, but many things are invisible. Culture is often compared to an iceberg: only the smaller part of about 1/7 (tip above water) is visible, the larger part of about 6/7 is not directly visible under the water surface. Intercultural differences have been the subject of many scientific studies for decades, e.g., to adapt products to customer needs or in cooperation with employees from other cultures. Cultural theories and cultural models derived from them (e.g., as communication patterns) should serve to represent socially generally valid values and the norms and thought patterns derived from them. Well-known studies and the communication models derived from them incl. the investigations in the 1960/70s by Edward Hall (US, chap. 2.1.2), Geert Hofstede and Frans Trompenaars (both from the Netherlands), GLOBE study, started in the early 1990s, with a focus on cultural differences in leadership, and the current ongoing WVS study (World Values Survey, chap. 2.1.3). Example Cultural problem in an international product launch A well-known Dutch dairy company wanted to introduce baby food to Kuwait with a large advertising campaign at a time when many women there were still unable to read and write. Accordingly, the milk product was advertised on posters in three pictures side by side: left a crying baby, in the middle the product and on the right the happily smiling baby. The intended advertising effect not only failed it also had a counterproductive effect with falling...