Managing Across Cultures Assignment
International Company Overview
In Deloitte, the impact of cross-cultural differences is difficult to overstate. The 2016 Global Human Capital Trends survey by Deloitte show that culture is a powerful tool when it comes to obtaining competitive advantage (DELOITTE.COM, 2016). In today’s business environment, new tools and cultural trends are helping leaders measure and manage culture towards business goals alignment. In answering these questions, Deloitte will be used as the real-life international firm to analyse the difficult scenarios faced by global players in this diverse culture business world.
Question 1
Discuss culture in general
In general terms, culture is the norm, behaviour, social habits, art, religion, cuisine, and the language that characterize a particular group of individuals (Manus, 2006). In international business, culture encompasses of the language, communication, and management approaches used by a particular global firm. In Deloitte’s international assignments, it is vital for employees of the company to understand the language and culture of the foreign countries to succeed in their assignments.
Discuss the organizational culture
Manus, (2006) defines organizational culture as a system of shared values, beliefs, assumptions, and patterns of behaviour; which govern the conduct of the entire workforce in an organization. The shared beliefs, values, and norms of an organization strongly influence on the people in the firm and dictate how they perform their jobs, interact, present their work, and communicate with peers and their seniors/juniors. According to (DELOITTE.COM, 2016), every firm has a unique culture, a culture which stipulates the boundaries and behaviours of members of the enterprise. For example, Deloitte’s unique organizational culture contributes to its competitive advantage against rivals such as PwC and KPMG.
Discuss the issues around culture and the choice of the potential partner, customer or marketplace
It is important that organizations consider the culture, lifestyle, and language of countries to which they want to expand their operations. When it comes to gaining a competitive edge, there are many cultural issues that Deloitte must take into account especially in choosing a potential partner, customer, or marketplace. Today, Deloitte has partnered with over 24-firms in the global market. As a result, the audit-giant has been able to be exposed to further opportunities of competitive edge due to the exposure to new business cultures. In making such choices, global firms like Deloitte consider various issues:
Cultural intelligence and sensitivity. International organization managers must take into account the local cultures of people they are employing in the international market. Deloitte for instance, thrives internationally and in selecting partners and the target market by being culturally sensitive and intelligence to local cultures. In reference to the case study, this requires that the global player does expatriate training on cultural level of its diverse personnel. This helps avoid all cultural missteps, and having a cultural blend boosts its chances to competitive advantage.
Careful multi-facet expatriate selection: In the selection of a potential partner, customer or marketplace, which are key determinants of a company’s competitive advantage, Deloitte must ensure a careful multi-facet selection of the workforce. For instance, the family and spouse of the expat needs to be included in the pre-appointment preparation process. Also, staff have to be trained and oriented to match the company’s culture. Matters technical expertise and domestic track record also need to be considered during the selection. This kind of support and intelligence improves the international firm’s potential to obtain competitive edge over the rival firms.
Repatriation training and support: In reference to the case, repatriation training on cultures of global markets is important to the expatriates. Expatriate training ensures less waste or mistakes, great performance, happy employees and their families, seamless integration, improved use of language, and reasonable cultural expectations. Thus, where there is a seamless integration of culture, international firms find it easy to choose a partner or explore a market opportunity in that given market.
Use of language: Also, organisations must take into account their employees use of a common language which the target consumers or market can easily understand. The main idea is to thrive in the other country. Completing international assignments cannot be possible when employees cannot understand the language of people they are serving or interacting with. Thus, the workplace culture must be seamlessly integrated in a manner that the expats find it easy to work for the firm while reaping great performance to the organization.
In general, the culture of an organization can lead to a competitive edge for a global player. The proper understanding of foreign language, values, behaviours, attitudes, and norms enables an international organization make proper business policies and strategies. According to (Ang & Van Dyne, 2008), expatriate training on culture provides an organization with the capacity to communicate and defend its values, strategies, and policies in the global marketplace.
Question 2
Why staffing issues and IHRM can become more complex in a global workplace
In global workplace, staffing issues can become more complex due to various reasons. In the global arena, businesses interact with employees and other key stakeholders whose language, laws, habits, capabilities, and values differ in respect to their cultures (Wang & Varma, 2019). In Deloitte, some of the reasons why IHRM and staffing can become more complex in its global operations include:
Training required: While culture is widely considered important, most global firms find it a complex issue to measure and to manage. In Deloitte, a survey done in 2016 revealed that only 28% of the sampled expatriates believed they understood the company’s culture properly. Again, only 19% of them believed that the right culture is used by the company. Thus, global firms understand this and are on the move to fund continuous employee training on the culture, language, values, and laws of the firm as applied and acceptable in different countries. To most firms, training employees over cultural diversity is a costly process. Nonetheless, in-country coaching is needed prior to taking the international assignment by an expat.
Diversity of cultural expectations: In a global workplace, diversity of cultural expectations has always been a complex staffing issue. In going global, international players like Deloitte are aware that culture is a key determinant of whether its international venture succeeds or fails. Business partnerships, selection of employees, and determination of target markets are constrained by the diverse mix of expectations especially by the expatriates. When assigning new tasks to the expatriates, the IHRM officers of a company, for example Deloitte, fears that the success of failure of the assignment is aligned on the culture which guides the business in its day to day operations. Thus, the desire by HRM team to create a reasonable mix of work culture is always challenged, because people of different countries have opposing reasons for this approach of staffing.
Decision making: For the IHRM personnel, the way things work around in different countries is always different, and thus complex and divergent approaches to decision making required. In Deloitte for instance, culture encompasses the beliefs, values, artefacts, languages, behaviours, ad reward systems that influence behaviour of expatriates on their day to day work activities. Usually, the staffing decisions are guided by the laws, policies, and directions given by the company’s top leadership. Sometimes, the top executive of Deloitte fail to consider the merging issues and trends of cultural diversity when making decisions. Besides, the IHRM officers have these trends and issues and mind. Having a fully integrated system of decision making that embeds the ideas of both management levels becomes a challenge, making IHRM a complex exercise. Today, Deloitte’s culture is a CEO issue, something which makes driving HRM strategy a complex affair.
Make recommendations on how international managers could approach the cross-cultural recruitment and workforce planning for the international organization
There is a wide-array of techniques that the managers of Deloitte can employ in a cross-cultural recruitment and workforce planning setting to ensure access to more competitive advantage opportunities:
Ensure cultural match and proper language use: First, the issue of cultural mismatch must be closed through expatriate training. However, more resources in terms of capital and technology have to be channelled into this sector (Wang & Varma, 2019). Also, the managers should encourage expats to practice more use of the foreign language. Improved use of language would make workforce planning easy for the company. Under this approach, Deloitte needs to consider all the cultural expectations of its expatriate employees.
Embrace cultural integration: In Deloitte’s global workplace, different employees have different but rich cultures in terms of value, heritage, norms, beliefs, and norms. Without a proper cultural integration, expats will always fail to adjust into the new work cultures. Thus, all expats from the different countries have to be taught the new workplace culture. As a result, the employees would be happy and their job performance will considerably improve. In this doing, cross-cultural staffing and workforce planning issues will be combated.
Continuous training and coaching of employees: One of the basic roles of IHRM is training and development of employees. Internationally, workers need to understand the firm’s global work culture and adjust to it. However, this does not come automatically. Thus, Deloitte must emphasize on continuous expats training to ensure that their cross-cultures are matched and integrated together in a suitable way. With continuous culture training, all expats will learn the accepted culture of the organization and this would help solve any communication barrier problems facing the firm in its global workplace activities.
Question 5
Main culture shock issues that the initial workforce might face in returning home
The increase in expatriate assignments have caused a greater depth and frequency of cross-cultural interactions. Naturally, going to work in a foreign nation is stressful to the expatriate. Also, expatriates experience culture shock in the international work environment. Similarly, upon returning to their home countries, expatriates experience a culture shock. Culture shock refers to the stress induced to an expatriate by all the behavioural expectation variances and the associated uncertainty with which the person must cope. The main culture shock issues that Deloitte’s initial workforce might face in returning home include:
Culture shock and expatriate families: The main reason for expatriate failure is “family concerns”. Upon returning home, expats find it difficult to integrate or match their experience with those of their spouses and children. When going for Deloitte’s expatriate assignments, expats are stressed over leaving their families and more concerned of family support. In returning home, the expatriate finds it difficult to maintain the partner’s interests, education of their children, and good quality of life or family support as prior done when abroad. Also, adjusting to the work-life balance way of live is a major culture shock faced by expats on returning home.
Impact of in-country coaching and training: In Deloitte’s global assignments, expats are trained to adapt to new cultures in order to succeed. This cross-cultural training introduces the expat the significance of culture and seeks to enhance their cultural awareness and sensitivity towards other cultures. However, this in-country training and coaching of cultures does not cure anything when it comes to returning home. Getting used to cross-cultural diversity makes some of them forget the real value, norms, behaviours, and heritage of their home cultures. To some expats, returning him causes them mental issues to an extent that they cannot even address the most basic cultural needs and values of their cultures.
Previous international experiences: In Deloitte’s international assignments, expatriates thrive under a great mix and integration of cultures. Upon returning home, a good number of expatriates find it difficult to settle into their home country culture. Unless an expatriate declines the global assignment due to the inability to adjust to the new country’s culture, those who adjust find this previous cultural experience being so disturbing and messy when they return to their home country. The previous experience living and working in a foreign nation increases chances of culture shock for the expats when they return home. Upon returning home, adjusting to the home country again and foregoing the already learned culture is a difficult experience for these people; because remembering their recent experience is not easy and is almost impossible.
Disintegration of culture with the expats characteristics: According to (Ang & Van Dyne, 2008), those who thrive in global assignments are clearly blend with the foreign culture. Deloitte for example, a global firm operating in more than 150 countries all over the world finds it difficult to integrate the cultures of all its expatriates. Thus, Deloitte applies a uniform organizational culture, a culture which to certain workforce’s culture is against their values, norms, and beliefs. This is a huge challenge because sometimes expatriates are required to relocate to different countries with their families. Upon returning home, there is a culture shock because their children cannot easily learn the home country culture for they are used to the foreign culture.
Recommendations on how the international organization could structure this process and what should be included
Better integration: In reference to Deloitte, an expatriate’s inability to settle into the foreign country is associated with his/her failure and the major reason to return home. Similarly, expatriates who have adjusted to the foreign culture find it difficult to return home in fear that their cultures would differ. Thus, Deloitte must ensure a better integration of home and foreign culture so that expatriates do not have culture integration or shock issues upon returning to their home countries.
Ensuring happy families: A major culture shock to expats upon returning home is ensuring a blend of family issues when it comes to spouse needs, education of children, family support, work-life balance, and quality life. Deloitte, therefore, should come up with a policy for ensuring that the expat is not stressed of his/her family’s welfare.
In-country coaching: Pre-assignment training by international organizations must be designed in a way that the expatriate expects. All expats have reasonable cultural expectations, because they all want to avoid any cultural shock upon returning to their homes country. Thus, Deloitte must not forget the mental and physical wellness of expatriates while abroad, because their specific home culture needs must always be upheld.
Question 6
Explain what a global mindset is; and how this could be developed
A global mindset refers to the ability to absorb cultural norms, traditions, and information from around the globe to use in conceptualizing how to make an impact across all international environments. In an international business, managers must have a global mindset in going global, failure to which the venture collapses. In international business operations, IHRM managers have to understand that people of diverse cultures differently respond to training, coaching, and work roles (Wang & Varma, 2019). To expatriates, target market, business partners, and all organizational stakeholders, a global mindset is highly significant. Clearly, multicultural audiences want their background norms, styles, values, and language to be considered or integrated to the business culture of an organization especially when partaking their international assignments.
According to (Wang & Varma, 2019), international firms have the mandate to actively promote a global mindset within their work culture to achieve their set global business objectives. Having a global mindset is easy to develop, because it is a learnable and trainable skill:
Training expats while on assignment: Global firms that actively promote a global mindset achieve their global objectives in a competitive way. A continuous training of expats on the culture of the company while they are on assignment helps build a global mindset to the expatriates. According to (Thomas & Inkson, 2009), ensuring a continuous training process on cross-cultural diversity for the expatriates brings about consistency, improved performance, and professional delivery of positive results by the company in its global business operations. This is the essence of building a global mindset to the entire organization’s workforce.
Provision of business and cross-cultural communication education to the expats: According to (Manus, 2006), a global mindset is easy to learn by the expatriates. However, this mindset must begin at the top, because the expatriates act as followers to their leader/manager. Thus, basic expat training and development must focus on the country of assignment, its language, laws, and culture. Ensuring that expatriates break from the local culture norms to properly understand the cultures, laws, and language acceptable in international business operations help build a global mindset in the whole organization. Such a basic requirement provides significant knowledge under which international business operations succeed and in a competitive way.
Offer necessary support and build strong intercultural relationships: The same way like people learn to speak a second language, it is helpful to immerse oneself with individuals from other parts of the world, this exposure helps to develop a global mindset. In attempts to boost this, Deloitte must support expatriates access all necessary resources for learning these new cultures, norms, and foreign languages. Creating new relationships with diverse people provide valuable learning about what works in a global arena and what does not. According to (Ang & Van Dyne, 2008), the ability to form relationships across diverse cultures is a positive way of building a global mindset, and this mindset helps expatriates succeed in international assignments.
Explain how having a global management framework will influence the management of ethical dilemmas
In Deloitte’s international business, ethical issues include workplace diversity, working conditions and standards, cultural equity and diversity, integrity and trust, change of business environment, business partnerships, and training decision making. The nature of a company’s global management framework influences the organisation’s management and approach to ethical dilemmas.
In reference to the case, Deloitte face a dilemma when it comes to the integration of cultures when designing a global mind-set. Certain expatriates are unable to learn and adjust to foreign cultures, and hence the reason for going back home. The proper integration of home and foreign cultures help avoid the ethical dilemma of the best culture to use in order to ensure workplace diversity. This means that a proper framework for cross-cultural integration helps enhance cultural equity and diversity, ensuring that expatriate employees become open to new cultures and global assignments since all forms of cultural shock are appropriately addressed.
Also, the approach of embracing cultural training for expatriates before and during international assignment helps avoid the ethical dilemma associated with change in business culture, expats training decisions, and decisions on choosing business partners. This is because it creates an environment in which employees working abroad clearly understand their international assignment roles and also succeed in those particular assignments. Thus, the international management approach to constantly train employees and ensure clarity of work roles helps avoid ethical dilemmas in international business environment. Matters choice of business partners become easy and less ambiguous as all workforce are diverse and able to live the true values of the organization both in their local and also outside organizations.
References
Ang, S. & Van Dyne, L., 2008. Handbook of Cultural Intelligence: Theory, Measurement, and Applications. Armonk, NY: M.E Sharpe.
Manus, A., 2006. International Management – Managing Across Borders and Cultures. International Journal of Emerging Markets, 1(1), pp. 96-97.
Thomas, D. C. & Inkson, K., 2009. Chapter 6: Motivating and Leading Across Cultures, Cultural Intelligence: Living and Working Globally. 2nd ed. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Wang, C. H. & Varma, A., 2019. Cultural distance and expatriate failure rates: the moderating role of expatriate management practices. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 30(15), pp. 2211-2230.