Culture

The culture ofan organisation is the characteristic spirit and belief demonstrated
within it, for example, in the norms and value that are generally held about how
people should behave and treat each other, the nature of working relationships
that should be developed, and the attiudes to customers and to change that are
conventionally held. Although essentially a soft concept, it is an important way
of understanding what is going on and how things could be improved.
Managers who deliberately or unwittingly work counter culturally will
constantly be frustrated by failing to get a response from colleagues, by being
misunderstood or be being by passed. Managers who try to work out the nature
of the culture in which they are operating can at least begin the process of
change and influence the direction of the culturalevolution, because culture has
qualities that stucture can never enjoy.
The wide international acceptability of these things could suggest that we are all
members ofthe global village with converging taste and values. Yet certain
facets of national culture remain deeply rooted and have a way of undermining
that argument. Is diffuclt to prove that any given language determines
management behaviour in specific ways. Nevertheless, it seems incontestable
that the french have developed their language as an emollient for creating an
atmosphere conducive to harmonious interaction; and that the americans use
their verion of english as a store of snappy neologisms to excite, distract and
motivate (holden,1992).

Management in different culture

Britain
British, culture remains obstinately anti-business and somewhat xenophobic.
Managers do not enjoy the professional status accorded to their american
counterparts and their relatively high earning are often resented by those in
other walks of life.
Foreigners are typically seen as people who speak strange languages in far of
places, seldom treating the british with the respect they deserve and all too often
winning in truly british sporting activities like cricket and football.this hangover

from an imperial past is exaxerbated by one of the huge advantages of that past
and from the position of the united stated since world.
The wordwide use the language is a problem as well as an advantage to native
english speakers. There is insufficient incentive to learn other languages and it
is difficult to appreciate that someone who speaks your language with apparent
ease may not necessarily share the same cultural assumptions that you do. The
french have reluctantly come to tearm with a changed geo political situation to a
greater extent because their language is not so widely used. French business
schools teach some of their courses in English.
In organisation term this leads to complacency, as a common secret among
members of a management team is that all is well, despite the worrying signs. In
the end the managers convince themselves that it is actually the case simply
because it is the shared secret.Allied to this is the traditional British reserve and
distaste for expressing anything other than carefully considered opinoins.
Adifferent version of this in the 1990s has been an increase in mutual appraisal
and evalution in management circles. Considerable management time has been
devoted to the management process itself with objective setting, negotiation of
targets, assement of progress, review of achiement, auditing of effectiveness,
appraisal of peformance, evaluation of programmes and similar activities until
there is a danger that management will become a self sufficient, mutual
admiration society, forgetting the customer and the non managerial of the
organisation altogether.

France
The french have had a more formal apporoach to management. In 1673 the
ordonnance cobert was intended to provide nationwide standards for business
practice, so that practitioners could achieve reasonable respectability.
Tradesmen had to account regularly for their business and incurred great
commercial risks if they could not show proper books. This estabilished the
importance of haighly codified form of the accounts. British partice, in
comparison, did not begin to formalise until 200 years laters, when the
emerging accounting profession set its own standard, so that the approach in
britain is to emphasise accounting principles rather than the form of the
accounts (standish, 1986)

There is also scupulous attention to details of hierarchy in forms of address.

monsieur is ubiquitous and the niceties of vous on carefully observed.
Secretaries have great power as intermediaries between anyone and their boss.
You can never raech a manager without the consent of the secretary, as the role
of the secretary is claery understood. The manager who tooktelephone calls
directly, or who delegated anything other than agreed secretarial duties, would
be decrating from the role of the secretary. There is never the personal assistant
type of role which British secretarial seem to cherish.People in French
organisations can be very sensitive about. Their area of a responsibility and
clear cut definitions of the boundaries are needed to avoid conflicts.

United states
The idea that britain and america are two nations divided by a common
language is nowhere more obvious than in management. Diffirences in
connotation and usage of certain terms are most marked, the most obvious being
the word manager. This is one of the most potent symbols of the american
way of life, representing free enterprise and the heroic materialism that made
the country great. Businnes and management hold a central place in the
american education system that bemuses the british. In the united states there is
enduring tradition of a landed aristocracy, nor of colonies to govern. The pround
tradition is of the pioneers, mostly fleeing from appalling conditions in europe
who opened up a big country by their own commitment and physical endeavour.
The american, like the french, lack the dominance of financial institutions that
so weakens british management. The city of london is a powerful, and socially
respectable, institution that is geared to making money through financial
manipulation rather than through long term invesment. The main methods are
either switching invesment funds between corporations that affects the gearing
and frequently gets the corporation into trouble with its banks, or merger and
acquisition. This is phenomenon of all developed societies, but the united states
has stronger management insitutions to balance the depreadations of wall street.
Trade union activityis at much lower level in the united states than in europe
and organisations tend to be more open in their nethods of operation than either
the french or the british, emphasising the contractual relationship between
managers.

Japan
In contrast to the americans, the japanes are oriented to human efficiency rather
than human functioning because of their quite differnt heritage. There is a
strong emphasis on mentoring.
The idea of individual autonomy is a relatively recent development of
european/american influences. To a great extent the japanese continue to
espouse the values of an agricultural, feudal nation, living in an introverted
manner by deleloping specific sociability: the group superiority over the
individual remains a fundamental particularity of Japanese sociability. However,
the new role of firms seems slowly to replace the one traditionally held by the
house and the village (poirson, 1989, p. 7).
Family conventions, religious and form of education differ markedly between
countries and every adult is partly a product of these features of conditioning,
with the attendt values, imperatives and beliefs that shape behaviour and doing
your own things, japanese children are taught to conform, to work within a
groupandto develop team spirit.
Japanese culture also incorporates a strong desire for the world to admire the
contribution to world culture of japanese economic and technological
achievement, at the same as maintaining their economic power (van Wolferen,
1989,p.415). There is no complacency, but a continuing urge to justification in
international eyes, which brings with it the global thinking mentioned in the
opening chapter.

Germany
The germans are also oriented towards human efficiency, but in a different wa.
Here management as a concept is strengly associated with the close supervision
of those with less knowladge and experience than the supervisor. There is no
doubt about who is in charge and what the boundaries are between specified
activities:
The organisation and the individuals role within it are logical, methodical and
compartmentalised. Functions and the relationship between them are thoroughly
defired and documented. Procedures, rountines, doing things by the book are

important. Curring corners, taking initiatives, skimping on the formalities are

frowned upon (mole, 1990)
This is associated with a strong emphasis on the product and its development.
Businees success requires product excellence product excellence requires an
organisation that runs like a well olied machine the people ofthe organisation
adapt their behaviour to the precision movemoents of the organisational
machine.
Germany is renowned for its commitment to training, especially its
apprenticeship scheme:
Young people industry spend three days a week at school and two or three days
at work for two years, reciving both technical and theoretical training and
partical exprience. Peter Ducker believes that the apprentship scheme and the
skilled workers it produces are the explanation for West Germanys success in
steadily increasing productivity, as it creates not only the right attiudent but also
the theoretical foundation. (Barham and Rassam, 1989, pp. 189-90).
A less well known feature of German training is the Lernstatt or learning
workshop. This is smilar to the quality circle, but was introduced much earlier
in Germany because of the countrys heavy dependence on immigrant
Gastarbeiter and has found a permanent place in Germany training because of
its benefits in quality, movitation and problem solving.

Arab nations
The justification fordumping together in a single catagorisation a number of
nations that spread across north africa and throughout the middle east is that
they all share to a greater or lesser extent the significant influence of the islamic
faith. In practical terms this produces the direct opposite of the protestant work
ethic, behaviour is influenced by the con viction that destiny depends more on
the will of a supreme being than on individual behaviour.
Another strand in the common heritage of arab nations is their experince of
insecurity. It is a region of climatic extremes and widespread shortage of natural
resources, apart from abundant oil. Living conditions tend to be harsh and
political regimes unstable. This can lead to wariness in developing trusting
relationships. It is a region of great pride and prickly sensitivities.

Coming to terms with the cultural maze

In the preceding pages we have seen just a few of the cultural contrasts, with
the inevitable cultural bias of the writer being apparent: why put france ahead of
the united states? Why no mention of hong kong, or scandinavia, or
australasia? Why ignore africa and south america? Cultural diversity in
management practice is so extensive that anyones brain hurts when trying to
comprehend it and then trying to remember the details. For example, to the
european, israel is in the midddle east and has a goverment. To the malaysian,
israel is in west asia and has a regime.
Hofstede (1980) analysed 116 000 questionnaires administered to employes of
IBM in 70 different countries and concluded that national cultures could be
explained by the following four key factors:
1. Individualism. This is the extent to which people expect to look after
themselves and their family only. The opposite is collectivism which has
a tight social framework and which people expect to have a wider social
responsibility to discharge because others in the group will support them.
Those of a collectivist persuasion belive they owe absolute loyalty to
their group.
2. Power distance. This factor measures the extent to which the less
powerful members of the society accept the unequal distribution of
power. In organisations this is the degree of centralisation of authority
and the exercise of autocratic leadership.
3. Uncertainty avoidance. The future is always unknown,but some societies
socialise their members to accept this and take risks, while members of
other societies have been socialised to be made anxious about this and
seek to compensate through the security of law, religion or technology.
4. Masculunity. The division of roles between the sexesvaries fromone
society to another. Where men are assertive and have dominant roles
chese values permate the whole of society and the organisations that
make them up, so there is an emphasis on slowing off, performing,
making money and achieving something visible. Where there is a larger
role for women, who are more service oriented with caring roles, the
values move to wards concern for the environment and the quality of life,
putting the quality og relationship before the making of money.
5.