Study of Social set-ups, Value system and Communication methodology in firm X in relation to

theories and framework in the area of Multi Cultural Environment”

Introduction:

Over the centuries the social structure and the value system and the attributes
associated with it like attitudes, respect, trust, communication channels and
forms have undergone tremendous changes. The various formations of such
attributes and the frameworks that define them have been subject of studies for
centuries and many efforts have been made by way of development of theories
to explain such movements and constant development of these theories with
new and new aspect coming in. We discuss the major theories in the next section
of Literature review.

Literature Review:

The first thing that comes to one mind and logically so when talking about
influences and factors that have led to such dramatic and variant changes in the
cultures and values and communication methodology, no doubt that thing would
be Technology. It is this aspect which has the largest, most visible and easily
quantified form when it comes to factor for change in social set-ups (Hofstede,
2001). The simple reason that has been attributed to this is for the need to adapt
to the demand for such technology adoption and optimum utilization.

One of the most popular but quite older theories of multi culture studies is that of
comparative studies of culture. In these theories major works of Trompenaars is
widely recognised. In his work spanning many years he conducted studies and
surveys across cultural set-ups across geographies and finally based on that
study he found out suitable factors and attributes and described set-ups of
possible cultural traits and value system. In a sense he defined each culture and
geographies culture based on his logic of factors and understanding and was
widely acclaimed when published and was effectively utilized as well (Robertson,
1992). Over the years it has gone dated and in present circumstance it is not
looked at something that might be helpful in such diverse settings and
understanding.

The next theory to be looked at is that of National and Organisational Culture

concept. Some of the academies of that time tried to draw a boundary and
simplify things by defining what is known as national culture and organizational
culture. Organisational culture refers to practices which are outcome of
experiences, hierarchies, psychology, beliefs and values of a given stated
organisation. National culture is major culture which is prevalent and followed
outside organisational set-ups and control. The differences between the two is
that, while National culture refers to practices by way of which people do
business, the way they see things in perspective and the very value structure of
theirs (Hill, 2008). One can see that this is very different and irrelevant majorly
as to what is the organizational culture since what shapes organizational culture
can be widely different and non-applicable to context of national culture.

The most beneficial advantage of such studies has been in the segment which is
popularly known as the competitive advantage and the E-ethical leadership
aspects. While the competitive advantage aspects deal with the fact that multi
culture work force and team though complex in nature but could be used to
competitive advantage of many. It believes that such diverse cultures being sin
diverse qualities in abundance and such team could handle any of the needs and
issues and hence the advantage. Regarding the E-ethical aspect one need to
understand that a virtual team is the reality of day and managing these team are
much more complex than a physical teams (Verma, 1997). Here comes the
importance of ethics in managing such teams and such aspects of ethics which
come in play to managing such team sis dealt under e-ethical behaviours.

One of the most controversial aspects that has been in limelight over the last few
years but have not seen any solution of definitive framework to it is that of what
is known as Glocalization strategy. The basic concept that goes behind it is the
fact that as a marketing strategy one needs to decide upon how to go about
communication strategy whether it would be local, known as localization in which
the total determinants would depend upon local cultural and geographical
perspectives (Ellis, 2000). Similarly there is globalization focus with same
communication form for all operating regions and then comes the glocalization
strategy where some values remains the same as that of global strategy while
some attributes and changed and tweeted according to local suitable condition
and hence the mix of both known as glocalization strategy and is one of the most
adopted policies these days.

The most recent advancement in this field of study has been the adoption of the
crossvergence principle. When it comes to the factors that is responsible for the
present state of and the change associated over the periods of time with the
culture and value system for a given area or section it is predominantly
technology and the other is old traditional culture and its changes. Hence as per
old theories convergence was the philosophy which believed that all such
changes were brought about by Technology. Divergence as a culture was based
out of the philosophy which believed that it was culture and its belief that is
responsible for such changes and value system (Quinn, 1999). In the recent
times research has proven that such changes and value system are not result of
either of the two systems in majority of cases. Indeed the responsible factors
were a combination of both of them, the resulting magnitude being the scope of
further study and it was this combination of two factors that resulted in the
concept of crosvergence for obvious reason explained above.

Company Background:

The company that we are referring to is one of the large players in project
logistics having long history and wide span of operations. It is a privately held
firm headquartered at Germany and have pan world presence with more than 80
offices in 66 countries and having presence in all continents with revenues in
100 of millions but cannot be disclosed on account of it being private firms. Also
on account of privacy issues we would hence further refer to this company X.

In all the countries of its operations the staffs are predominantly or say 99.9%
local and rarely are an expatriate sent across to take care of the foreign firm.
The persons joining newly at any of the firms in more or less cases do not go
through any structured or highly forma training like carried out in other
industries based MNC’s. They are just made to know their deliverables and
responsibilities with a brief regarding company and associated policies. Actually
it is with due course of time with the company the person recognises what
benefits and policies X has for its employees at a global level.

Culture, Social and Value System Aspects:

Hence one could easily guess that the behaviours and attitude of individuals
would highly depend upon the local prevalent culture and the associated national
culture. The prevalent local culture would also be greatly influenced by local
leaders of the unit and the influential people over there. Whatever little or more
respect and adherence to global policies is there it is on account of fact that the
reporting for many of the local executive is directly at global level apart from
intercompany transactions that happened and the business deals that has to be
carried out within the group companies. This has finally led to a situation where
there is little or no awareness, concern and respect towards X’s global vision and
mission statements due to such widely differing attitudes and culture set-ups.
This has led to huge issue within such big firm with regard to be recognised as
global units, with regard to adherence to its vision and mission and policies
follow up unilaterally.

In the above sections we have looked at majorly HR point of view. Equally

important form Interculture effects are the aspect of marketing process sand
associated communication of it. Since we have acknowledged that since it’s an
MNC with very wide global presence one would expect a formal communication
protocol and method to be implemented. Even if some of the protocols and
policies would be there, the same has not been strictly implemented over the
major parts of the global units and offices and most of the personnel lack this
unified approach of communication within internally as well s externally. What
this has resulted i sin the fact that the local culture influences and set ups might
enable individual sat that places to achieve good success and successful
marketing activities at the local level. But when the same comes to the
intercompany level and international client handling level, issues start erupting
due to different needs of different social environments and set ups. It s is in
these environment that failures and issues with communications and marketing
are widely seen and a need for centralized training and policy adoption comes
across.

In this section we would see the trends and what’s happening at the global
individual units at the social, cultural and attitudes level apart from marketing
and communication levels with respect to all theories, explanations and
framework that we have learnt and absorbed in this module of study. We would
start with HR point of view and then would take up the marketing and
communications point of view.

Findings and Analysis:

In this section we will look at both the aspect that we have briefed and discussed
above i.e. the theoretical development in the field of multi culture environment
and the real analysis of company from the perspective of cross culture. After
these two aspects have been looked and understood deeply we intend to go
further and find a linkage and co-relation between the two and try to showcase
our understanding with help of application of theoretical understanding the real
case scenario as in the present company. We will have some brief linkages and
relationship analysis starting next.

If we look at the issue of communication forms and content, we had realized that
there lies huge difference form what would be considered as a standardized
approach for a MNC. The real reason what the team formation and training
issues. Hence one can clearly see that not only aspect of multi culture aspect is
involved in this issue. The issues of team formation in this case was the real
reason behind it since the very structure of organisation in multiple countries
revolves round their own culture and there is no formal structure, no formal team
formation from a multi culture perspective or international business perspective
and hence the difference.

Since we have initially stated that most of the regional offices are sourced locally
and expatriate is almost nil, the prevalent culture in that organization is very
much similar to national culture except for the few compulsory or better
obligatory changes that one has to take care of for being effective in
organisation. But it would be important stating here that such minima changes
also come after much resistance and pain and is not an easy task. One important
aspect that cannot be neglected is the fact that since the office have been set up
and sourced locally, it is Technology that has been the driver of change. Since
the organisation has been well integrated through technology people from all
regions have to be tech savvy to be effective in their jobs and this requirement
has resulted in technology that has to a great extent shaped the culture of
organisation whatever has been the minimum common culture.

One can also argue and rightly so the effective culture change is driven by
crossvergence instead of convergence or divergence. This is so because the
cultures in different offices have been different despite the same technology
platform. It was also briefed that whatever common culture in organization has
been achieved it is on account of technology platform and integration that each
employee has to effectively work upon. But since we are aware that there lies
wide difference between the different offices, what could be responsible for it, of
course the social set-up, it is culture and value system. It would not only affect
the local office culture difference with some other office but also the learning
abilities and amount of change that they can bring can as a result of technology
requirements.

Conclusion:

If we have to conclude the results of this project we can easily state that the
factor of cultural diversity as a competitive advantage has been lost as a
disadvantage due to improper and poor strategic planning. Also the importance
of proper training and induction has been highlighted which has resulted in poor
efficiency and difference in deliverable in different location and hence the image
of company. The same goes for communication styles and form especially with
external customer but similarly important are internal customers as well.

Bibliography
Ellis P(2000), Social ties and foreign market entry,Journal of international
Busines.

Hill H Deresky & J (2008), Managing Cultural Differences,World Business

International Management.

Hofstede G(2001), Culture's Consequences : Comparing Values, Behaviours,

Institutions and Organizations across Nations.

Quinn E.E. Cameron & K.S. (1999), Diagonising and Changing organizational
culture : based on the competitive values framework ,Addison Wesley Longman.

Robertson Roland(1992), Globalization: Social Theory and Global

Culture,Powell's Books.

Verma VK(1997), Managing the project team , Newton Square : Project

Management Institute.