essay

Essay 2

BUSMGT 711: Managing People and Organisations

Beyond the words:

Understanding the impacts of organisational and national cultures on communication and connectivity

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Communication is imperative for organisational accomplishment, as the way in which employees receive, interpret and transmit messages directly affects employee engagement and relationship at the workplace (Kandlousi, Ali & Abdollahi, 2010). In recent decades, digitalisation has enhanced communication and facilitated complex interconnections of individuals and organisations, which gives rise to a phenomenon called connectivity (Kolb, 2008). However, the patterns and effectiveness of communication are still affected by the underlying organisation’s culture and social context (Guo & D’Ambra, 2009). This essay aims to analyse communication and connectivity, and evaluate their relationships with organisational and national cultures through the integration of academic theories and empirical research. Finally, a reflection on the author’s MikesBikes simulation experience will be provided, investigating how a defective organisational culture and national cultural differences jeopardise the team communication and performance.

Communication is a vital piece of infrastructure in information transmission across organisations while simultaneously cultivating positive intra-organisational relationships and organisational citizenship behaviour (Carroll, 2006; Kandlousi et al., 2010). According to De Ridder (2004), it is an antecedent of intrinsic employee motivation, as the quality and transparency of such interaction affect employee trust and commitment to the organisation. If the information provided can effectively support employees’ task performance and enable them to be more informed about organisational goals and problems to overcome, this would foster employee engagement and stimulate productivity, which perpetuates organisational effectiveness (Kandlousi et al., 2010). To facilitate communication, managers can adopt either formal or informal channel. Formal communication channels entail an institutionalised communication system embedded in an organisation, which transmits officially approved information relating to technical needs (Guffy, Rhoddes, & Rogin, 2005). It follows the organization hierarchy and can be established in top-down, bottom-up, or horizontal directions (Guffy et al., 2005; Kandlousi et al., 2010). Conversely, informal communication channels are predominantly based on the social needs of employees (Ogaard, Marnburg, & Larsen, 2008). Its existence is inevitable given that employees resist being treated as machines. They interact as a whole, discovering each other’s attitudes and opinions which induce spontaneous behaviour that affects their performance (Ogaard et al., 2008). In this sense, informal communication serves as a valuable source of information about employees’ moral and problems, which assist managers to instil effective leadership influences to motivate desirable organisational behaviour (Guffy et al., 2005).

‘Radical connectivity - our breath-taking ability to send vast amounts of data instantly, constantly, and globally - has transformed all aspects of our life and reshaped organisations’ (Mele, 2013, p.1). By facilitating instant message transmission, advanced technology connects employees to a greater amount of task-related and non-task-related information. It hence improves the efficiency of both formal and informal communication channels, fulfilling both employees’ technical and social needs (Jackel, Rovekamp & Wurfel, 2006). Additionally, it supports a more flexible work arrangements and the inception of virtual teams, given that employees can now interact with each other regardless of time and geographical boundaries (Kolb, 2008). In this sense, technology boosts connectivity in multiple dimensions - including individual employees, work teams, and the organisation (Kolb, 2008), prompting effective organisational communications and performance excellence. Despite these benefits, technology can impose connectivity challenges that provoke disconnections. In particular, an integration of communication technology is often accompanied by a decline of face-to-face contacts, impeding the establishment of personal relationships and trust in a virtual environment (Jackel et al., 2006). Virtual teams hence paradoxically find face-to-face interaction more superior to virtual interactions (Kiesler & Cummings, 2002), and are more likely to adjust their communication behaviours to restore team dynamics.

Organisational culture encompasses a stable set of beliefs, values and principles which underpins an organisation’s fundamental management practices (Sebastiao, Zulato & Trindade, 2017). It reflects the values of key organisation leaders, and is perpetuated by the formalised organisational structure, systems and artefacts (Hoogervorst, Van der Flier & Koopman, 2004). As such, organisational culture operates as a ‘social control system’, which implicitly form the basis of communication (Martins & Terblanche, 2003). Specifically, in typical bureaucratic organisations where strict institutional procedures are imposed to control behaviours, communication usually occurs in a top-down direction, and is more formal, infrequent and task-oriented (Holden & O’Toodle, 2004). In adhocracy organisations which advocate a dynamic and entrepreneurial culture, communication is more informal, transparent and open with a purpose to support cross-functional collaboration and innovation (Martins et al., 2003). Organisational culture also affects connectivity, since it determines the level of control that employees have over their connectivity states (Cousins & Robey, 2005). In bureaucratic organisations, given that employees’ autonomy is contingent on their hierarchical rankings, those at the bottom of organisation hierarchy have minimum control over the volume and timing of communication (Oberg & Walgenbach, 2008). They would hence be more vulnerable to hypo- or hyper-connectivity, which refers to the situations of having too little or too many interactions (Kolb, Caza & Collins, 2012). Both cases can create a self-destructive tendency, as the resulting counterproductive states of connectivity will inhibit employee motivation and productivity, consequently disrupting organisational performance and effectiveness (Goris, 2007).

In the research ‘Organisational culture and the dominant form of communication at the university’, Koszeembar-Wiklik (2017) surveyed 123 students and 67 tertiary education employees in a Polish university to define its prevalent organisational culture and investigate its impact on communication patterns. Majority of the respondents identified the university’s culture as hierarchyoriented, given that hierarchic position and the academic degree are still deemed as important elements of the academic ethos in today’s tertiary education sector (Koszeembar-Wiklik, 2017). Furthermore, the study found a strong correlation between organisational culture and communication behaviours, pronouncing that hierarchy-oriented culture was not conducive to informal channels in communication between faculty and students. Modern communication tools, such as social media, were rarely used in an academic setting; whereas formal channels, including formal meetings and emails, were perceived as dominant forms of communication according to over 80% of the respondents. The study also identified a disparity between students and academic staffs regarding their communication channel preferences. In particular, communications among students were predominantly based on informal channels such as social media and instant messaging apps. However, this was an opposite case in the communications among lecturers, where interactions were more restricted by the hierarchal structure. Koszeembar-Wiklik (2017) hence concluded that organisation culture exerted direct influences on communication behaviours and channel preferences. While the research was limited by the size and variety of its sample and provided restricted insight into the impacts of communication on employee engagement, the findings still concur with other similar studies (Sebastiao et al., 2017; Hoogervorst et al., 2004).

On the other hand, in today’s global marketplace, the management of organisational culture - especially for multinational companies - has become increasingly complex as managers need to take cultural differences into consideration. National culture shapes all aspects of the socio-political and economic environments within a country, and affects organisational culture under the view of coercive isomorphism (Florin, 2012; Lee & Kramer, 2016). Specifically, multinational companies tend to adopt established cultural expectations in overseas markets with purpose to avoid deprivation of legitimacy and social sanctioning of norm-violating behaviours (Di Maggio & Powell, 1983). Despite from language differences, Hofstede (2001) identifies the notion of individualism/collectivism as a key factor that defines culture disparities across countries. This cultural dimension encompasses a conglomeration of values concerning the intensity of connections between individuals of the society (Florin, 2012). Guo et al. (2008) conducted research exploring how national and organisational cultures interact on communication styles and technology use in four subsidiaries of an American-based multinational organisation (MNO) located in Australia, Korea, Malaysia and Thailand. The study found a disparity between the Australian office and other Asian subsidiaries in terms of perceived media richness, which refers to the amount of feedback and personal focus that is conveyed to a communicative partner (Daft, Lengel & Trevino, 1987). Australian culture, a typical western culture, is characterized with individualistic values and lowcontext communication orientation (Hofstede, 2001). As such, companies in Australia are prone to independent decision-making and a more explicit and concise communication style (Florin, 2012). Australian respondents thus were less engaged in group interactions and indicated lower richness in their communication activities. In contrast, Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand are characterized by high collectivism and high-context communication orientation (Hofstede, 2001). Such cultural characteristics advocate an implicit communication style, with an emphasis on group decisionmaking, frequent meetings and a tendency to avoid conflicts by camouflaging counterparts’ true intentions (Rice, D’Ambra, & More, 1998). Asian respondents thus were more relationship-oriented and conveyed greater richness in their communications. While all offices displayed similar media preference patterns for face-to-face and email, the differences in communication styles would nonetheless affect the effectiveness of cross-cultural communication among the four subsidiaries. However, if managers could minimise those national culture incongruences by facilitating effective employee interactions, there was still a possibility of maintaining a seamless corporate culture within a MNO (Guo et al., 2008).

The aforementioned cases were also manifested in my MikeBikes team. While our members had different professional and cultural backgrounds, we tended to install a collaborative culture in an attempt to take full advantage of diversity, expanding our pool of knowledge available for group decision-making (Mesmer-Magnus & DeChurch, 2009). However, we failed to establish a systematic discussion structure to effectively support such culture, and to reconcile cultural differences in terms of communication styles during team discussion. Consequently, team meetings became relatively redundant as we could not exchange valuable task-related information in an effective, open manner.

This hence distorted the quality of our communication and inhibited our collaborations (De Ridder, 2004). In the absence of an effective formal communication system, we tended to rely more on informal channels such as Wechat to fulfil our informational and social needs (Gray & Laidlaw, 2002). Yet, it became harder for us to communicate clearly and maintain trust with others in a virtual context (Jackel et al., 2006). Language differences exacerbated this problem by making it more difficult for our leader - the only non-Chinese person in the team - to comprehend individual opinions in a precise manner. This subsequently disrupted the effectiveness of her leadership and misled her to exercise improper practices that exacerbated group tensions, rendering our team culture and communication defective (Gratton & Erickson, 2007).

In conclusion, facilitating communication that enhances employee engagement is an effective strategy to achieve organisational accomplishment. By integrating advanced technology as part of the organisation’s communication system, this can effectively boost its connectivity and communication function, resulting in greater flexibility and productivity. On the other hand, while the author’s MikesBikes team advocated a relaxed and collaborative culture, it was underperforming due to the absence of a systematic communication structure and poor integration of national culture differences in terms of individualist/collectivist communication styles. As such, one should not overlook the effects of organisational and national cultures over communication effectiveness and organisation performance.

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