15000 words for bussiness managements assignments
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leadership8.pptxLeadership for SMEs
LD9616
Week Eight
National Culture and Leadership
Why Study Culture?
Relevant even if we just stay at home?
Lessons from abroad, acquiring local know-how
Business benefits of diversity
Synergy
Talent clusters
Wisdom of crowds
Cross-cultural groups and teams offer great potential for success, however:
Some research has consistently shown that multi–cultural teams tend to perform either much better or much worse than mono-cultural teams
Increasing self-awareness and sensitiveness to difference
Definitions
Culture is the collective programming of the mind.’ Geert Hofstede
‘Culture is the way a group of people solve problems.’ Fons Trompenaars
‘Culture is like water to fish. It is there all the time but the fish are oblivious to it.’
Not Just Countries
National culture is normally the unit of comparison in most research and management writing
Consider also:
Organisational
Professional
Regional
Sub-cultures
Three Layers of Culture
Basic Assumption- Implicit
Norms and Values-Middle layer
Artefacts and Products- Outer layer
Outer Layer
The obvious little differences - mayonnaise on burgers.
Post-boxes red in the UK, blue in the USA and green in Ireland.
Middle Layer How do we interact with others?
The ritual of the business card exchange in Asian cultures showing the underlying importance of respect, hierarchy and establishing relationships there.
Core Assumptions
Will a building bring bad luck? The debate concerning the bank of China building in Hong Kong highlights a deep-rooted cultural belief on controlling nature - or not.
Watch Out for the Ecological Fallacy!
‘A statement that every English person is violent, because on occasions some English football fans are violent would be regarded by any rational person as absurd.’ McSweeney (2002)
Therefore we see central tendencies, ’scoring’ and bi-polar dimensions
Gender must not be not forgotten – how are men and women regarded and treated?
Hall’s Dimensions (1959, 1976)
Context: Low/ High
Time: monochronic/ Polychonic
Space: High territoriality/ Low territoriality
Context
| Factor | High-context culture | Low-context culture |
| Overtness of messages | Many covert and implicit messages, with use of metaphor and reading between the lines. | Many overt and explicit messages that are simple and clear. |
| Locus of control and attribution for failure | Inner locus of control and personal acceptance for failure | Outer locus of control and blame of others for failure |
| Use of non-verbal communication | Much nonverbal communication | More focus on verbal communication than body language |
| Expression of reaction | Reserved, inward reactions | Visible, external, outward reaction |
| Cohesion and separation of groups | Strong diistinction between ingroup and outgroup. Strong sense of family. | Flexible and open grouping patterns, changing as needed |
| People bonds | Strong people bonds with affiliation to family and community | Fragile bonds between people with little sense of loyalty. |
| Level of commitment to relationships | High commitment to long-term relationships. Relationship more important than task. | Low commitment to relationship. Task more important than relationships. |
| Flexibility of time | Time is open and flexible. Process is more important than product | Time is highly organized. Product is more important than process |
Time
| Factor | High-context culture | Low-context culture |
| Actions | do one thing at a time | do many things at once |
| Focus | Concentrate on the job at hand | Are easily distracted |
| Attention to time | Think about when things must be achieved | Think about what will be achieved |
| Priority | Put the job first | Put relationships first |
| Respect for property | Seldom borrow or lend things | Borrow and lend things often and easily |
| Timeliness | Emphasize promptness | base promptness relationship factors |
Space
High territoriality:
Some people are more territorial than others with greater concern for ownership. They seek to mark out the areas which are theirs and perhaps having boundary wars with neighbours. This happens right down to desk-level, where co-workers may do battle over a piece of paper which overlaps from one person's area to another.
At national level, many wars have been fought over boundaries. Territoriality also extends to anything that is 'mine' and ownership concerns extend to material things. Security thus becomes a subject of great concern for people with a high need for ownership.
People with high territoriality tend also to be low context.
Low territoriality:
People with lower territoriality have less ownership of space and boundaries are less important to them. They will share territory and ownership with little thought.
They also have less concern for material ownership and their sense of 'stealing' is less developed (this is more important for highly territorial people).
People with low territoriality tend also to be high context.
High/Low Context Cultures
Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions (6-D) Culture’s Consequences (1984)
Power Distance Index (PDI): acceptance and expectation of unequal distribution of power
Individualism Versus Collectivism (IDV): the preference for a loosely-knit social system where individuals are expected to take care of only themselves and their immediate families, or a tightly-knit society where individuals can expect their relatives or members of a particular ingroup to look after them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.
Masculinity Versus Femininity (MAS): preference for achievement, heroism, assertiveness, and material rewards for success versus cooperation, modesty, caring for the weak and quality of life.
Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI): the degree to which the members of a society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity.
Long Term Orientation Versus Short Term Normative Orientation (Lto): Every society has to maintain some links with its own past while dealing with the challenges of the present and the future. Societies prioritize these two existential goals differently.
Indulgence Versus Restraint (IND): allowing relatively free gratification of basic and natural human drives related to enjoying life and having fun versus suppressing gratification of needs and regulates it by means of strict social norms.
Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE)
Focusing on Leadership
Power Distance
Uncertainty Avoidance
Humane Orientation
Collectivism I (institutional)
Collectivism II (In-group)
Assertiveness
Gender Egalitarianism
Seminar Activity
2x2 Groups studying opposing clusters and comparative presentation
