m 614 discussion mod 4

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MBA 614
Cross-Cultural Management

MODULE 4

CHAPTER 9 HOW WE MANAGE TIME

SEQUENTIALLY VS. SYNCHRONICALLY

CHAPTER 10 HOW WE MANAGE THE ENVIRONMENT

OUTLINE

How We Manage Time

  • Sequentially or Synchronically ?

  • This is about the relative importance cultures give to the past, present, and future.
  • It can be sequential = a series of linear passing events or
  • It can be synchronic = we can work on tasks in parallel

Americans Dream /French Nightmare

  • Time can be legitimately conceived of as a line of sequential events passing us at regular intervals.

  • It can also be conceived of as cyclical and repetitive compressing past, present and future.

  • With respect to time, the American Dream is the French Nightmare.

Past/Present/Future Oriented Cultures

Past-oriented cultures

Present-oriented cultures

Future-oriented cultures

Long – Term Orientation

  • Countries that rank low on this dimension prefer stability, traditions and address societal change with suspicion.
  • While countries who rank high on this dimension are thriftier and are more open to new ways of doing things.

  • They can all show managers how to motivate and market to these type of employees.

Indulgence Vs. Restraint

  • Indulgent societies have no issue with spending on leisure and simply enjoying life.
  • Restraint motivated societies believe more in suppressing gratification of needs and regulating their spending.

They can all show managers how to motivate and market to these type of employees.

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Subcomponents of the time dimension:

  • Time is sequential or synchronic

  • Duration of time

  • Clock or event time?

Time as a Social Construct

  • Emile Durkheim, the French sociologist, saw time as a social construct in which members of a culture coordinate their activities.

Edward Hall and Time

  • He described synchronic as polychromic and sequential as monochromic.

  • People who do more than one thing at a time can, without meaning to, insult those who are used to doing only one thing.

  • Likewise, people who do only one thing at a time insult those who are used to doing several things.

Cottle Configurations

Cottle ended up with four possible configurations

  • Absence or relationship
  • Temporal integration
  • Partial overlap of the circles
  • Past, present, and future are touching but not overlapping.

 

Time Horizon

  • The circle test measured how different cultures assign different meanings to past, present, and future. But it is also important to see whether people share a short-term or long term time horizon: meaning the duration of time.

Meaning of the Duration of Time

  • Time horizon affects how we do business. It is obvious that the relatively long-term vision of the Japanese contrasts with the “quarterly thinking” of the American.

Time Orientations and Management

  • Business organizations are structured in accordance with how they conceive of time.
  • When orientations to time differ confusion might occur.
  • It is frequently claimed that synchronic people are difficult to do business with, because they tend to ignore deadlines and are imprecise in appointments.

“We” oriented “We-Them” oriented

  • Culture that think synchronically about time are more “we” oriented (communitarian also particularists)
  • The culture with sequential time tend to see relationships as more instrumental and it is likely to have we-them relationships.

Time Orientation and Authority

  • Legitimized by ascription based on durable characteristics such as age, class, gender, ethnicity and professional qualification

Policies of Promotion and Performance Evaluation

  • In sequential cultures the supervisor is concerned with how the employee has performed over the previous interval.
  • In more synchronic organizations the employee may be favorable assessed and promoted for the positive relationship established with the supervisor,

Planned Sequences or Planned Convergence?

  • Planning varies considerable between sequential and synchronic cultures.

An Italian researcher commented that “In Britain everything needs to be planned from start to finish. When the environment changes, everything needs to be recalculated from the start”.

Can Both Orientations Work in Conjunction?

  • What have we learned . . .

MBA 614
Cross-Cultural Management

CHAPTER 10 HOW WE RELATE TO THE ENVIRONMENT

Trompenaars' Research on
People and the External Environment

  • Inner-directed: People believe in controlling environmental outcomes and think that they can control what happens to them
  • Outer-directed: People believe in allowing things to take their natural course and living in harmony with nature. People are less likely to believe that they can control what happens to them.

How we relate to Nature

  • This is the role people assign to their natural environment.
  • Example:
  • The then chairman of Sony, Akio Morita, explained how he came to came to conceive of the Walkman .
  • Another example is the use of face masks .

Controlling nature or letting it take its course ?

  • Societies that conduct business have developed two major orientations toward nature:

They either believe that they can and should control nature by imposing their will on it, or

They believe that humans are part of nature and must go along with its laws, directions, and forces.

Inner-Directed / Outer-Directed

  • One orientation is described as inner-directed and the other one is outer-directed.

  • In general the idea is that people with internal locus of control, typical successful Americans, and the external locus of control typical of relatively less successful.

Control and Success

  • Going back to the example of the Sony walkman: I enjoy music without disturbing other
  • Or
  • users do not want to be disturbed by other people

How Important is a Culture’s Orientation to Nature?

  • Orientation to nature have much to do with how we conduct our day-to-day lives and manage businesses.
  • A product may succeed not simply because the special features…

Markets or Managers?

  • The questions are:
  • Are we willing to take direction from customers, even if this is not our original direction?
  • Are we willing to change our minds when it becomes clear that customers’ preferences are different from our own?
  • Who decides: markets or managers?

Push or Pull?

  • It is important to reconcile the two cultures. The push of the technology may determine the choice of the clients to whom one wants to listen. The pull of the market may provide direction for the development of the technology.

Connecting the push and the pull

  • The most effective organizations are those that are better at connecting the push of the technology to the pull of the market.
  • Too much inner-directedness can lead to the lack of a market. Conversely, an overly developed customer focus risks leaving the organization at the mercy of market forces. Inner- and outer- directedness have to be reconciled.

References

  • Trompenaars, F. & Hampden-Turner, Ch. (2013), Riding The Waves of Culture

They can all show managers how to motivate and market to these type of employees.

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