Managing Across Cultures

Introduction

Over the past decades, the evolution of technology and business on a global scale has allowed for increasing numbers of people and organisations to migrate from their countries of origin to settle, invest, or work abroad. There are many reasons organisations have for entering foreign markets and one of the reasons in addition to gaining profit is to achieve a more balanced and effective approach to the differences in their human work force and the conditions of their human resource management (Gunkel et al 2009). Many organisations agree that it is important when working abroad or with a diverse workforce, they need to beware of and address the cultural differences of their human resources but unfortunately, many organisations still do not know how to manage a diverse workforce. In fact, Sarah Murray (2005) emphasises that while the foreign markets and diverse work forces have expanded over the past four decades, addressing cultural differences in organisations has decreased and this can have an adverse effect on the functionality and success of ‘global' businesses in today's markets. To avoid potentially fatal problems for organisations that have a diverse workforce, managers have to understand Culture and how it influences Working styles, Management styles and the value of culture in training managers to become inter-culturally competent.

How culture influences working styles

Culture "is described as being closely linked with attitudes and values which are first learned and subsequently manifested by members of a group" (French 2010 pp.24).

Adapting to people who are different is one of the most important challenges organisations currently face. The human workforces are more often made up of people from different cultures and backgrounds and a common term used for this is Workforce Diversity (Robbins et al 2010 pp.14). The term effectively means that organisations are evolving into unities that are more varied in terms of age, gender, ethnic background, race and sexual orientation. This has led to organisations realising that although people of different backgrounds are more willing to embrace working in multicultural environments, it is important to note that these employees bring with them their differences in lifestyle and values and the challenge for organisations is to be more accepting and willing to accommodate to their multicultural workforce by addressing the varied working styles that are brought in (IBID).

Geert Hofstede (1980) stated that the approach of a manager to the need for change and quality in an organisation is very much associated with cultural factors. He did this by breaking down culture into four parts known as Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions: Power distance (PD), Individualism (IDV), Uncertainty Avoidance (UA) and Masculinity (MA). Management needs to