Issues face by expatriate manager in origination Hofstede's Five Cultural Dimensions, which including power/distance, individualism, masculinity, Uncertainty/Avoidance Index and Long Term Orientation (MindTools, 2015), provide some insight for the difficulties that faced by expatriate managers. Power-oriented difference Power distance is means “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations accept that power is distributed unequally” (Hofstede & Bond, 1984). Different power system exist across countries or even in a company which across- regions. For example, in most developing countries like China, companies usually centralised as top management control most of the power in decision making system and the employees in lower level have no sufficient ability to influence the decisions. In addition, in most of the centralized culture company, employee used to follow up whatever their supervisor says and without a lot of opinions. On the other hand, most firms in western country do different, supervisors and employees are considered almost as equals in order to low distance organizations, so employee will “say no” to their supervisor directly (Lily, 2010). Therefore, the different treatment on power could be an issue faced by expatriate managers as if an expatriate managers manager comes from a centralized company culture, it will be difficult for him to fit in with a flatter power organisation because of the distance between employees and supervisors are different and he might feel be offended in a low- distance work condition, while vice versa, a manager who comes from a flatter power culture might feel the way in high-distance company less effective. Individualism Individualism and collectivism discusses the different ways people treat interpersonally relationship. Collectivism is defined as “a situation in which people belong to in-group.” (Hofstede & Bond, 1984) Like in Asian culture, relationship is a critical part in the workplace and family. Someone has no strong relationship with his workmates or supervisors Hardly success. However, in some countries
Transcript
Issues face by expatriate manager in origination
Hofstede's Five Cultural Dimensions, which including power/distance,individualism, masculinity, Uncertainty/Avoidance Index and Long Term Orientation (MindTools, 2015), provide some insight for the difficulties that faced by expatriate managers.
Power-oriented difference
Power distance is means “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations accept that power is distributed unequally” (Hofstede & Bond, 1984). Different power system exist across countries or even in a company which across-regions. For example, in most developing countries like China, companies usually centralised as top management control most of the power in decision making system and the employees in lower level have no sufficient ability to influence the decisions. In addition, in most of the centralized culture company, employee used to follow up whatever their supervisor says and without a lot of opinions. On the other hand, most firms in western country do different, supervisors and employees are considered almost as equals in order to low distance organizations, so employee will “say no” to their supervisor directly (Lily, 2010). Therefore, the different treatmenton power could be an issue faced by expatriate managers as if an expatriate managers manager comes from a centralized company culture, it will be difficult for him to fit in with a flatter powerorganisation because of the distance between employees and supervisors are different and he might feel be offended in a low-distance work condition, while vice versa, a manager who comes from a flatter power culture might feel the way in high-distance company less effective.
Individualism
Individualism and collectivism discusses the different ways people treat interpersonally relationship. Collectivism is defined as “a situation in which people belong to in-group.” (Hofstede & Bond, 1984) Like in Asian culture, relationship is a critical part in theworkplace and family. Someone has no strong relationship with his workmates or supervisors Hardly success. However, in some countries
like Australia, people value freedom more than social relationships and usually form little sharing responsibility (MindTools, 2015) these attitudes more close to individualism(take care of themselves and their immediate family only). According to this difference, a manger might feel uncomfortable if he switches from a high level individualism culture country to a low individualism culture country. The intensive social work might reduce his utility on work and influence his normal standard of living and in consequence, reduce his passion on job and lower his productivity. In contrast, amanger might feel lonely and downplay if he trave from low individualism culture to high.
Masculinity
Masculinity means society value dominant by success, money and things (Hofstede & Bond, 1984). In contrast, femininity means the society value quality of life and caring more than money (Hofstede &Bond, 1984). The different masculinity level in different countries might result of different purpose of working and different attitude towards work. This difference gives difficulty for expatriate manager to value the employees properly as they share different sense of value. For example, if a manager transfer from masculinity country to femineity country, he will find the employees in there are not work as harder as in his home country, and he might fire these workers for their “lazy”, but actually the effect not due to efforts willing to pay for employees but the different sense of value.
Uncertainty/Avoidance Index
Uncertainty and avoidance index relate to the degree of anxiety thatthe public feel when they fall in an uncertain or unknown circumstance and how people treat risk. High uncertainty and avoidance index means people in this region intend to avoid ambiguous events and they could be classified as risk-averse. Firm under high uncertainty and avoidance index usually are governed by stick rules and people prefer to do the things in the method that they know very well. Low uncertainty and avoidance index scores indicate that the public tolerant to unfamiliar things and would like to bear risks. In addition, firm under this culture normally contain fewer rules and restrictions (MindTools, 2015).
According to appendix 1, uncertainty and avoidance index in Greek isthe highest among these countries. Therefore, to work in Greek managers should well investigate the options that available and thenrise a small number of choices but contain detailed information. In addition, contingency and risk should be eased to the minimum. On the other hand, China is a country tolerant towards the uncertainty (UAI 40), this figure might indicate open a new business and involvein high-risk industry is normal in China. If a Greek manger work in China, he will find unacceptable about the risk beared and his decision will not be accepted in Chinese company as the risk usuallyeliminated by expanse the profit.
Long Term Orientation
The MindTools (2015) define this term as “how much society values long-standing – as opposed to short-term – traditions and values”. Normally, Asian countries with a strong link to Confucian philosophyacted differently from western cultures Like in China this index reach the extreme (118) and this might means in Chinese society "loss of face" is a considerable issue. In addition, a short-term orientation companies usually value past more than the future, therefore, they more focus on traditional methods.
On the other hand, Long-term orientation companies usually value future more than the past. They would like to take long time span project and the mission of the company always focus on long-run rather than short-long, also, a long term orientation country likes American, requires innovation ability and company usually value creative idea than traditional idea. Therefore, a manager in long term orientation country might find the employees who from a short term orientation region do not contain the ability to follow the tradition. In contrast, manager who transfers from Long orientation country will find the culture in short orientation difficult to comply with.
There are also other difficulties facing by expatriate managers likelanguage barrier, custom in the region etc. but the above five dimensions are the majority that faced by an expatriate managers.
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Hofstede, G. & Bond, M. H., 1984. The Need for Synergy among Cross-Cultural Studies. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 15(4), pp. 417-433.
Lily, 2010. Cultural Psychology: the Power Distance Index and Asian Culture. [Online] Available at: http://www.8asians.com/2010/01/23/cultural-dimensions-power-distance/[Accessed 24 April 2015].
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