MBA essay：文化多樣性環境下的企業管理

全球化改變了企業的運作和內部溝通。在面對文化差異性環境下處理好與國外客戶關系和管理好國際團體是管理者重要任務。除了一些專業性技能之外，更好的理解文化的差異性以避免造成誤解，甚至由于缺乏文化理解能力和文化敏感性，造成業務上的失敗。

一項業務涉及到的文化方面經常被忽略，而把主要的注意力集中在技術方面。因此，提高文化意識和文化技能的發展來滿足國外客戶需要是極為重要的。

在這篇報告中一部分，文化的差異性和他可能對公司工作造成的影響將得到論證。在這篇report的另一部分，文章將會討論為項目甄選合適人員的標準以及在正式運作之前的項目人員發展課程中涉及到重要問題，從而使得項目團隊的成員在新的商業環境中能取勝。

 

Globalisation changes the operation and communication within the company. Dealing with the overseas client and managing the international team along with their cultural challenges is an important task. In addition to the professional skills, it is essential to have better understanding of the cultural differences to avoid misunderstandings or even business failures due to lack of cultural competency and sensitivity.

Cultural aspects of a business are generally ignored and main focus is only on the technical aspects. Therefore, cultural awareness and development of cultural skills to meet the needs and demands of the overseas clients is quiet essential.

In this report the cultural difference and its likely impact on the work undertaken by the company is illustrated. In the other half of the report, selection criteria for an appropriate staff for the project and issues to be included in the pre-departure development programme so that the members of the project team operate successfully in the new business environment is discussed.

Introduction

Whitehouse construction Inc is an American Construction Company. From the small beginnings the company has achieved year on year growth. Highly committed workforce and their strivings for improvements have enhanced the company’s ability to work efficiently.

Company has a wide range of overseas projects and activities mainly for American clients in Western Europe. Company has suffered loss in the past due to the cultural differences, lack of appreciation about the European culture and their way of doing the business. However, cultural difference between the nations is an important concern for the company.#p#分頁標題#e#

Recent contract for the company is to build a 75 storey hotel and conference centre in Jeddah for a Saudi Arabian client. As the client is in Saudi Arabia, the company is concerned with the differences in Western and Arabian culture, as it may prove to be very challenging in this project. It has been said that if we don’t learn from the past, we are sure to repeat the same mistakes. It holds true for the evolution of the understanding diversity in culture. There is a huge cultural difference between US and Saudi Arabia and these differences are likely to affect the American staff and their working capabilities as they would be operating outside their cultural norm.

文化多樣性——Cultural diversity

Cultural diversity is the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole (ANON, 2011). Communication differences related to culture may become the source of misunderstandings and may lower workgroup effectiveness. The cultural diversities can be an advantage or an inconvenience for the firm. Indeed, different behaviours or habits?between?people in the same company could be the key to success or on the contrary, the failure too.

“Managing diversity does not mean changing valid expectations and standards. It simply recognizes the fact that some groups react differently to different situations, and we should try to reduce the frictions that may result.” (Moon, 1997)

美國和沙特阿拉伯的文化差異——Differences in the American and the Saudi Arabian culture

The differences between the societies exist all over the world and these differences may be due to religions, old customs, the value of freedom and development in the societies. Saudi Arabian culture is bonded by Islamic religious instructions and very old customs. Therefore, it differs from the American culture, which depends completely on development and freedom.

The Saudi culture is polychromic. In this kind of culture, the natural cycle is respected and the time is shared. People do several things at a time and they have a very flexible concept of time and they can easily change plans or activities .They may set a time to meet "sometime in the afternoon" and on many occasions the schedule is broken, changed or deadline unmet.

Whereas, the United States has a monochromic culture, here the things are done one at a time and the time is segmented into precise units and time is arranged, scheduled and managed. People are very punctual and will schedule meetings at a precise time, such as 2.15 p.m. and expect all involved parties to be punctual. Time is very precious resource for them and not to be wasted or taken lightly. Saudi has non-working days on Thursday and Friday, whereas in America non-working days are Saturday and Sunday.

Saudi society gives more importance to collectivism as compared to the American society. In a company Saudi people prefer doing group activities over individual work. The American people prefer working individually over working in groups.#p#分頁標題#e#

The Saudi Arabian boss is expected to make all the decisions and the employees just do the work of achieving it. Here, the hierarchical lines play a very strong role and the final decision will be taken by the leader. Hence, it becomes necessary that all instructions issued should be unambiguous and complete. In contrast, at work in American companies, there is hardly any difference between high and low status and boss listens to every employee in the company irrespective of his status. In Saudi Arabia seniority is given more importance, while meritocracy is more important in US.

Saudi society is close minded and the employees in the company are reluctant to changes in the working procedures, while in American company employees are more open to changes. Saudi people never work devotedly without good relationships existing between them and the managers in their work. However, in American company more importance is given to work and they never let the relationship between them and their managers to affect strongly on their work.

It is more challenging for a woman to do business in Saudi Arabia as there is gender separation in the Kingdom. Many public places, like hotels and restaurants have family rooms where women are served with their husbands. Shaking hands with a woman or engaging in conversational body contact is not common in Saudi Arabia.

Giving gifts and exchanging favours are common in Saudi Arabia as it is a way of life. Whereas in U.S. there are strict rules regarding exchanging favours within an organization because people feel that it affects impartial decision-making capacity.

Saudi people tend to like having many rules at work and if there were not many rules, they would not achieve the targets and would not come to work on time, so the employer could put a lot of rules in order to actualize his work. In the other hand, American employees prefer less rules and more freedom in their work to achieve efficiency (Mansho, 2008).

多樣性的影響——Impact of diversity

Diversity can act as double edged sword. If not handled properly it could lead to a huge loss which the company had faced earlier. Due to diversity, the work culture and the work environment for the American team would be completely different. Saudi Arabia has a?desert climate?with extremely high temperatures during day time and a sharp temperature drop at night. Average summer temperatures are around 45°C, but can be as high as 54°C. In the winter the temperature rarely drops below 0°C. Therefore, coping up with the new environment would be a huge task for them which could even result in decrease in the output of their work. Communication difference related to culture may become source of misunderstanding and may lower the effectiveness of the entire group. Arabic is the local language spoken in Saudi Arabia and it is the language of hyperbole where the merits of others are praised and overly commented upon. Therefore, in order to build relationship it is important to offer compliments to the Arabian people in general. In order to avoid a huge impact on the members of the team, they should be properly selected and an appropriate pre-departure training programme should be adopted.#p#分頁標題#e#

Strategy and criteria for selecting appropriate staff

To avoid huge impact on the members of the team following criteria should be adopted:

Face: The key elements of Saudi Arabian culture are dignity, respect and saving face, these qualities can be maintained through the use of compromise, patience and self-control. The concept of face is a fundamental issue of daily life in a culture where confrontation and conflict are to be avoided. In Saudi Arabia, the concept of face is used to avoid conflicts and to avoid embarrassing situations and to avoid discomforting others. So the American staff having human nature and the quality to save the face by means of non-conflict measures should be selected. In business context, preventing face is equally important. For example, the Saudi Arabian counterparts would not like it if they are placed under pressure that places them under discomforting situation. So the staff which can work well in difficult situation without losing their cool must be selected.

Islam: Muslim’s life is governed by Islam and it touches every aspect of society within Saudi Arabia. More emphasis is placed on ethics and expected social behaviour such as generosity, respect and solidarity making the Arabian culture detail oriented. These social customs and duties also interfere with the way the Arabians handle business dealings. The American staff having high ethical values and social behaviour should be selected. Also the staff should be able to produce every detail of the construction project as the Arabs may demand it.

High Context Communication: Saudi Arabian culture is considered to be a very high context culture. It implies that the message which people are trying to convey relies heavily on the other communicative cues such as body language, eye contact rather than direct words. A particular emphasis is placed on tone of voice, use of silence, facial expressions and body language. Therefore the staff selected should be such that they are aware of these non-verbal aspects of communication in any business dealings and also the misunderstanding due to false interpretation of the gestures would be avoided. For example, silence is often used for contemplation and you should not speak during such periods.

The most versatile and smart employees who can adjust themselves in the work environment of Saudi Arabia must be selected

Project team members having ability to handle stress should be selected

Members must be broad minded and must be ready to accept changes and adopt new culture

Issues to be included in pre-departure development programme

Attitudes and skills are required for successful conduct of business in Saudi Arabia differing significantly from those needed in the United States. Distinct societal differences can turn winning practices in one culture into failures in another. Traditional values and a unique lifestyle persist despite Saudi Arabia's recent emergence as a wealthy marketplace. The lack of cultural awareness preparation has an impact from an embarrassing moment to a breakdown in inter-company communication to a lost deal or accord. Therefore cultural awareness training programmes need to be undertaken. The pre-departure training programme should be made mandatory for training of all departing migrant team members. The training program must include language training, culture familiarization, stress management, country specific orientation, health and safety, government schemes etc (Hashmi, 1988).#p#分頁標題#e#

Forms of pre-departure training include (Hurn, 2007):

Cross-cultural awareness: This generally includes cultural sensitization. In these training session various aspects such stereotypes, dealing with ambiguity, cultural shock and developing coping strategies are included. Tayeb (2003) outlines the steps required for cross-cultural training program: 1) Identifying the target audience, 2) Assessment of needs and expectations, 3) Detail goals of the programme, 4) Decide contents of programme 5) Implement the programme 6) Evaluate the programme.

Cross-cultural communication skills: Effective barriers of cross-cultural communication are explored and apart from spoken communication training should include non-verbal communication such as “body language”

Specific country/regional briefing: This usually covers geography, history, economics, politics, foreign relations as well as the infrastructure, communications and the working environment of the country. It also provides briefing about local customs, taboos, religious practices, social conventions and conflict between local, traditional and western values.

Business etiquette and procedures: In this skills and procedures to be adopted for doing a business is emphasised. As problems generally faced is due to attitudes towards time as one culture may be monochromic and the other may be polychromic.

Language training: Although English is becoming an international language, but English is not always spoken in business environment. Therefore, useful everyday phrases such greetings and introductions will help in building confidence and to encourage future wider learning.

Repatriation: In repatriation training skills, experiences and perceptions of the returning managers which they had developed while working away from the home country are shared. As many managers experience some “reverse cultural shock” and their perspective change after a period they have lived abroad.

The pre-departure training programmes will help to understand the following:

Working practices in Saudi Arabia: The work culture of Saudi Arabia is different than that of America. There are many major points which play an important role in the way the Arabians carry out their business. So, while dealing with them these points should not be forgotten. Some of them may be as follows:

In Saudi Arabia business appointments are necessary and should be scheduled according to the five daily prayer times and the religious holidays of Ramadan and Hajj. Saudi business culture is hospitable and relaxed in nature and may cause delays in schedule. Hence, it is customary to make appointments for times of day rather than precise hours.

According to Arabian culture Thursdays and Fridays are non-working days and Saudi week begins on Saturday and ends on Wednesday. So the staff must be informed to work on Saturdays and Sundays and take official rest on Thursdays and Fridays. The office hours in Saudi Arabia generally are 0900-1300 and 1630-2000 (Ramadan 2000-0100), with some regional variations.#p#分頁標題#e#

The concept of time is different in Arabia as compared to the western countries. Time is not an issue and hence Arabians are generally unpunctual as compared to the western standards. So the American staff must not mind if their Arabian counterparts are running out of schedule. Despite this, it is unusual for meetings to encroach on daily prayers and meetings should be scheduled in such way that it does not interfere with the daily prayers.

Initial meetings are generally long in duration and discussions to become acquainted with the counterparts. Sufficient time should be allocated for such meetings as they are conducted at a leisurely pace over tea and coffee as they form an essential part of Saudi Arabian business culture.

It is considered impolite and offensive if a gift is offered in the event and it is not accepted.

Work relationships in Saudi Arabia: For any successful business it is vital to maintain healthy work relationships. The kind of relation may depend upon the culture and background of the countries involved.

Face to face meetings are generally preferred by Saudi Arabian business people.

The key to success for business in Saudi Arabia is establishing trust and it is an essential part of Saudi business culture. Therefore, before entering into business dealing every effort must be made to establish trust and build a solid business relationship.

Respect and friendship are the values that are held very high by the Arabs. Staff should not forget that in business setting, favours based on mutual benefit and trusts are the ways of enhancing these cultural values. Personal connections and family influence take precedence over the governing factors in the business of Saudi Arabia.

Structural hierarchy in Saudi Arabian companies: There exists a dichotomy between subordinates and managers within the Saudi Arabian companies.

The people with authority are accepted and expected to issue complete and specific directives to others.

Age plays an important role in the culture of Saudi Arabia and greater respect must be shown to elders at all times. For instance, while entering a room or greeting a Saudi counterparts for the first time, you should shake hands with most senior person first. You should greet each of your Saudi counterparts individually, making your way in the room in anti-clockwise direction.

Saudi Arabian business etiquette: There are certain do’s and don’ts in every business culture. It is always beneficial for the business dealings if we follow the etiquettes as they may work in our favour.

It is necessary to abide by standards of modesty and dress appropriately. Men should wear conservative business suits. For women, high necklines, sleeves at least to elbow, and preferably long skirts below the knee are recommended.#p#分頁標題#e#

Maintaining a strong eye contact and keeping a closer distance during conversation at both business and social settings are the ways to strengthen trust and show respect in Saudi Arabia.

Communications occur at slower pace and patience is absolutely necessary so Arabian counterparts should not be rushed during business negotiations.

Maintaining humility and displaying conservative behaviour at all times is important and appearing loud or overly animated in public is considered as rude and vulgar (Gorrill, 2007).

Recommendation

For successful conduct of business in Saudi Arabia and to avoid likely impact of the cultural differences on the employees and their working capabilities it recommended that staff selected must be appropriate for the job. The staff selected should adjust in different situations such as working well in difficult situation without losing their cool, should have ability to handle stress, he should be able to communicate and negotiate with Saudi Arabian client, ready to adopt changes in work environment, etc. However, pre-departure training programmes need to be held to make the team aware of the Saudi Arabian culture and make them familiar with working practices and relationships in Saudi Arabia, their business etiquettes and their ethical values and behaviour. The training program must include language training, culture familiarization, stress management, country specific orientation etc. The general forms of pre-departure training sessions such as Cross-cultural awareness, Cross-cultural communication skills, Specific country/regional briefing, Business etiquette and procedures, Language training, Repatriation is recommended.

Conclusion

Globalisation changes the way the company operate and communicate with the overseas clients. The failure of overseas project due to lack of professional or technical skills is very rare. The projects tend to fail more due to the cultural differences. In the past, company had suffered in their projects due to poor understanding of culture and lack of cross-cultural skills of employees. However according to this report various cultural issues and differences between USA and Saudi Arabia were discussed and hence it was found that proper selection criteria and strategy for selecting the staff of the project is to be adopted. Better understanding and awareness of the culture by the pre-departure programmes will help the project team to operate successful in the new environment.