Vancouver Communication - Essay Example

16-4-2007 VC-case study Overview: Vancouver communication (VC) was established in the 1970's and it's HQ in Vancouver, Canada. VC produces and sells a range of office communication equipments. It started an overseas production facility in England, using identical organizational and people management system and practices. VC operates a participative style of management with formality; rules and regulation are kept to a minimum. Company operates on meritocracy with proper polices for career advancement, rewards, and performance appraisal system. Company pursue multi-skilling policy and emphasized on flexibility and skills rather than job descriptions. Now VC commenced the building of new production and distribution facility in Turkey due to low labour cost and to cover markets like Eastern Europe and Middle East. The CEO of the company Mr. Mike Ansell suggesting Helen Reeves, who has been appointed as Head of Turkish operations, that she should pursue the same organizational and people management system and practices which has been successful till now. Another fellow Tony Rossini, head of HR in VC HQ is performing a review to assess the present expatriate management system by conducting e-mail surveys to previous and current expatriates to determine the issues and problems and identified certain issues. Now we must have to analyse whether present policies of organizational and people management system will be successful in the changed environment or needs certain understanding of international business and aspects like cultural, linguistic, religious, external environment values and attitudes etc. has to be taken into consideration before framing a useful and efficiently workable polices. Secondly we will discuss the problems and issues of expatriation on the basis of the issues raised in the survey through e-mails by the expatriates. This analysis show us the way, how to minimize the impact of the expatriation issues rose in the mails. Discussion: (1) Introduction: Managers at the beginning of the twenty first century are faced with the reality of globalization. Managers must be conscious that markets, supplies, investors, locations, partners, competitors and so on can exists anywhere in the world. Successful managers in this environment need to understand the similarities and difference across national boundaries in order to exploit the opportunities and deal with the threats. The organizations effectiveness will increase to the extent that managers understand the factors influencing behaivour. An international firms performance is likely to enhanced when systems are in place that are congruent with the various influences that determine behaviours. While it is clearly impossible to understand all of the factors influencing behaviours, national cultures and values appear to be an important starting point. Culture is one of the important factors, which influences immensely. Discussion: "Culture can be referred to a shared, commonly held body of general beliefs and values that define what is right for our group (Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck, 1961: Lane & Distefano, 1988) or to socially elitist concepts including refinement of mind, tastes and manners (Heller, 1988). Different definitions of culture shows that culture is learned, shared, compelling, interrelated set and provides orientation to people. Culture is so fundamental to society that it influences people's behaviours in critical ways. Effective management depends, at least in part, on ensuring that people behave in ways that are appropriate for the organization. So understanding culture is important for managers to achieve desired behaviour and results. Values are useful in explaining and understanding cultural similarities and differences in behaviour; thus understanding values and their cultural basis in helpful to international managers (Punnett, 2004). Values establish the standards by which the importance of everything in society is judged. Similarly needs, attitude and norms decides specific behaviour patterns of individual's or groups. There are a variety of cultural value models that have been developed by scholars in different fields. KluckKhohn and Stridtbeck's value orientation model (1961) identified certain areas i.e. Relationship to nature: subjugation, Harmony, and Mastery; Time orientation: Past, Present and future; Basic human nature: Evil or Good changeable; Activity orientation: Being doing containing and controlling; Human relationships: Individualistic, Lineal, Co-lineal and space: Private, Public. Understanding these aspects of cultural can provide international managers with in sights into people's behaviour in foreign location and allow these managers to adopt their own style and adjust their organizations practices to accommodate the differences. The next important model is Hofsted's value survey model (1980) widely discussed four point of culture and the fifth dimension was later added i.e. cultural connection (1987). The 5- dimensions are as: Individualism (IDV), Uncertainly Avoidance, Power Distance, Masculinity and Confucian dynamism. Now management process must consider all the point developed by Hofstede before planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling the business. Cultural values in one country differ from another and societies can influence what is effective in terms of management process. Also Examining clusters of countries that share similar value can be useful approach for international managers. Ronen and Shenkar (1985) carried out one of the most extensive studies resulting in division of countries in different country clusters. A manager interacting with colleagues from within the home cluster can expect relatively more difficult because of the likely diversity of values and greater need for adaptation as in the case of Turkey. Other models and concepts like Ethnocentrism and Parochialism (Adler, 1997), variation within cultures, beyond national culture, subculture, overlapping culture also help managers to understand the process of management. Managers in international business need to understand and appreciate a variety of difference among nations. Virtually all the activities undertaken by mangers are affected at least to some extent by the cultural environment. Apart from cultural understandings other factors also affect business organizations and employees. Political structure & system like sovereign systems, Dictatorship, multi party democracies, constitutional monarchies, single party systems or colonies, all have different impact of the business organizations. Govt. views about foreign business, FDI (Foreign Direct investment) polices, incentives and restrictions and perception of host country are the some other factors, which affect management policies of any organization. Managers have many options to manage and structure their operations in a particular country. It is important for global managers to understand the political environment wherever they operate. The managers in a foreign location needs to know how the government operates and changes, what its policies are, and how it view business. The relationship between host govt's and foreign investors can be uncertain and this leads to political risk. Managers in foreign locations need to be able to assess the degree of political risk that their company faces. Similarly history and geography also play an important role in the development of culture and in result the determinant to analyse people behaviour. VC is planning to expand in Turkey. If we analyse Turkey we find that Turkey illustrates the twin effects of geography and history on cultural values. Geographically, Turkey sits between Western Europe and the Arabs of the Middle East. This location has meant that the people of Turkey and pulled in two opposing directions towards Modern western values and attitude and toward traditional Islamic values and attitude. In Turkey, Attaturk reformed the country into secular one, emphasizing the Western "Modern approaches". It is not so easy to remove tradition however and in Turkey today more families pursue Islamic traditions. Turkey's geographic location makes it strategically important as well. Turkey will undoubtedly continue to be pulled in different directions because of its location and historical developments. International mangers are faced with the challenge of doing business in many different environment and finding ways to mange effectively in these environment understanding of the varied environments in which they do business and both the similarities and differences between these settings needs to be examined. Language and religion are closely connected to culture and cultural values. Each influences the culture of a group of people, and each is an expression of culture. Language and religion have a substantive impact on people's behaviour; thus international managers need to spend the time to understand each of these in different countries where they operate (Punnett, 2004). Managers going to a linguistically homogenous country are, in some ways, relatively easy but the challenge in that linguistically homogenous countries are sometimes particularly parochial and ethnocentric. This means that managers must fitted with exposure to language and cultural difference can be able to perform reasonably well. Religion, which is important part of culture has been defined as "a society shared set of beliefs, ideas and actions which relates to a reality the cannot be verified empirically (Trespstra and David, 1985, 79) Religions ideas provide answers to such unanswerable problem as ignorance, suffering and justice. The very fact that religious beliefs cannot be changed empirically and is what makes people strongly held conviction, People do not seek to prove their religions, beliefs, they simply accept them on faith; thus, it is usually not possible to change those beliefs. International managers, therefore, generally acknowledge the beliefs of those they work with and accommodate these beliefs. The economic condition and management of host country also plays an important role in shaping people behaivour as well as organizational behaviour and human resource management issues. Managers from the developed world are often attracting to the developing world by its numbers, large potential markets, substantial potential workforce and available resource. Managers are unsure, however, of the reality of doing business in developing countries because they experience a business environment very different from what they know at home. Managers from the developing world also see the advantages of their own large markets workforce and potential to supply the developed world with new and unique product and services, but these managers are also unsure of the reality of doing business in an environment different from the one they know. So people in different developing countries will not necessarily have all behaviour in similar ways. Cultural values may be expressed quite differently in various locations. Moving from a developing country to a developed one or vice versa, will however, inevitably involve substantial cultural adjustment. Managers should be prepared for these variations when working with counterparts from the other region. Various other factors like motivation in cross national context, leadership, communication etc. will also affects people beahviour and needs special kind of understanding during international expansion of organization. It affects employee and their performance. Employee and managers must understand these Macro-Micro environmental aspects to mange effectively the people and organization. In the VC, Mika Ansell wants to carry on the same way of organizational and people management, which he has adopted in Canada and England operations, therefore he suggested Helen Reeves, who is heading the Turkish operations. But this suggestion may not work because of certain reasons. As we see the Macro environment of Turkey, it is the country, which has been defined in different cluster other than England or Canada. Country cluster which defined UK and Canada in the same group of Anglo whereas Turkey defined (Placed) in Near Eastern Group. This means Turkey has different Culture, religion, language, values and history. It has different political system as well as social and economic development levels. So it all affects the company's organizational and people's management policies. Conclusion: Now as the original policies of the company should be kept, as it is i.e. keeping the organizational and people policies as flexible as it can be. The second thing that organization must maintain its core polices i.e. particpative style of management with regular two-way communication between management and employees and makes adjustment accordingly. Innovation and flexibility, reward and career advancement policies must be kept as core value as policies of the company. As far as employees development as multi skill tasking is concerned, it has to be taken care of because certain culture do not change as fast as others. Employees mind set, attitude, values etc. all affects adaptability. So VC must keep its core policies intact and modify the organization and people management policies as according to Turkey's Cultural requirement. As given in the case in the case study operations in Turkey has to be controlled by Helen Reeves who is working as Deputy head of marketing at VC corporate office. So she knows the basic core of VC's human resource policy to manage organization and people. So policies should be changed/ modified accordingly to the cultural needs of the organization working in Turkey. It has to take care to Turkey political environment as well as people's general psyche so that they could be understood properly and organization should act accordingly. People should be evaluated on uncertainly avoidance index or power distance Index, or time orientations etc. so that the people general perceptions and thoughts could be gauged properly and management policies could be modified accordingly. So it has been quite evident that organization and people polices which are working in England may not prove successful due to cultural, linguistic, religious, socio- economic factors and it should be modified accordingly. Problems and solution of expatriation problems in VC. (2). Introduction: Expatriates, by definition are operating (at work and at home) outside of their home country. This means that expatriates in expected to function in an unfamiliar environment; for example, the culture, religion, language, politics, geography and history of their work country may all be different from those of the home country. The expatriates, thus faces a substantial degree of adjustment if he/she is to perform effectively in the new environment. The expatriates usually have a family whose needs have to be considered as well. The decisions about the expatriates' assignment thus cannot be made on the basis of employee alone. In international assignment family adjustments, home visits and its personal matters, which could not be deal by the employees as expatriates, must be taken care of by the organizations. The varying religious, political and cultural environments in different countries around the world may require expatriates to be selected and trained with that environment in mind. Discussion: The Literature suggests that a fairly large no. of expatriates experience problems during their international assignments and estimates of failures (i.e. expatriates return home early or do a poor job) have ranged from 15% to as high as 40%. According the Bird & Dunbar (1991) an additional 30 to 50% of Americans expatriates stay in their international assignments but regarded as either marginally effective or ineffective by their organizations. According to evidence accumulated one out of three managers sent overseas gets the jobs done the way headquarters wanted it done. Clearly the evidence shows that expatriates normally (a substantial proportion) do not adjust effectively and this proves costly to firms. As in the cast study the e-mails studied by Tony Rossini, the HR head as VC headquarter reveals lots of problems expressed by expatriates though the expatriation to UK Which could be treated as ethnocentric or home country. The responses by the expatriates show different problems before, during and after expatriation. First example shows the problem of alienation of an employee after expatriation. He feels that his experience and abilities, which he has earned through working in UK, could not be properly utilized by the organization. The second, fourth and fifth message deals with improper reward package for expatriates. The third message clearly shows that after expatriation when people returns to the corporate headquarter, he could not see familiar people, teams and feels alienated. It also shows that people feels the expatriation experience is valuable for them and for their organization but feels that nobody is making use of these experience and which results in frustration to employee. The different levels and gaps in the treatment of employees on basis of rewards, package, importance etc. prove negative to employees' performance, motivation and attitude. Again the expatriates feel that the assignments done by them as their special achievement for the organization and therefore require special attention and appreciation rather than cold approach by the management. Basically expatriation needs certain kind of special characteristics in expatriates, which helps to adjust them effectively. The expatriate does not know all the social rules and norms that what is acceptable and is not acceptable beahviour at work and in society thus he/she experience psychological uncertainty and anxiety. People tend to feel anxious when faced with situation in which they feel uncertain. Thus anxiety is often described as cultural shock. In a new culture, a host national may do something that he/she perceives as being a known to culture while the expatriates not knowing the rules of social behaviour or do not respond to it, therefore people experience culture shock in foreign assignments. In dealing the expatriation the problems employees go through various stages of adaptations, which is called as the cycle of cultural shock. The four stages are: The Honeymoon, Cultural shock, Adjustment and Mastery (Punnett, 2004). Now the most difficult phase is cultural shock period where companies emphasize on training which offer support in the foreign location. Through this way cultural shock is likely to be reduced. To adjust, as expatriates people should have identifiable characteristics such as self-efficacy, stress management, substitute ability, Relational ability, finding mentors, willingness to communicate perceptual abilities, cultural novelty and family, spouse relationship. Now apart from personal characteristics job and work environment play an important role in the expatriates adjustments. To minimize the impact of expatriation and its related problems organization has to do the things listed below: It is clear that to be successful in an international assignment, the expatriates must perform at acceptable levels of job and for which some job aspects plays an important role. Role clarity relates to now clear the new job's takes demand and roles are for the expatriate. High role clarity reduces the amount of uncertainty associated with work situation and this helps expatriates to adjust to the new work places. Role discretion relates to the degree to which the workplace is flexible in its rules, expectations, procedures and policies. In a situation where workplace is flexible the expatriates can influence what his/her roles will be rather than adopting and conform to rigid work place restrictions. The greater the degree of role discretion, the higher the level of adjustment and expatriate will experience toward his/her job. Role novelty relates to how different the new job's duties, tasks and responsibilities are from the previous job the expatriate had back home. The greater the degree of role novelty, the greater the difficulties the expatriates will have in adjusting to the new job. Role conflicts relates to conflicting situations at work regarding expatriates role, duties and performance standards. These conflicts add to expatriate's stress level and make adaptation more difficult. Similarly at organizational level, the organizational culture, rules, norms expectations, sanctions, operating procedures etc. plays and important role in expatriate adjustment and towards minimization of problems of expatriation. When an expatriate takes on a new assignment in a foreign country, he/she will likely have to learn a new organization culture. Adjusting to new organization culture and cultural novelty, expatriates will have a difficult time adjusting to the new work situation and will in turn have a more difficult time adjusting to the culture in general. Research shows that successful in international assignments one must possess a variety of individual, interpersonal and orgnaistagion skills. Companies should be encouraged to take a broader view of the selection criteria for expatriates and their families, organization must rely on cross-cultural training to minimize the impact of expatriations and its negative influences. Cross-cultural training programmes are designed to educate the trainee in the key cultural norms, values, behaviour, beliefs and other important aspects of the country to which he/she is assigned. By doing cross-cultural training expatriates are able to transfer knowledge gained in training into new cognitive and physical behviaours to them. They will be more satisfied with their overseas assignments, more productive to their job and better able to interact with host nationals. Black and Mendenhall (1990: 119-120) in his study founds that there exists the positive relationship between cross-cultural training and following variable: Cross cultural skills development adjustment and performance in cross- cultural setting. Cross-cultural training has positive impact on Cross-cultural effectiveness. Organizations must promote job novelty. Job novelty is the degree to which the new job is different from the previous job. The newer, or more novel the tasks of new jobs are, the more assistance the expatriate will need in order to be effective overseas. Expatriates assignments usually offer the managers the higher levels of decision-making power, job autonomy, strategy design and implementation and general responsibility. Similarly if a manger will be required to manage a host national workforce, interacts with host national customers, suppliers govt. officials and industry leaders, then he/she have an in depth knowledge and understanding of host culture. So cultural knowledge will play a major role in minimizing negative impact of expatriation. Cultural Novelty plays an important role in deciding the performance of expatriates. The more the novelty, the lesser the adjustment or take more time manger selection of cross cultural training process also plays, important role in deciding the impact of expatriation. Tung (1988) concluded that two dimensions that be used in selecting Cross-cultural training methods are 1) the degree of interaction required in host culture ii) the similarities between expatriates home cultural and the host culture. Black and Mendenhall's (1989) model is based on social learning theory (Bandura, 1977). Black & Mendenhall linked and integrated cultural novelty, job novelty, and training rigor, arguing that the greater the cultural novelty, required degree of interaction with host nationals and job novelty the greater the need for rigorous cross cultural training. Cross-cultural training helps expatriates adjust to the new culture and to the foreign assignments. Conclusion: So it has been evident that expatriates face different problems of adjustment in the host country and these problems could be sorted through different methods by applying individual job level, organizational expatriation process. These processes help to minimize the impact of expatriation. To reduce the likelihood of cultural shock and failure, organization (VC) has to design careful selection and training programmes for expatriates and their families. There are a variety of characteristics that need to be taken into account in the selection process, and there are numerous training methods available. The organization (VC) must assess these to determine the most cost-effective approach. By adopting such well-defined systematic approach VC could be able to minimize the incidence to expatriation on the organizations as well as on the employees. References: 1. Adler, N. J. (1997) International Dimensions Of Organizational Behavior, 3rd ed. Boston, MA: PWS-Kent Publishing. 2. Bandura, A. (1977) Social Learning Theory, Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall. 3. Bird, A. and R. Dunbar (1991) Getting The Job Done Over There: Improving Expatriate Productivity, National Productivity Review (spring): 145-155. 4. Black, J.S. and M. Mendenhall (1989) A Practice But Theory Based Framework For Selecting Cross-Cultural Training Programs, Human Resource Management 28(4): 511-539. 5. Heller, F.A. (1988) Cost Benefits Of Multinational Research On Organizations, International Studies Of Management and Organization 18(3): 35-44. 6. Hofstede, G. (1980) Culture's Consequences, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. 7. Kluckhohn, A. and Strodtbeck, F. (1961) Variations in value orientations, Westport, CT: Greenwood press. 8. Lane, H. and DiStefano, J. (1988) International Management Behaviour: From Policy to Practice. Scarborough, Ontario: Nelson Canada. 9. Punnett, Jane B. (2004) International perspectives on organizational behavior and human resource management, M.E.Sharpe Inc. 10. Ronen, S. and Shenkar, O. (1985) Clustering Countries On Attitudinal Dimensions: A Review And Synthesis, Academy Of Management Review 10(3): 435-454. 11. Terpstra, V. and K. David (1985) the cultural environment of international business, Cincinnati, OH: Southwestern. 12. Tung, R.L. (1988) The New Expatriates: Managing Human Resources Abroad, Cambridge: Ballinger. Read More