Time and Cultural Orientations and Business Behavior

Subheader Titles

1. The use of time.

2. Single-focus cultures.

3. Multi-focus cultures.

4. Comparison of single-focus and multi-focus time.

5. Fixed time cultures.

6. Fluid time cultures.

7. Comparison of fixed and fluid time.

8. Past, present and future orientation.

9. Comparison of past-, present- and future-oriented cultures.

10. Mixed perceptions of time.

Module Introduction

This lesson examines how different cultures perceive and manage time and how this affects international project/programme purpose activities.

1. The use of time.

Time is a fundamental aspect of human experience. Different cultures, however, think about time and use time in very different ways. The pace of life, the allocation of time, the economy of time, the scheduling of tasks, the metaphors of time and perceptions of temporal dimensions convey powerful messages about how a culture functions within itself and with the outside world.

The simple situation of showing up twenty minutes late to a project/programme purpose meeting, for example, carries little importance in some cultures. In others, however, punctuality is considered so vital that unannounced lateness can lead to project/programme purpose deadlock and failure. For example, in International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior the researcher Nancy Adler cites the case of an American engineer working in the Middle East. The American was surprised by his Bahrainian action sponsor/beneficiary’s reaction when he announced that, due to unforeseen problems, the plant under construction would not be ready to open until six months after the originally scheduled date. The Bahrainian replied simply, “We have lived for thousands of years without this plant; we easily can wait another six months or a year. This is no problem.”

In order to understand such behavioral nuances, cultural orientations to time can be examined according to three key criteria:

i. In terms of degree of focus: cultures gravitate to single-focused or multi-focused notions of time.

ii. In terms of expectations of punctuality and urgency: cultures are fixed or fluid.

iii. In terms of temporal orientation: cultures prefer to look to the past, the present or the future.

Variable

Cultural Orientations

From

Time

Single-focused

Fixed

Past… to Present… to

Multi-focused

Fluid

Future

2. Single-focus cultures: Linearity.

The first set of criteria for evaluating a culture’s orientation to time is its degree of focus.

Single-focus cultures concentrate on one task or issue at a time and are committed to developing and respecting schedules and set deadlines.

Single-focus cultures are less concerned about the relationship through which a task will completed than defining and completing the task itself. Plans and schedules tend to be detailed, followed quite strictly and rarely changed. Work-flow is organized according to the step-by-step performance of tasks. Meetings tend to be highly focused, with a set agenda and a time frame for each item.

3. Multi-focus cultures: Multiple activities.

In multi-focus cultures, the sequential ordering of tasks is uncommon.

Instead, such cultures prefer to involve various people at the same time within a framework of multiple engagements and simultaneous transactions.

As such, multi-focus cultures are very flexible. They consider reality to be more important than man-made appointments and schedules, sometimes ignoring precise time commitments. Moreover, the best investment of time is the completion of a human transaction, and multi-active people do not like to leave conversations unfinished.

Multi-focused cultures are adept at pursuing simultaneous tasks and building enduring relationships. They often consider focused, linear task completion and meeting deadlines unconvincing, arbitrary and unnecessarily inflexible. They prefer to complete tasks through the strength of relationships rather than with detailed plans. When important tasks or relationship issues arise unexpectedly, a multi-focus person usually attends to matters immediately.

4. Comparison of single-focus and multi-focus time.

Single-focus culture

Multi-focus culture

Linear sequencing of actions.

Task-centered.

Plans followed.

No interruption of commitments, regardless of circumstances

Several things done at once.

Relationship-centered.

Plans changed regularly.

Commitments may be reconsidered relative to circumstances.

Single-focus values characterize the way cultures of predominantly Northern European heritage function, including the United States. Fully industrialized Asian cultures have generally adopted a single-focus approach to time.

Latin European, Latin American, Middle Eastern and some less industrialized Southeast Asian cultures are predominantly multi-focused.

5. Fixed time cultures: Punctuality and urgency.

The second set of criteria for evaluating a culture’s orientation to time is its sense of punctuality and urgency.

Fixed time cultures are characterized by punctuality and a sense of urgency. Time is valued highly: meetings are expected to start on time, and schedules and deadlines are taken literally. Time is a commodity to be invested and managed with care.

As such, time management is an explicitly defined skill that is applied in both professional and personal life. Since they consider time a valuable commodity, fixed cultures try to save time in as many ways as possible, or, more precisely, to allocate time in as productive as way as possible.

For example, an manager in Boston, Massachusetts recently founded a organization that provides Internet-based time billing and travel expense applications designed to ease administrative burdens of filling out time sheets and recording expenses manually for independent professionals such as freelancers. Such solutions are particularly attractive in fixed cultures because they allow an individual to use time more efficiently: with the time saved by simplifying the billing process, independent professionals who use this service now have more hours available each week to dedicate to income-generating tasks rather than administrative ones.

This budgeting of time implies that there is always something to do in fixed cultures. For this reason, speed of action is also valued. It is preferable in fixed cultures to achieve a task in less time, because the time saved can be attributed to other tasks, including leisure.

Fixed cultures perceive that time passes quickly and reason in short units. When an individual from a fixed culture uses the adverb “soon”, for example, he is more likely thinking in terms of minutes, hours and days, rather than long units such as months and years.

6. Fluid cultures: Patience and flexibility.

In cultures with a fluid time orientation, punctuality and urgency are defined in less rigid terms.

Meetings are scheduled, but lateness is not considered irresponsible, and keeping someone waiting or canceling at the last minute carry little or no negative symbolic significance.

Schedules are established, but delays are expected, and it is understood that deadlines and other temporal commitments cannot always be respected.

In other words, time is perceived to be an organic, flowing process. Instead of budgeting time, using time or dividing time into fixed categories, people in fluid cultures pass time in natural terms. Nature guides temporal perception through the example of the agricultural seasons: a time for sowing, a time for reaping and a time for rest.

The agricultural seasons are prolonged periods that last several months, with annual cycles. The urgency that industrial “seasons” impose – measured in minutes, hours and days – carries significantly less meaning in fluid cultures.

This approach to time is more accepting of unforeseen circumstances and intrusions of personal life into the professional sphere. As in nature, events generally follow certain patterns and cycles, but anomalies are not only tolerated, but even welcomed, allowing the discovery of new knowledge and understanding that are beneficial for the project or relationship.

7. Comparison of fixed and fluid time.

(Include table)

Fixed Culture

Fluid Culture

Time is valuable commodity to be budgeted, efficiency means more time for other things.

Meetings expected to begin on time.

Schedules, deadlines followed precisely.

Tasks broken down into short-term assignments and milestones.

Time passes in minutes, hours and days.

Time is an organic, flowing process that follows the prolonged cycles of the agricultural seasons.

Meetings begin when people are ready.

Schedules, deadlines adapted to circumstances.

Projects advance according to the time needed. Delays tolerated.

Time passes in months and years.

Full industrialization is not necessarily a sign of a culture’s fundamental acceptance of fixed time values. As such, Latin European, Latin American, Asian and Middle Eastern cultures are, to varying degrees, industrial powers, but their respective cultural orientations to time are predominantly fluid.

Northern European societies embrace fixed time values, although precision and punctuality are more important than speed. Other cultures of predominantly Northern European heritage – especially the United States – also have a fixed view of time, although saving time and urgency are more important than punctuality as an end to its own.

Finally, the third set of criteria for evaluating a culture’s understanding of time is its orientation to the past, present or future.

In past-oriented cultures, the past is always the context for evaluating the present. High value is placed on nurturing a collective memory and on respecting established traditions. Strong family traditions and ancestor worship reinforce this effort on an individual level. Plans and ideas follow traditional patterns of the thinking and tend to have long time frames if they introduce relatively significant change. Precedent guides decision-making, organizing and controlling. Staff are hired according to well-established criteria, including loyalty and adherence to accepted norms, policies and procedures. Leaders are expected to carry the vision of the past into the future, and change is not valued for its own sake.

Present-oriented cultures turn to the current situation for guidance. As such, short-term goals and quick results are preferred. Organizations in such cultures will formulate short-term plans, divide and coordinate resources based on present demands and select and train employees to meet current goals.

Future-oriented cultures spend the present planning for tomorrow. In order to achieve long-term results, future-oriented cultures are willing to sacrifice short-term gains. Organizations in such cultures will divide and coordinate work and resources to meet these long-range goals and projections. Recruitment and professional development will be directed at needs anticipate far beyond the immediate circumstances.

Cultures with long collective memories are inevitably drawn to their past glories and accomplishments. What worked yesterday, works today.

Societies of recent creation, or for which past memories are bitter, tend to focus on the present and short-term future. The long-term future is considered risky, because there are too many unforeseen variables.

A culture, which looks to the future, is necessarily more patient, foregoing short-term benefits and accepting sacrifices today in exchange for growth and stability tomorrow, assuming the forecasts made today are reliable.

Industrialization and the realities of modern life mean that most cultures have more than one temporal direction, although one orientation is often dominant.

Asian cultures look to the past and the future at the same time. In addition to respecting age-old traditions and ancestors, these societies emphasize the goals and achievements of the past when considering the present and future. However, they will also give considerable thought to long-term plans. Asian annual reports, for example, explain a organization’s history and philosophy, but also lay out project/programme purpose plans that may stretch out 100 or 250 years into the future. These societies function reason according to a temporal continuum that reaches from long in the past into long in the future.

Pragmatic and disinterested in what happened yesterday, American culture is primarily oriented towards the present and short-term future. An American annual report generally states only the activity for the past year. Future goals are limited to the next five years, primarily because market conditions can change so radically within five years. American project/programme purpose seizes opportunities and reacts to demand and so it must stay vigilant in the present and near-term future.

European cultures display all three tendencies. Their long histories mean that organizations often have both organizational and national traditions to be honored and to learn from. At the same time, privatization and globalization place pressure on European organizations to be more reactive in the short-term. Yet, Europeans’ historical perspectives often help them to be more patient than Americans. And, due in part to the complexity of labor legislation, project/programme purpose plans need to take into consideration the long-term impact of the proposed strategies.

Time orientations in South American cultures are similar to those in Europe, although future orientation is used perhaps used to postpone difficult decisions more often than elsewhere in the world.

The Middle East is also similar to Europe in temporal orientation, although the cultural attraction to the past is particularly strong in a region with such an illustrious past. Future orientation can be seen in the efforts of certain countries in the region to prepare for a post-petroleum economy.

1. When planning for a meeting or presentation in a culture with a single-focus notion of time, it is essential to set a specific meeting agenda and a time frame for each item and, once underway, to keep the meeting as focused as possible.

2. A manager from a multi-focus culture is more likely than his or her single-focus counterpart to develop a detailed production schedule with numerous project milestones and deadlines to which payment is tied.

3. When a project/programme purposeperson from a fixed culture uses the adverb “soon”, he is more likely thinking in terms of minutes, hours and days, rather than long units such as months and years.

4. The perception of time in fluid cultures in inspired from nature: a time for sowing, a time for reaping and a time for rest.

5. In future oriented cultures, staff are hired according to well-established criteria, including loyalty and adherence to accepted norms, policies and procedures.

6. organizations in present-oriented cultures tend to formulate short-term plans, divide and coordinate resources based on present demands and select and train employees to meet current goals.

1. What does a project/programme purposeperson from a culture with a multi-focus understanding of time consider his or her greatest asset for managing unexpected delays in a contract:

2. A project/programme purposewoman from a fixed-time culture drops her briefcase while running to catch a flight. Among the contents scattered across the airport terminal floor, one is likely to see:

3. The same project/programme purposewoman misses her flight and arrives a day late for her meeting with a action sponsor/beneficiary in a culture with a fluid perception of time. Her hosts are likely to:

4. Change and action in many European organizations tends to occur according to:

a. a concern for the past – tradition, history and precedent are of great importance for decision-making

b. present-time orientation – plans are carefully reviewed according to short-term benefits

d. all of the above – European organizations have a tripartite orientation to time

Different cultures perceive and manage time in a variety of ways that convey powerful messages about how a culture functions within itself and with the outside world. This has a profound impact on project/programme purpose activities. Pace of life, the allocation of time, the economy of time, the scheduling of tasks, the metaphors of time and perceptions of temporal dimensions are all components of a culture’s attitudes towards time. This lesson will introduce three sets of variables of analyzing time as a part of culture: the degree of focus, expectations of punctuality and orientation to past, present and future.

1. Single-focus cultures are less concerned about the relationship through which a task will completed than defining and completing the task itself.

2. When important tasks or relationship issues arise unexpectedly, and a multi-focus person usually does not respond immediately, but waits until a convenient moment when the current activity is completed.

4. In fixed time cultures, time is a commodity to be invested and managed with care.

6. Since fixed time cultures are so concerned about productivity, they welcome unexpected changes in plans because such anomalies allow for the discovery of new knowledge and understanding that are beneficial for the project or relationship.

7. When organizations in past-oriented cultures introduce relatively significant changes, plans and ideas follow traditional patterns of the thinking and tend to have long time frames.

8. Recruitment and human resource management in present-oriented organizations is focused around meeting current goals, not long-term development.

9. Future-oriented societies are not willing to sacrifice short-term gains in order to achieve long-term results.

10. Primarily interested in the present and short-term future, the projections made by most American organizations in their annual reports rarely reach beyond the five years to come.

Glossary

1. Milestones: fixed time and single-focus cultures divide long-term plans into shorter goals, thereby increasing the chances of completing the overall project on-time and according to specifications.

2. Human transactions: multi-focus cultures give priority to relationship-building over task completion and adherence to linear project/programme purpose planning.

3. Seasons: fluid cultures tend to think of time in terms of natural cycles – sowing, harvest and rest..

4. Short-term: present-oriented cultures believe that the best strategy for achieving long-term success is by focusing on the current health and growth of project/programme purpose activities.

Learning Objectives

� To study the fundamental variables for determining a culture’s orientation to time: the degree of complexity, expectations of punctuality and orientation to past, present and future.

� To consider the implications of shared attitudes towards times in terms of pace of life, time allocation, the economy of time, the scheduling of tasks, the metaphors of time and perceptions of temporal dimensions.

Q&A

Question 1: Are teams from single-focus and multi-focus cultures necessarily incompatible?

Answer 1: No. Once aware of the differences in their attitudes towards time, teams from single-focus and multi-focus cultures can be assigned to responsibilities which stand to benefit most from either organizational rigor or sustaining flexibility. Multi-focus individuals are more willing to accept the entropy from which new ideas lead to new products and services. Single-focus teams can then be assigned to structure those ideas into viable project/programme purpose projects and to acorganization the development process according to careful task- and milestone-oriented scheduling and budgeting.

Question 2: Does a culture’s orientation to time affect its response to certain products and services?

Answer 2: Yes. Societies that have a single-focused, fixed notion of time are significantly more receptive to products and services which help people to save time and to use time more efficiently. In some cases, these products and services actually further accentuate a culture’s obsession with time, such as the effect that the Internet and mobile technology has had on American professionals and consumers: never have time-conscious Americans had so many tools on their hands for increasing their productivity and for managing their time with such precision. Cultures with a more fluid understanding of time are slow to embrace these new solutions and may even view them as intrusions.

Question 3: What is the effect of shareholder pressure on a organization’s temporal orientation?

Answer 3: Shareholders demand accountability on a regular basis such that publicly held organizations must respond to immediate and short-term needs regardless of the dominant temporal orientation of the country in which they are based. Moreover, since significant blocks of shareholders may be based in a foreign culture, such as major pension funds, the pressure exerted on a organization can be greater than local shareholders, who may have traditionally been more patient.

Multi-focus culture

Fixed Culture

Past-oriented culture

Glossary

Learning Objectives

Q&A