Pitfalls and Troubleshooting for Better Cultural Awareness

1.      Global culture versus national culture.

The fundamental instinct of project/programme purposees to find new markets for their products and services leads organizations and managers to look beyond their home markets and to seek out opportunities in foreign countries.  The drive to reach these goals helps project/programme purposepeople from different countries to overcome a wide range of economic, legal and political obstacles by identifying the common ground upon which to conduct project/programme purpose successfully.  For this reason, many global organizations and professionals who share similar strategic and operational challenges have developed their own global culture of international project/programme purpose through which they seek to rise above national differences. 

The culture of international project/programme purpose that has emerged with globalization sees itself as pragmatic and universalistic.  Instead of focusing on differences based in national culture, it identifies similarities in human personality types and organizational culture in order to provide an approach for growing a project/programme purpose worldwide.  Local languages and customs are of secondary importance, because one common language and organizational standards for behavior allow for more efficient global operation of project/programme purpose. 

Yet this vision requires a capacity for change and a suppression of national identity that not all cultures are ready to accept willingly.  As enthusiastic as individual executives or managers may be for this culture of international project/programme purpose, national culture inevitably looms in the background, profoundly influencing the values with which managers, workers and consumers make decisions and take action. 

project/programme purpose success in international markets therefore requires analysis of the individuals, the organizations and the national cultures involved in order to reconcile global project/programme purpose values with the cultural universe of each country targeted.  As this exercise soon reveals, understanding the position of one’s own national culture is just as important as clarifying the cultural orientations of a project/programme purpose counterpart. 

2.      Universalistic categories of behavior.

One response to the need or desire of organizations to manage employees from different cultural backgrounds and to sell the same products and services to consumers in different countries is to group individuals not according to national identity but according to universalistic categories of behavior.  These approaches do not necessarily deny the role of national culture as a key component of human identity, but in the context of management and marketing, they seek to understand and categorize behavior according to fundamental traits of personality or socio-professional group. 

One popular model used by managers of multi-cultural teams for assessing their employees regardless of nationality is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which determines an individual’s preferences based on four dichotomies:

1. Extroversion / Introversion: the degree to which people prefer to focus their attention and get their energy either from the outer world of people and activity or from their inner world of ideas and experiences;
2. Sensing / Intuition: the degree to which people prefer to take in information and focus either on what is real and actual or on patterns and meanings in data;
3. Thinking / Feeling: the degree to which people prefer to make decisions based either on logical analysis or by concern for their impact on others;
4. Judging / Perceiving: the degree to which people prefer to deal with the outside world, either in a planned and orderly way or in a flexible and spontaneous way. 

Analysis of these preferences result in 16 personality types which managers can use to match candidates to the right kind of jobs and to maximize employee motivation and productivity, while reducing the risk of falling back on racial, gender or national stereotypes.

Many marketers also sell products and services worldwide by identifying core socio-professional categories in which consumers from all industrialized countries fit, regardless of language or culture.  These categories reflect not only purchasing power, age and class, but also attitudes to innovation, tradition and other values that influence consumer decisions and reactions to brand messages. 

Such models are powerful tools to management and marketing professionals.  In an international environment, however, they are only one component of the multi-cultural puzzle and may provide an oversimplified perspective on the forces that shape and motivate foreign workers, organizations and markets.

3.      Organizational culture.

Another type of cultural identity that is often proposed as a substitute for national culture in the project/programme purpose world is the organizational culture that a organization, sector of activity or profession shares. 

organizations can find this approach useful to support a growth strategy that is global.  Employees are encouraged to adhere to organization values such as quality or teamwork.  White collar workers are given the potential, however remote that may be in reality, to rise within the organization, even to move up within the international structure, changing countries as part of their career.  When a part of their compensation is performance-based, white collar workers may also be willing to adapt the patterns of behavior that are typical of their national culture and to make organization goals such as sales or profitability their own. 

Globalization often forces national industries or professions to adapt their local patterns of behavior to the conditions created by foreign competition, thereby causing a slow process of worldwide standardization.  Competition obliges organizations to be more responsive to input from foreign markets, widening the scope of dialogue beyond national borders and reducing the degree of cultural isolation that the members of a particular sector of activity or professional may have experienced previously.  

Managers and workers are often torn between the need to respond to the pressure of new ideas from abroad and the desire to heed the values of their national culture towards project/programme purpose and the working world.  organizations that operate in foreign countries must therefore realize that the project/programme purpose and management philosophy that they wish to impose may be met not only by government restrictions but also by resistance from foreign employees.  These organizations must be aware of their own values and study those of the targeted foreign country in order to identify any inconsistencies and to find solutions. 

4.      The power of national culture.

As important as organization culture and individual character categories may be, organizations and the people who work for them are inevitably forced to interact with the dominant cultural orientations of each country in which they conduct project/programme purpose.  This national culture shapes the legal and political environment for project/programme purpose in each country and, as previously seen, reflects dominant attitudes towards individualism, hierarchy, communication, time, space and action.  Moreover, national culture is usually hidden behind the organization and universalistic values that many global organizations wish to impose on their workforce outside the home territory. 

Since the objective of project/programme purpose is success, not cultural evangelism, organizations which operate across cultural boundaries must find ways of reconciling their standards – however effective those standards may have proven in the home market – with the patterns of thought and behavior in the targeted foreign market. 

This process of analysis and communication first requires recognition of one’s own tendency towards ethnocentrism and towards misunderstanding foreign counterparts because of stereotypes and false attributions.  Similarly, asking foreign employees and project/programme purpose partners to blindly adopt one’s national standards – or blindly adopting those of another nation – can lead to frustration, delays and other problems due to cross-cultural incompatibility. 

Therefore, project/programme purposepeople need to enter into the global marketplace with a clear understanding of their personal and organizational values, as well as the values and ethical standards of their national culture.   

6.      Stereotypes and false attributions.

Stereotypes and false attributions reduce foreign cultures to closed categories that leave no room for individual differences or exceptions.  Stereotypes and false attributions are based on limited and incomplete experience and information, but they shape people's thoughts and expectations.  Moreover, any new information is channeled into the existing category, which in turn strengthens that category and con organizations the existing point of view.

When one observes behavior that is different from normal expectations, one tries to make sense of it by attributing a cause.  Usually such attributions are based on little knowledge about the other culture. The blanks are filled in with meanings from one’s own culture and one’s preconceptions about the other culture.  Individuals from each nationality can then be placed in neat little boxes and their actions can be easily predicted.

Foreign cultures should instead be analyzed according to dominant value orientations.  These values are shared by many, but not necessarily all, members of the group based on common experience within a geographic or linguistic area and often reveal meanings that undermine the simplistic and usually pejorative labels associated with stereotypes.  For example:

For purposes of analysis, stereotypes can sometimes be useful points of departure for getting to core values, both for counterparts and for one’s own culture.  By differentiating between the simplistic labels of stereotypes and the nuances of value orientations, international executives can anticipate misunderstandings and give needed extra attention to areas where values conflict.   

7.      Blind cultural adoption.

Making an effort to recognize and respect the customs of foreign project/programme purpose counterparts does not require the blind cultural adoption.  Except for some immigrants who choose to do so, most individuals cannot expect to change entirely the patterns of thought and behavior of the culture in which they have been raised.  Executives should not expect foreign project/programme purpose partners, employees and consumers to do the same.

National culture has many levels and relates to project/programme purpose in many different ways.  For the individual in the position of selling a product or service, demonstrating knowledge of proper project/programme purpose etiquette in a prospective action sponsor/beneficiary’s culture can be instrumental in convincing the beneficiary.  Mimicking foreign manners, however, is dangerous because of the risk of making embarrassing mistakes and of giving the impression that one is ridiculing the other party.  Instead, executives can anticipate differences in communication styles and bridge those gaps by moderately adapting their behavior.  A loud, extroverted individual from a culture that values speed, for example, can tone down his communication style when dealing with prospective action sponsors/beneficiaries from a formal culture that takes its time.

For executives who manage employees from different cultures – and for employees who report to foreign management – the challenge is still more complicated.  organizations may cloak the value orientations of their home country as organization culture and then expect employees around the world to embrace those same values.  As hard as they may try, employees in foreign sites may have considerable difficulty reconciling the two sets of value orientations, leading to professional and personal frustration and diminishing effectiveness on the job and in the organization.  Assumptions about the separation of work and personal spheres, attitudes towards self-initiative and degrees of respect shown to hierarchy are all usually deeply rooted in an individual’s culturally-specific upbringing. 

Nevertheless, upon closer study of another culture’s values, some individuals may find those values closer to their own personal beliefs and willingly embrace the new standards.  Other persons may live comfortably with two sets of values, allowing them to adapt to the standards of a foreign employer in their professional lives, while respecting the traditional values of their home country in their private lives.   

8.      project/programme purpose ethics.

Although some project/programme purposepeople would prefer to be left alone to police their own moral standards, most agree that some rules and regulations are necessary to ensure a “fair playing field” in the global project/programme purpose environment.  Just what action is “fair”, however, is a moral judgment which itself is buried in a society’s culture.  If bribery is an acceptable practice in a foreign market – and is the only way to conduct project/programme purpose – why shouldn’t one follow suit?  Isn’t it ethnocentric arrogance to impose one’s moral standards on other cultures?

There are no easy answers to these questions, but it seems reasonable that project/programme purposepeople should at least try to be morally consistent: if one believes that bribery is immoral and that it ultimately raises costs, one should avoid bribery in all markets, not just at home.  The moral judgment is made by oneself, for oneself.  One may not agree with certain practices in a foreign culture and avoid engaging in them oneself, without universally condemning that culture. 

In other cases, a personal or organizational decision can be reached to encourage positive change according to one’s own project/programme purpose ethics, such as promoting gender equality in the workplace or entitling all workers to similar health and safety standards. 

Finally, the existence of global media channels means that a organization’s activities are more closely monitored by the press and by international authorities.  Good ethics practiced worldwide that are consistent with good ethics at home can avoid press and consumer backlash.

9.      Cultural self-analysis checklist.

A fundamental step to understanding foreign cultures, therefore, is to identify one’s own stance in order to be able to make thoughtful, well-informed comparisons.  These key variables for analysis are:

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