Culture and Communication As Key Ingredients in Making of a Global Organization

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Executive Summary

In this report we want our readers to first understand what are the key ingredients that go into the making of a global organization. For us to understand the, we delve into the nuances and issues that may arise due to cultural diversity, different principles of working in different countries and how we can tackle each of these challenges effectively.

For a global company to function as a single entity, communication channels need to be set up so that there are no communication gaps. Goals of the organization is understood by all and everyone is always on the same wavelength. Moreover, we need to be aware of certain cultural differences that may result in conflicts and deal with them before they become unsolvable issues and result in breaking of the communication channel. As Monash Inc. investigates offshoring some of its responsibilities and expand into a global force, its advantage relies upon its capacity to organize information and assets that are spread across different countries. Today there are heap organizational instruments that global companies can use to incorporate scattered task list across geographies. In any case, the best apparatus is the global team: a cross cultural group of people of various nationalities, working in various societies, organizations and capacities, who meet up to arrange some part of the global activity on a global premise.

It is essentially unthinkable for a global company to exploit economies of worldwide scale and degree, augment the exchange of information or develop a worldwide mentality without comprehension and acing the administration of global teams. That, in any case, is quite difficult. One of the best ways to tackle these issues of formulation of a global team to function properly lies on the shoulders of executives to provide explicit and detailed agenda and scope while conducting business. Moreover, companies’ policies should be formulated in such a manner that it accounts for cultural interests in different areas as well. These things may sound easy, but many a times is forgotten by global businesses.

1. Introduction

In an increasingly globalized economy, people from different cultures and backgrounds find themselves working together more and more frequently. Even when people are willing and eager to work together and cooperate, they may unintentionally confuse or even offend each other because of their different ways of doing things. Remaining aware of differences and being patient with each other can help minimize problems. The issues at global workplace can be

2. Intercultural communication

2.1 Language

At the point when individuals who are working speak in various dialects, it can exhibit a noteworthy deterrent to progress. Learning another dialect is a difficult endeavour and is more troublesome as a grown-up than as a kid. Answers for this issue may incorporate continuous workplace language classes, multilingual interpreters fused into a group and innovative arrangements, for example, translation software [1]. At the point when colleagues see an assorted variety of dialects as a chance to gain some new useful knowledge instead of an impossible issue, they will all profit by the communication.

2.2 Communication Styles

Techniques for correspondence that are typical for one group of individuals may seem insufficient or improper to another group. For instance, Australians will in general be casual contrasted with numerous different societies and may appear to be unnecessarily cordial to somebody, especially a more seasoned individual, from India or China. An individual from a culture where uproarious voices and interrupting are not intended to be forceful may threaten somebody from a culture that shows an increasingly reserved way of articulation. Learning ahead of time about the way of life of colleagues before you take a shot at a group with them can enable you to comprehend their techniques for correspondence.

2.3 Hierarchy

The significance of authority fluctuates significantly between cultures. A few group pay extraordinary regard to individuals in places of authority, while individuals from different cultures are feel it is their right to scrutinize an executive decision if they see an executive accomplishing something incorrectly [1]. Idea of authority depends on various criteria in various societies. A few cultures worship more seasoned individuals, while others present a bias dependence on an individual’s achievements. The idea of a group ought to be clarified to all members at its commencement. A few groups are agreeable, with an even structure and no leaders, while others have plainly characterized levels of leadership. [1]

2.4 Conflict

When conflict does occur within a team, members from different backgrounds may react to it in dramatically different ways. Some people will repress their reactions to an insult or slight, while others will fight back. These reactions are based on individual personality to some extent but are also conditioned by a person’s background. Resolving conflict between co-workers effectively requires an understanding of everyone’s view of what caused the conflict. Reconciling warring parties is difficult enough when dealing with people of similar backgrounds; when working with multiple cultures and national traditions, maintaining smooth relations between everyone on a team can become a major challenge.

At the point when there is a conflict inside a group, individuals from various backgrounds may respond to it in drastically various ways. A few people will stifle their responses to an affront or slight, while others will battle back. These responses depend on individual character somewhat but at the same time are molded by an individual’s experience. Settling struggle between collaborators viably requires a comprehension of everybody’s perspective on what caused the contention. Accommodating warring gatherings is troublesome enough when managing individuals of comparative foundations; when working with various societies and national customs, keeping up smooth relations between everybody in a group can turn into a noteworthy test.

3. Managing team work in global teams

Many businesses rely on successful teamwork to reach company goals and objectives. While more organizations have gone global, good teamwork has become increasingly imperative, since employees with differing skill sets and ideas may be scattered on different continents. Circumstances may call for these global employees to share what information they have in each location to strategize, innovate and bring to market a company’s products or services; teamwork, therefore, plays a variety of important roles in a business.

3.1 Organizational Effectiveness

Teamwork plays a vital role in organizational effectiveness, which determines how effective a company can be in its many facets. These facets can include internal communication, communication with investors or shareholders, new product launches and customer service. Depending on the nature of your business, you may depend on different teams working together to ensure that these facets are conducted successfully. This way, a single employee or poorly functioning team will be unable to guarantee an organization’s effectiveness.

3.2 Shared Knowledge

The more employees an organization has working together in a team toward a common company goal, the more likely that goal will be met successfully. With varying skill sets, strategies, education levels and past work experiences, a team of employees can bring more shared knowledge to the table in terms of innovation, ideas and solutions. This may result in better products, earnings and company operations.

3.3 Faster Results

With a team of employees that can benefit from shared knowledge, decision-making can become more streamlined, since each team decision will be more well-informed over one that is made by an individual who may lack a complete team’s skill set. This can translate to faster solutions to problems that may arise within an organization, better response time when rolling out new products and alternating marketing strategies, depending on the economic and retail environment.

3.4 Common Purpose

The strength of many teams is the coming together for a common purpose. In a corporate atmosphere, this purpose is most often the success of the corporation, which drives employee morale and wages. This recognition of common purpose and the daily striving of working together for the greater good of the organization plays a vital role in the health, vitality and agility of a well-functioning company.

4. How do we set up effective communication channels between global teams

Global virtual teams are the virtual teams whose operation is in global scale and whose members are globally distributed. Compared with virtual teams whose members are sitting and working in the same country, a global virtual team faces bigger challenges in cultural difference, language barriers, information sharing, social context, etc. A global virtual team is commonly formed in high tech sector, and they are normally rapidly formed, changed and dissolved due to the dynamic changes in market Most global virtual team members are spread among several projects with competing priorities, which drives all team members to seek for effective communication with each other

4.1 The Impact on the Global Business Environment

To understand the need to learn more about intercultural communication, we need to examine the impact of intercultural communication on the global business environment and its implications for success or failure for the global enterprise. However, the impact of intercultural communication on global business has seldom, if ever, been successfully measured. Unsuccessful joint ventures, marketing gaffes due to inaccurate translations and failed forays into new markets are rarely attributed solely to ineffective cultural understanding and communications. It is unrealistic to expect that a single aspect of a global business environment could be isolated and measured to any degree of accuracy. For this to happen, research and business case history would need to intersect in a systematic manner, using a pre-determined scorecard.

4.2 Applicability to the Global Project Manager

Much of the expansion within the global business environment takes the form of projects, for example, an acquisition, an outsourcing of a product or service, or the testing of a new market. After the initial project, the outcome of the project may be the permanent implementation of the product, service, organisation or new market into the enterprise’s ongoing operations. These initial temporary endeavours—i.e., projects—are most often managed by project managers, referred to here as global project managers.

For the global project manager, the importance of the ability to successfully interact with others outside his/her own culture is critical to the overall success of the project. The project manager achieves results by coordinating the efforts of others within a team structure. The team structure that the project manager crystallizes becomes its own culture, with a common identity. For the global project manager, the team typically comprises individuals representing different national cultures. Intercultural competence then becomes a key competency for the global project manager and can be directly assessed using a variety of assessment tools.

4.3 The Link between Culture and Communication

The link between culture and communication is important to understand because it is through the influence of culture that people learn to communicate. Children learn to communicate in the same way others in their national culture do, not just in language but also in meaning. Culture cannot be isolated from the communication process, because it impacts both the communicator and the receiver of the message.

There are many different definitions and basic concepts in the field of cultural study that are referenced in the body of knowledge. For example, culture is referred to as an onion or as the impact of gravity upon an individual or likened to the experience of a fish in water. The focus of this paper is to introduce and share some of the most significant concepts, including culture as a private world, culture as a pattern for living, culture as mental programming, culture as a shared mindset and the concept of world view.

5. Recommendations

Balance participation to ensure inclusion: It is important for Monash Inc. to improve participation by actively engaging every team member to participate in any ongoing activities. Since offshoring can lead to communication gaps with them not having complete view of the pipeline of every project especially when their deliverables are moved to onshore counterparts, it becomes important for executives to inform them about the outcome of each deliverable, share successes and also take regular feedback from them. This ensures that the team is proactive and feels included in every major decision taken by the managers

Encourage engagement between different cultures: Initial setup in offshore accounts will require team members from different cultures to interact daily to understand local and global market conditions. Setting up one on one meetings, team building activities like team outings which bring about an informal setup for all to interact more freely is vital. Different cultures may shy away from confrontational behaviour or more dangerously not share their ideas within the team if they have not interacted with other team members. There is a level of trust that needs to be instilled in the team before all barriers of communication can be addressed. It is the task of the management to create teams which are a mix of different cultures and if possible allocate work in different rotations, reshuffling the team every 6 months to ensure everyone is comfortable with each other. One more mechanism that can help could be celebrating events and festivals from different cultures so that people can engage with different communities specifically and try to understand them from their cultural perspective

Discourage dominant behaviour: When dealing with different cultures, one should be empathetic towards the other, understand from where the opinion is coming from. A great global leader is able to move past the cultural barrier and understand the ideas behind the team’s actions which is can sometimes be masked due to a communication gap. Rather than always delegating work directly, and enforcing your own opinion on the team, using I-statements and encouraging equal participation can help boost team morale

Encourage people to disagree with ideas: As a global leader, the project managers and account managers need to understand that even through all their experience, they may sometimes not completely understand the local dynamics better than the locales. Offering a chance to all team members to disagree with them enables the employees to feel more valued and appreciated in the workplace.

A key to success is awareness of the intercultural communication process. While global project managers understand the simple process of communications (sender, message, receiver, feedback), the process when two communicators are from different cultures can be more problematic. Potential barriers to effective communication in the intercultural communication process include the following:

Cultural frames: Using the window through which an individual defines him/herself, others and the world
Ethnocentrism: Evaluating another culture according to our own
False attributions: Attributing our own meanings to behaviours in other cultures, which may not be correct
Stereotypes: Using generalizations that do not allow for exceptions
Etiquette and nonverbal behaviours: Understanding the meanings of gestures, facial expressions and body positions requiring specific knowledge of a culture
Other elements: Including time and place, topic, status and power, and style
Language: Knowing this can be a barrier even if individuals speak the same language

6. Conclusion

In this report, we have tried to understand the key ingredients that can help facilitate a smooth expansion of Monash Inc. in Bangalore, India and in Schengen, China. Formulation of global teams (teams consisting of an onshore counterpart and offshore counterpart), reward-based system, instilling trust through informal activities, breaking down cultural barriers are some of the most important aspects to consider while moving into another country. Many organizations end up with failed projects and delays in project deliverables due to the communication gap that is created due to distance, lack of understanding and sometimes lack of motivation. Effective and communicate appropriate channels, regular face time with onshore counterparts can go a long way into building long term relationships with the company and within one’s team. Lastly an organization with very clear goals and work ethics with a tinge of empathy can steer people to work for a single goal. When the objectives are clearly defined, language barriers can be minimized, and global team becomes a big reality.

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