Managing Across Cultures

(Report is based on the study of cross culture related articles)

Submitted to:

John Lapwood (Tutor)

Communication in Business, LNG 002-6

Submitted by: Muhammad Waqas Abid Student ID Number: 1022121 Cohort-1

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Preface:
I, Muhammad Waqas Abid (Manager Human Resource department) pleased to announce that we have attained the orders from South Asia and China we will be launching our product very soon in these countries. It gives real pleasure to us that we are now expanding across the world but on the other hand it also requires great commitment from each of us and we have to work more hard. As everyone is well aware that we will be shifting our staff in near future to these countries, so, this report is for all those staff members who would be shifting to these countries and will be representing us. The prime goal of this report is to make you people understand about the cultural challenges which you would be facing in near future and what you need to be doing in those circumstances to which you didnt come across yet. This report gives the brief idea of managing across culture. For compilation of this report I have used few articles and references which all are notified. I hope this report will give you good information about managing in different culture.

Working Methodology:
For the compilation of this report I have studied six different articles relating cultural issues and how we can manage in different cultural environment and selected two of them for the compilation of my report.

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Table of Content
Topics with page numbers
1. Culture 2. Cross Culture Management 2.1. Cultural Shock 4 2.1.1. How to manage cultural shock 4 2.2. Cross Cultural Communication 5 2.2.1. Language 2.2.2. Eye Contact 5 2.2.3. Respecting other Views 2.3. Awareness of Cultural Distinction 6 3. Conclusion 6 5 5 4 4

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1. Culture:
Culture is the way how a person lives in any environment; it includes all his/her values, attributes & belief. In other words it is the peoples totality. According to Ferraro (2002) Culture is everything that people have, think and do as members of their society.

2. Cross Culture Management:

Earlier people didnt realise about the cross cultural issues but as time passed they discovered this issue as a vast topic. As this world is considered to be a global village now, so to behave in this village we should know about cross cultural issues. The need of cross cultural management arose with increase in globalization and as our business is also globalising now, so we also need to make ourselves aware of that. Cross cultural management refers to the number of issues in different kind of cultures. It covers the basic cultural norms, the study of culture and communication etc.

2.1 Cultural Shock:

Cultural Shock refers the failure to cope with any culture [1]; this condition of cultural shock normally arose when you move from known culture to a new culture. You can get the cultural shock from different reason. Either you would be feeling lonely, any kind of anxiety, reduction in your working performances, guilty of yourself being different or feeling yourself inappropriate for that place. 2.1.1 How to manage cultural shock? In that condition first of all you should try to sort out what are the basic things of that culture which resembles to your culture? And what are the things which are different from your culture? After you focus on the things which you consider are similarities and then try to understand those differences, it doesnt mean that you impose those differences on you but
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just keep trying to figure them out that how you can manage with those differences. By overcoming your cultural anxiety, try to use basic language which is considered to be inclusive language, try to convey empathy and try to build your relation with the people of that culture means you should show your willingness to strengthen and maintaining the relations. By doing all these exercises I am sure you all will feel some kind of easiness in dealing with that cultural shock.

2.2 Cross Cultural Communication:

Cross culture communication is a major factor in the management across cultures. Because whenever you will be moving to new place you have to find some way to communicate and language is always considered to be the main element which one considers a barrier, when he or she moves to a new and unknown culture. 2.2.1 Language: Language is required for verbal communication and as well as non verbal communication. It is always difficult to understand and communicate in others language if your are unknown to it, but as you people would be moving from UK to South Asian countries and China, so, I certainly hope this will not be a great issue as they are well aware of English language but try to keep it as simple as possible, considering that their first language is not English and the style of communication is different from here, so try to keep that accent which would be easy for them to understand and in this way communication will get much easier. 2.2.2 Eye Contact: Eye Contact is also one major factor in communications, as different cultures have different kind of standards for eye contact. This eye contact issue was earlier not understood and numerous global events didnt able to give their 100% just because of that. As in our UK culture some kind of eye contact is always required because it shows your confidence and your firmness while you are in conversation with any person. In contrast to UK, in Eastern countries, where eye contact refers that you are above the person to whom you are in conversation or in other words it is the sign that you are rude and aggressive [1]. Eye contact also tells the power distance in different culture. As in UK the power distance level is too low, while in eastern countries it is considered to be very high means if I would be a manager in any South Asian country I
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would have much power than I have right now. So, I suggest while working in that environment you will also have to take that in consideration. 2.2.3 Respecting Others Views: Respecting others and giving the values to other is also one important thing which you people will need to doing while communicating and working in different culture. There would be great difference in views due to cultural differences but you all need to respect the views and ideas of that culture. You would be aware of the differences in cultural views, so, try to use these differences to challenge your views and try to figure out the right way of doing things and this will defiantly help you in learning different ways of solving problems. [1]

2.3 Awareness of Cultural Distinction:

As business strategies are different in different cultures, so some time any small misunderstanding can lead to any kind of unwanted result and that will lead to frustration and will be considered as opportunity wasted. For the business it is normally treated as low morale and it is always a bad sign for any organization [2]. As there are different kinds of negotiation practices in business world, this negotiation strategy normally based on the persuasion style, this persuasion can be done through discussion, any kind of argument. The strategy which we follow in UK is different from the strategy of South Asian countries. In UK the strategy of negotiation is based on quasilogical style of persuading. So, you have to persuade by any means of statistics, a good piece of evidence, any quotes from renowned person and expert advices. But this negotiation strategy is quite different in Eastern culture, they refer for the presentational style of persuasion, which is that they believe in long term relationships in any kind of negotiation, relationship is the most important factor than any other in their business negotiation. So, Language is the main tool for them that how you are using it in front of them.

3. Conclusion:
I hope this brief report will give you just an idea that what basically the circumstance you would be facing in your near future, and how you have to cope with those circumstances. This would be great challenge for all of you
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and I certainly hope that you all have the potential to manage across cultures.

Reference:
1. Managing Across culture differences,

http://www.1000ventures.com/ten3_operations/customized/crosscultural_differences_china-us.html (Accessed on 18th Oct, 2010)

2. Cross-cultural training: Learning to make the most of increasing

internationalisation, By Sarah Murray, Published: May 11 2005 15:33, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/300d8cea-c1f4-11d9-866a00000e2511c8.html (Accessed on 20th Oct, 2010)

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