Compliance with the International Law
Discus About The Expatriates International Business Contexts.
Compliance with the International Law: This is an issue for the Human Resource (HR) manager, as the laws across the cultures seem difficult and complex for implementation. Well information about the legal requirements can help in alleviating certain complexity. The Management department at Mc Donald’s also considers the labor laws, laws related to work schedules and laws determining maximum work hours of the employees before entering a country.
Aspect of Cultural Diversity: Working with employees belonging to varied locations and varied cultural backgrounds implies adapting to the newer ideas of the business, newer communication style and the unfamiliarity in the social practices. Since, McDonalds follows a policy of local staffing and promoting them from within so it gets adapted to the individual situation that one can describe as being Glocal.
Issues Related Training and Development: The employees should have cultural knowledge versus specialized knowledge. McDonalds therefore undertakes general cultural awareness and intelligence along with providing knowledge about country specific culture. It is also necessary for the HR managers to provide language training and familiarity with host country by acquiring knowledge about the laws and the legal system, government, business practices, local communities, business practices and operations of the local firm. The employees should have training about the local facilities that includes schooling, medical, accommodation, shopping, transport and domestic staff. Development of the employees includes general education concerning preparing managers for the newer assignments and higher positions.
Month 1: Honeymoon Stage: This is the stage of euphoria when someone feels excited, curious, enriched and stimulated. During this stage, one feels closer to every possible familiar thing at home. At this stage, the managers of McDonald also have a similar type of experience.
Month 2 and Month 3: Distress Stage: This is the stage when the differences start creating an impact. The managers at McDonalds also have the same feeling. It is also the stage when the things experienced do no longer feel new. It is also the stage where the managers feel confused, isolated or inadequate along with the realization that the known support system does not remain familiar any longer
Month 4: Stage of Reintegration: This is the stage of winging for a person. Here, the managers begin to dislike the language, culture and the food of the host country and reject it being inferior. There also might be certain prejudices where they feel not only frustrated and angry but there is also a feeling of hostility. At this stage, they also start comparing the present culture with the one that he/she is familiar. Accounting, at this stage the managers learns to adjust.
Aspect of Cultural Diversity
Month 5: Stage of Autonomy: This refers to the stage of acceptance. At this stage the managers starts accepting the differences and learns to live with them. Here the managers feel more confident and develop the ability of coping with any sort of problem.
Month 6: Independence Stage: This is the stage of embracement. Here the managers of McDonald’s starts adapting to the newer culture and observe everything in realistic yet new light.
Figure: Oberg’s Six-month Cycle of Culture Shock
Source: (Shi and Wang 2013)
McDonald’s have managers who understand both the local and corporate culture. The company emphasizes on a recruitment policy that asks for applicants who are primarily customer focused. The elements of team structures that the managers of McDonalds must keep in mind include (Ashoori and Burns 2013):
- Determination of Rules: This element refers to an expected behavior of the employees. Rules are used for controlling employee behavior.
- Determination of Norms:This element represents the unstated informal behavior and at times acts more effective compared to the rules due to the ownership of the members.
- Determination of Roles: This element of team structure helps in setting norm that helps in defining the behavior for the different positions. The roles are relationship orientated, task orientated and relationship orientated.
- Determination of Status: This element helps in determining the rank of role within team hierarchy that can result in creation of conflict.
- Determination of the Leaders: Leadership might be shared, rotated or individualistic. The task leaders help in focusing the team towards the achievement of goals. Relationship leaders primarily focus on the social and emotional aspects of team. There might also be leaders belonging to high power distance cultures who dominate the team.
- Determination of Followers: This element has the motive not to lead but takes leadership within area of expertise. In this case, followers from the lower power distance might act less supportive followers.
- Indirect versus Direct Communication: In a cross cultural workplace there is always a conflict between indirect and direct communication. Indirect communication takes place when the true intention of the speaker remains hidden. Indirect speakers will neither make a direct statement nor answer a question directly (Herrmann 2013). Moreover, the indirect speakers believe in remaining more polite than providing a true response.On the other hand, direct communication refers to the true intentions of the speaker in communicating a verbal message(Thomas and Peterson 2017)
- Difference in Attitudes towards Authority and Hierarchy: This is a challenge quite inherent in the multicultural teamwork due to the design where the teams have a flat structure (Gursoy, Chi and Karadag 2013). Thus, team member belonging to a different culture might receive different treatment that leads to the creation of an uncomfortable situation on the flat teams.
- Conflict between Acting as Individual versus Benefit of Group
In a team, there exists a tension between the want of an individual team member and their interest against what is necessary for the security, safety and welfare of entire team. The managers need to moderate such conflict for the smooth running of the team. Depending on the requirement of the team, the manager of the company needs to resolve the conflict in the favor of either set of interest
- Varied Norms in Decision-making: In a multicultural workplace, there always exists confusion between when decisions are made, who made them and how they are made. This sometimes acts as barrier that hinders participation within workplace.
- Transition Time Can Lead to Dissatisfaction:
This refers to the adjustment time taken for being acquainted to the new environment and culture. This is because China has a politically based culture whose characteristics include (Jiang 2013):
- Business organization based on concept of the collective ownership
- The loyalty depends on the political ideology
- Ideological considerations holds more importance than hiring of employees
- The government has a huge amount of interference in resource allocation, business decisions, setting of prices and hiring.
- Experiencing the Crisis and the Unexpected Difficulties:
- Inability of interacting with the people in authority
- Lack of clear idea of making friends belonging to different culture
- Lack of clear understanding of expressing oneself in the usual manner
- Difference in customs, traditions, eating and religious habits
- Huge differences in educational system
- On finding that the people belonging to new culture is more impatient
- On finding how people are prejudiced against the others belonging to different cultures
- Hostility towards the Present Situation: The employees not only dislike the culture, language and food but they start comparing it as inferior. The presence of certain prejudices makes them feel not only angry but also frustrated along with feeling hostile. The employees also start comparing both the cultures.
- Reverse Culture Shock: This refers to the psychological and the emotional distress suffered by employees while they return home after spending a number of years in the overseas. These employees might face immense difficulties in readjusting to the values and the cultures of home country. This is because the previously familiar culture has now become unfamiliar (Wagner 2016).
- Difficulty in Overcoming Changes: The workforce has undergone massive changes in terms of newer worldviews and experiences.They have also gathered new skills and knowledge. Moreover, massive changes have taken place at home in terms of personnel and structural changes. There have also been newer developments and a gap exists in the shared history.
- Difficulty in Adjusting to Career: The work force or the employee might face difficulty in career progression, as the previous position might no longer be available. This might put a halt in his career path.
- Lesser Valuation for the Newly Acquired Skills: It is found that only 20 percent of the organization remains effective in repatriation as there lay a greater concern for the payment and the preparation of the expatriate. Only 60 to 70 percent of the expatriates return with no fixed position or job.
- Personal Difficulties: The expatriate might find it difficult to readjust in the organization of the home country. The job or position might not reflect any newer skills. There is also change in the personal finances and difficulty in readjusting to the life back home.
- Problem related to communication and language
- Presence of multiple organizations
- Differences in leadership and managerial skills
- Differences in culture
- Complexity in decision making process
- Difference in time zones
- Difference in geographic dispersal
- Difference in technology
- Conflicts of personalities
- Enhanced complexity in the work ambience
Global mindset refers to the combination of openness and awareness of the diversity across the cultures and the markets with the ability and the propensity of seeing the common patterns across the marker and across the countries (Javidan and Bowen 2013).
The concept can be applied in the particular case in five different ways (Story et al. 2014):
- By Recognizing Own Value and Culture: The cycle starts with analyzing and discovering biases and values that remains rooted in various cultural influences. This might involve completion of a cultural value assessment that helps in not only recognizing oneself but also helps in comparing to the other cultures across varied dimensions like the hierarchy and the style. This step particularly helps if an employee is either planning a move to a newer country or interacting with the diverse colleagues.
- By Determining Personality Trait: The traits that influence effective interaction within the cultures includes flexibility, emotional awareness, openness, social dexterity, curiosity and emotional awareness that help in determining a person’s ability in managing a team
- Learning about Workplace and the Business Expectation of Relevant Countries: The step helps in transferring the attention from oneself and learns more about typical expectations, habits and the best practices in not only the other countries but also the cultures. Here, it is necessary to note that the cultural norms are high-level tendencies and not stereotypes. It is however not possible to know every possible thing about each culture but a person can always have an access to the demanding insights of doing effective business from not only various learning platforms but also online resources.
Similar to the process of learning to speak second language, it proves to be helpful when one immerses himself/herself with the people from the other parts of world in developing global mindset. The relationships helps in facilitating valuable learning about seems effective and what does not work. The capability of forming relationships across cultures helps in the development of more positive intercultural relationships. This helps in generating comfort while working with diverse working styles without resorting to stereotyping.
This involves the expansion of the range of the business behavior by adapting to behave in a manner that might seem unusual to a person but is highly effectual while interacting with the others.
References:
Ashoori, M. and Burns, C., 2013. Team cognitive work analysis: Structure and control tasks. Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making, 7(2), pp.123-140.
Binder, J., 2016. Global project management: communication, collaboration and management across borders. Routledge.
Fullan, M., 2014. Leading in a culture of change personal action guide and workbook. John Wiley & Sons.
Gursoy, D., Chi, C.G.Q. and Karadag, E., 2013. Generational differences in work values and attitudes among frontline and service contact employees. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 32, pp.40-48.
Herrmann, A.F., 2013. Kierkegaard and indirect communication: Theorizing HRD, organizational socialization, and edification. Human Resource Development Review, 12(3), pp.345-363.
Javidan, M. and Bowen, D., 2013. Global Mindset’of managers. Organizational dynamics, 42(2), p.145.
Jiang, Y., 2013. Business Negotiation Culture in China-A Game Theoretic Approach. International Business Research, 6(3), p.109.
Rajasekar, J. and Renand, F., 2013. Culture shock in a global world: Factors affecting culture shock experienced by expatriates in Oman and Omani expatriates abroad. International Journal of Business and Management, 8(13), p.144.
Shi, L. and Wang, L., 2013. The culture shock and cross-cultural adaptation of Chinese expatriates in international business contexts. International Business Research, 7(1), p.23.
Story, J.S., Barbuto, J.E., Luthans, F. and Bovaird, J.A., 2014. Meeting the challenges of effective international HRM: Analysis of the antecedents of global mindset. Human Resource Management, 53(1), pp.131-155.
Thomas, D.C. and Peterson, M.F., 2017. Cross-cultural management: Essential concepts. Sage Publications.
Wagner, R., 2016. The invention of culture. University of Chicago Press.
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