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The Guide to Translation and Localization: Winning in the Global Market - The Critical Role of Culture
[ Table of Contents ] Chapter 19: Winning in the Global Market - The Critical Role of Culture by Danielle Walker Consider the following Working with Cultural Differences scenario:
Based on your success at the U.S.A. headquarters as a sales manager, you are sent to China to oversee the creation of a new department. You are fluent in both Mandarin and Cantonese, so verbal and written communication is not a problem. During your first meeting with the new department, you discuss in detail and in Mandarin your motivation and interest in making this department one of your organization's top business units. You tell them about an incentive program you created that will allow each member to excel and be rewarded for individual contributions. You make decisions and implement changes you feel will help achieve this goal. After a few days, it becomes apparent that your Chinese subordinates are not enthusiastic about your plans. Why are they upset? (A) They would prefer to be treated as a group and not receive individual recognition for contributions. (B) You did not consult them regarding your decisions. (C) They feel insulted that you addressed them in Chinese instead of in English. (Correct answer found at the end of this article.) Despite nearly two decades of corporate globalization efforts, many organizations still struggle to find managers who are comfortable and effective in the increasingly global economy. Most suffer from a lack of cultural awareness when dealing with employees and overseas partners, and from a lack of experience managing increasingly complex processes over long distances. But why is it so difficult to develop effective global managers? The answers are as complex as the world's geographies. Each company has its own specific needs and challenges, and every country presents a unique and rapidly changing landscape in which work must be accomplished. But even so, there are steps that companies and managers can take to better prepare for the challenges of managing globally. Why build Cultural Competence? We believe that the Culturally Competent organization has a deep understanding of culture that:
What are the specific outcomes? Culturally Competent organizations are responsive, agile, and adaptable at many levels:
Building Cultural Competence Cultural Competence is an increasingly important aspect of a successful manager and leader. Whether one is relocating to a different country, on a temporary assignment, part of a regional or global team, or leading a regional or global project, the ability to transcend cultural differences in the pursuit of business objectives is a critical skill set. So how does one build Cultural Competence? Five discreet personal aspects can be isolated when looking at the learning process that leads to Cultural Competence. These aspects are integral to a cumulative learning process that yields specific behavioral skills and practices. Open Attitude • Receptive to cross-cultural learning and maintains an open and productive attitude toward differences. • Continuously challenges assumptions about other cultures. Self-Awareness
Other-Awareness
Cultural Knowledge
The Guide to Translation and Localization
Cultural Skills
We have identified four interrelated skills that define the critical skill set of culturally competent managers and leaders.
About Culture AtTMC, we believe that most approaches to culture awareness fall short and are not well matched to the types of cultural challenges typically faced by globalizing organizations and by global managers and leaders. To be useful, a perspective on culture needs to be of practical value in helping us to (1) navigate a broad spectrum of differences; (2) understand the fundamentals of various cultures and cross-cultural interactions; and (3) translate this understanding into personal behaviors and organizational expectations. To guide us in our endeavor, we have developed several axioms about culture: Axiom 1: Cultural Boundaries are Not National Boundaries In the field of cross-cultural communication, the concept of cultural boundaries is often used interchangeably with those of geographical and political boundaries (i.e., the nation). This perspective delineates different values and belief systems largely on the basis of national boundaries and nicely matches the contemporary understanding of the world, in which we have institutionalized the boundaries of sovereign nation-states as the universally recognized boundaries between peoples. This notion has served well those businesses that divided the world into neat geographic regions and serviced them with a multinational organizational structure. However, with the dynamic expansion of globalization, using geographical/political worldviews to represent cultural differences is no longer useful and in fact carries with it rather dangerous baggage. The habit of atrributing characteristics to nationally defined groups is both unrealistic and unproductive in the global work environment. First, less than 10 percent of the world's nation-states can be considered homogeneous. In only half of these nation-states is there a single ethnic group that makes up more than 75 percent the population. Multiculturalism is surely the norm and cultural homogeneity the exception. Axiom 2: Culture is a Shared Pattern of Ideas, Emotions and Behaviors Culture operates on both a conscious and unconscious level; it is both a characteristic of groups and is carried by individuals. Many of the commonly used definitions of culture highlight these features. We suggest that it is useful, in attempting to understand the programming language of culture, to think of it as an iceberg. The proverbial "tip of the iceberg" symbolizes the level of behavior and other observables/tangibles (i.e., the world of manifestations). Beneath the level of our daily awareness, this behavior is linked to a world of values and meaning that is shared by a group. This internal world, which consists of ideas and their emotional value, is symbolically expressed as the "bottom of the iceberg." In simplistic terms, the shared linkage between a behavioral expression (a handshake or a bow) and an idea or notion constitutes a norm. If we observe, for example, that a particular group of people tends to shake hands upon meeting, we may call this behavior the social norm for this group. The shared linkage between an idea/notion and an emotion can be considered a value. The Cultural Orientations Approach recognizes the connection between norms and values by defining culture as the complex pattern of ideas, emotions, and observable/symbolic manifestations (including behaviors, practices, institutions, and artifacts) that tends to be expected, reinforced, and rewarded by and within a particular group. Axiom 3: Cultures Reflect Distinctive Value Orientations at Various Levels We may describe culture as holographic. Holographic images are built in such a way that the smallest part contains the entirety of the image. The magnificence of the entire three-dimensional image that we behold is the result of the amplification and magnification of the totality of the smallest parts. Culture seems to work in much the same way in that its smallest part, namely the individual, contains within it the deep structure of values and norms. Both are amplified and reinforced in interpersonal interactions. The small group - or, in a business context, the team - further magnifies and reinforces cultural configurations. The same thing happens again at the larger societal level, or, in a business context, at the organizational level. It is useful for our purposes to distinguish four interrelated levels of culture:
Summary When organizations globalize, the skill base of every manager changes and the importance of cultural awareness becomes increasingly important. Every cultural group is characterized by a distinct set of behavioral norms, practices and institutions. An effective training and awareness program will embrace these differences and improve the ability of individuals, teams, and organizations to perform across a broad cultural spectrum. Most importantly, it will also enable individuals and groups to contribute to their fullest potential by leveraging their unique experiences, perspectives, and viewpoints for the collective benefit of all stakeholders. About TMC Training Management Corporation (TMC) serves more than 40 corporations from the Global Fortune 100, delivering pragmatic consulting and personnel development solutions that meet the operational challenges of today's multicultural global business environment. Through improving business performance and productivity, TMC's clients are guaranteed a competitive advantage. With offices in the U.S., Singapore and Belgium, TMC is proud of its exceptional growth and unparalleled client satisfaction as a leading provider of global assessment, training, development and integrated business solutions in more than 60 countries across 5 continents. TMC has ensured over 22 consecutive years of profitability by relying on its three operating principles: Optimizing Team Performance Across Cultures, Driving Inclusive Leadership, and Building Cultural Competence. Correct Answer to Working with Cultural Differences: (A) You have inaccurately assumed that the competitiveness used as motivation and an incentive to sales forces in the U.S.A. will have the same impact with members of a Chinese sales force. Such an approach may be unpopular with the Chinese for at least two reasons: The culture is much more cooperative in nature than in the U.S.A., using established networks to accomplish goals; and the Chinese would prefer group recognition to having individuals excel.
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