Challenges Of Cross-Cultural Management: A Case Study Analysis

About the case

Culture is nothing but the values and beliefs. Getting different cultures in one-place exchanges more of views and ideas. Therefore, there are numerous pitfalls related to it like, if a company enters into a new market, managing team from the different culture is bit challenging. The communication is the major hindrances, which a company faces while managing cross culture management. Hence, in order to be successful one must have to adopt a new set of skills, education plus time and experience can generate great results in cross- culture aspect. Certain hindrance in form of planning, managing, culture and people are also need to be look over for proper formulation of cross culture aspects (Lok, & Crawford, 2008).

Yang Jianguo was one the senior vice president of worldwide product development of china. Deronde International was the brand for which he made perfumes. Alain Deronde, CEO of Deronde international who appointed Jianguo. As, being a vice president of product development he uses autocratic style of leadership in which he himself design decisions for the organisation. This clarifies that he is highly concern for production rather than, people working over there. The qualities, which he displays in his work, were resulting driven, self-disciplined, committed and quality focused (Business Management, 2013).

This entire case is based on the cross-culture management in which, Jianguo was promoted for the global role and was moved to France. There he experienced the cross-culture differences with the working system and with his colleagues. Due to this, resentment arises with his competitors and the major issue related to case was that he does not know more about western countries. Due to all this, confusion and frustration with the mixed signals made the condition even more worst for him (Bisk, 2018).

Cultural differences

As, world accepts willingly and enthusiastically the global economy with its expanded management staffs in order to keep step in the emerging market economy. Similarly, Deronde international organisation appointed Jianguo of Chinese management to France, all the way to the new western country. Certainly, this created differences in national and corporate culture within the same organisation. Therefore, such situation creates hindrances in working system of a new environment. This also highlights different attitude and behaviour of the new colleagues, which makes a hard time for Jianguo to work (Keep, 2018).

In this theory, the differences are based on six dimensions but according to this case, we will focus on Individualism v/s collectivism. In this, Jianguo, when he was in china, he as a local manager individually manages the entire organisations working because in eastern culture, they individually manage decision-making and it has to be followed by his subordinates. In contrast to France culture, they apply collectivism approach in which they follow bottom up approach and allow everyone for giving suggestion for decision-making.

Other difference is created, which is based on power distance in which it is differentiated because of low and high power distance. If we talk about two of these countries, china has more of power distance in comparative to France in which it highlights; china has unequal distribution of power. In addition, France has less unequally distributed of power. In this case, no equality in china was found as Jianguo self manages the entire decision making process whereas in France some of the authority to work with top management was given to employees was  found. Moreover, seeing all this, Jianguo got annoyed and frustrated (Hofstede insights, 2018).

Elements and reasons of conflicts in this case

Jianguo was facing a turning point. In china, he was a local manager, as he got succeed in one of the competition for that he was elected as multi- national executive in Spain. However, Jianguo noticed that French companies were following flat organisation structure (Qiu, Lin, Tang, & Qiao, 2009). In this, employees were directly reporting to the top management. Employees also suggest decisions to them. Whereas in china, the company follows hierarchical organisation style, in which every employee has to report to his direct head and then direct head will make contact to the particular department manager. Hence, this Jianguo noticed that French employees directly reported to their head instead of him. This generated biasness and misunderstanding in the mind against the employees of the French organisation (Zheng, Yang, & McLean, 2010).

In this theory, organization establishes a pyramid to define the partition of labour in a corporation and recognize the status of specialization. Similarly, in this case, in china Jianguo was working in bureaucratic environment where there is top to bottom approach. This means subordinates have to perform that what top management decides to be performed. In contract there is a shift to France culture, Jianguo should adopts neo classical theory in which he work as an bottom up approach where assistants are accepted of managerial ability. Therefore, key to this theory was to maintain symmetry (Johnson, 2015).

In this the conflict arises due to the leadership style which the Jianguo followed was the autocratic style of leadership in which he made decisions which were mainly based on intuition, experience and anecdotes. He was more concern about the production rather than employees’ needs and wants. This showed that he was a task driven manager who only thinks of the appointed duty that has to be performed by every employees of an organisation (Nohria ,2009).

Transformational leadership theory is based on an original method to leadership that emphasis on how leaders can create valued and optimistic changes in their groups. In general terms, leaders who are based on transformational style, concentrates more on transforming other, provide support each other inside an organisations as a whole. Groups, which are based on such kind of leadership are more admiration that is trustworthy, work with loyalty and are more willing to work harder than formerly expected. Transformational leadership exhibits certain factors like encouraging and motivating employees and having an idealized impact over the workforces in order to generate victory within a company and works over employees for their personal development (Zellman, 2018).

This kind of leadership is associate itself with the optimistic results. Because if an organisation relates itself with transformational leadership, through this, leaders can feel motivated, inspired and have a major impact of them over employees, which leads to an accomplishment in dual aspect, one the overall victory of the organisation and another is the subjective expansion. Hence, transformational leadership theory is appreciated and widely used method for learning and education leadership (Erkutlu, 2008).

An ineffective communication generates major conflict and misunderstandings within the working employees of the organisation. Similarly, Jianguo came from such an environment where everyone has to follow those directions, which he has provided. There employees have to listen them and his orders because organisation follows top to bottom approach. Whereas In French culture, due to bottom up approach every subordinate was also engaged in this decision making process. Hence, Jianguo never listen to them patiently and due to this, entire communication gap widened. This generated a huge conflict in between them (Bull, & Brown, 2012).

Hofstede cultural theory

The above problems highlights that, Jianguo was not a dynamic person who can adopts new working role and multicultural environment fast. As the cultural difference displays that working culture and the environment in French would be definitely different and would be beyond the capacity at initials for Jianguo. Not only was this, the communication barrier and the entire working system was different from the eastern culture, for which he was working for so many years. It would be naturally hard for every new person to be adjusted in the new culture and working environment.  Similarly, Due to such barriers from both the sides created a sense of conflicts and misunderstandings (Cicchetti, Di Ruscio, & Pierantonio, 2008).

There are two aspects, which are to be concerned, one is the Jianguo nature and another one is in organisation concern.  Jianguo should make some changes to get fit into an organisation. Meanwhile, organisation should also focus on making certain changes for further development. Moreover, Jianguo should also focus on his qualities, as he should demonstrate open communication and collaboration of his thoughts because in French culture open communication and sharing of thoughts is very common. Similarly, to avoid conflicts and misunderstanding in between superiors and subordinates he has to be open while communicating to everyone. As if now, he was appointed as executive manager, he has to have the entire knowledge about the entire western culture. He should know about the organization flow of structure and working accordingly. He should accept the French corporate culture and working without resentment with his competitors (Johnson, 2015).

To move on the forward track, Jianguo should use transformational style of leadership instead of autocratic style of leadership because in autocratic, he was more into his skills, his own decisions and his power. Low concern about the employees also degrades the value. But in French culture, he should use transformational leadership because her employees and subordinates also participates in the decisions making aspect, through motivation, inspiration, trust and support, he can lead a better working team and also leads to the better productivity (Müller, & Turner, 2010).  

If every individual as an employee is participating in the decision-making, the ideas of other, skills and knowledge will help Jianguo to listen them, respecting each other ideas, team building will generate more opportunities, more creativity, and innovation leads to the overall improvement and the success of the organisation. Lastly, If the new ideas and experiences are accepted for a new product launch, then through effective communication, brainstorming and effective selection will helps Jianguo and for entire firm to step forward, working as team leads great productivity and creativity (Alexander, 2013).  

In the rapidly changing world, being volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous is most common in the business environment. In order to handle it leaders should adopt for basic attributes like managing and reacting to the nature and speed of change. Other than this, acting decisively, make clear direction, always organisation should navigate the complexity, chaos and confusions. Lastly, they should focus on maintaining effectiveness (Boyatzis, 2008).

Organizational Structure

According to the case, the major management competencies are:

• Managing and introducing changestates that environment is never static in nature, with the dynamic changes one has to be changed accordingly. Similarly in this case, managers in this VUCA world has to make changes to its strategies and the style of working which not only benefits on personal grounds but as the entire organisation as a whole.
• Building commitments states that, the working within the organisation by the employee should be committal. Tis major affects the within working of the organisation. As more, seriously and dedicatedly the employees will work towards their goals.
• Inspiring other towards a challenging future vision states that, as a manager of the organisation has a responsibility to inspire other though motivation and work over then so that they can face a challenging future vision. If currently they will be future goal oriented, they will work more dedicatedly and enthusiastically.
• Communication in this case is very important part to play as, communication is that skill which every leader and manager possess for maintaining effective and efficient working environment within an organisation.
• Leadership is also one of the skill which every manager or leader should possess. In this case, Jianguo should adopt transformational style of leadership in which main working of leader is to inspire, motivate, build trust and with the honesty made their employees to work in an organisation(Lok,  & Crawford, 2008).  
• Critical thinking and problem- solving should also be adopted by every leader and manger of the organisation because, leaders has to make logical connection between the ideas, detect inconsistences, solving problems and make proper decisions according to the alteration made(Kerzner, & Kerzner, 2017). 

Below diagram showing how through the use of management competencies leader- manager changes the entire scenario of the organisation.

It majorly highlights the ability of the leadership effort along with handling organisational strategic work through talents and skills. Talent is inbuilt in humans whereas skills improve through different training programmes (Shea, 2017).  Developing leadership elements are a lifelong process, as certain fundamental qualities are required from time to time for growing and improving, and likewise, clarity of purpose is necessary for leader because leaders have to lead all the decisions, which can be closely associated to an organisations goal, vision, mission, targets and ethics (Hood, 2015).

In this entire case, organizational behaviour, which exists in an organisation, was very complicated and very sensitive. In order to avoid the problems arising in the organisation superior has to take more of accountabilities. The whole organization should nurture more of flexible mechanism, so that the decision-making under the different condition becomes easy and works effectively and efficiently.  First in the above case, they should have to pay attention more on cultural difference, Likewise, Jianguo was earlier working only in the china culture.

Therefore, in order to gain experience organisation should make an effort to make him work in other overseas branch with the other different cultural atmosphere. Secondly, cultivating a teamwork spirit is very much important to become a good leader. Right from knowing the problem, evaluate them, review them, and take corrective action against the deviations all are the responsibility of the leader in order to gain success for the organisation. This all was in concern of organisation. If we talk about Jianguo, he should also change himself according to the new environment and make achievements, which help him to get higher trusted by his opposite is culture people. He must learn more about the different culture, more about the market, get known about the more accurate figures, which can improves his ideas and can make his arguments supportive and persuasive.

 Lastly, the entire issue can be move into better direction, if three of the major issues can be handled properly, likewise cultural difference, role difference and ineffective communication. All this can be solved if their less of less difference, less of role differences and more of communication effectiveness. All this is in the hands of Jianguo, who can make adjustments by learning of different culture. And yes! Jianguo will get success because he has that potential to adapt himself in the new environment. He has that capability to understand intercultural values, system and most importantly the workings in the new environment (Yukl, 2008).

Conclusion

Even the chairperson declared that in order to be successful Jianguo has to make certain changes in his principles and behaviour. In his old job, he played well, but in French culture with more of patience and hard work, he has to work. Hence, Jianguo needs to develop a new set of abilities to adapt. He should leave the organized china subsidiary behind, now he should focus on Deronde as a family business. Now, he must inspect the dynamics of his new environment to learn that how to play the game according to the French rules.

In addition to organisation concern, the world encircles the global economy; modern corporations necessity is to create an atmosphere that fosters a multicultural work atmosphere. It is not enough to simply put a group of managers from diverse countries into a room together and expect them to attain outcomes. Organizations must give their global executives the tools to recognizing one another and work together effectively. Hence, through this living and working together, the organisation teams’ breaks down the barricades and find the common ground on which they can construct a strong foundation for success.

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