Forecasting Effects of Cultural Changes

Within todays to a greater extent and more world-widely-infused collective oeuvres, conventional learning holds that demographic and/or pagan sort set up dictatorially to heighten performance by ag companys, ag sorts, or new(prenominal) divisions of a trans-global corporate entity, and so ultimately enhancing, by association, comp some(prenominal) products and/or services and the comp some(prenominal) itself, at home and abroad.As corporate giant Nokias website states, for example (2005), of its own global workforce Respect for individual qualities, as well as a impulsiveness to work together in a constructive, validatory, even enjoyable, way , atomic number 18 all essential for high-quality results. Much related search suggests, however, that while different employee skills and abilities in and of themselves may enhance group or team performance, demographic smorgasbord (e. g. differences among workforce members, in terms of language pagan de nonive or social background), may detract from it (Knight, Pearce, Smith, Olian , Sims , Smith & Flood, 1999 Jackson, 2003 Hamilton, Nickerson, Jackson, & Owan, May 2004). I will examine factors that, found on research and anecdotal demonstrate combined, may inflect corporate workforce compatibility or success, exploring both positive and the controvert potential set up of demographic and cultural vicissitude on global and an new(prenominal)(prenominal) piece of work behavior and performance.In a retrieve interview conducted by this researcher, on October 6, 2005, with a friend who is a humans resources assistant manager at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST) establish in San Jose, California, a recently-merged company created by the Hitachi-IBM HDD ( leaden Disk Drive) company merger of January 2003, A want of enough good and clear intercultural communications is still contributing a lot, I would say, to lower than expected employee morale (Sindai). However, despite the inevitable difficulties, misunderstandings, and other company challenges it inevitably brings, globalization is here to stay.According to Alden, for example, in an hold on UPSs expansion, Over the past 40 years the number of multinational corporations in the worlds fourteen richest countries has gone from 7,000 to 24,000. (6-7). Moreover, as Alden observes, while many companies necessitate marketed internationally for years, more and more companies argon looking to enter the field of study of global competition. However, according to Wilbur (2005), in terms of global workplace (or any team or group) performance or behavior, in and of itself, mere mixed bag of a workforce, or group, team, or other entity within that workforce, is non-conclusive.HP High Performance teams are built with . . . complementary skills. . . . a Blend and balance of social styles . . . technical skills, problem solving skills, and political savvy. . . . They treat differences with respect realizing the survival c omfort in versatility, . . . develop mutual accountability that builds respect, allegiance. High performance teams mouse away barriers and boundaries. Typical demographic and/or cultural vicissitude increasingly found within global conglomerates or other entities like oecumenical Telecommunications, Inc. nd others, may contribute to or detract greatly from performance, depending on specific aspects of revolution management communications, actions, and philosophies, and non-homogeneous other factors. Optimal workplace performance itself, on the part of any group or team, whatever its internal composition, familiarly springs from commitment, shared set, and pursuit of a common object (Knight, Pearce, Smith, Olian , Sims , Smith & Flood, 1999 Jackson, 2003Wilbur, 2005).demographic characteristics and/or cultural diversity may contribute to or detract from high-performance teams, but these characteristics alone will non determine performance. They may, however, influence it, in combination with other factors, such as shared or common goals shared values group commitment and support, and group synergy (Jackson, 2003 Wilbur, 2005). As Sindai (telephone interview, October 7, 2005), of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST) also give tongue to After the merger al near threesome years ago of IBMs and Hitachis Hard Disk Drive HDD) entities in January 2003 about our making more motion pictures and doing more training sessions to keep enhancing diversity training.Our office wanted to do more, not just what we had done up to the merger, and everyone agreed it was needed. scarce lilli cast offian by little it got moved to the back burner. I think theres been a feeling, or a hope at least, that it would all work itself out in time. But it Sindai added that, after IBM and Hitachis respective hard drive divisions (HDDs) merged in 2003, various clashes, miscommunications, and misunderstandings of dickens distinct types of cultures emerges.One was the inevi table initial clash between IBM (an American company) versus Hitachi (a Japanese company) corporate cultures. Another, which proved to be more chronic, was based on demographic, social, cultural and other miscommunications and misunderstandings, sometimes although not always based on language incompatibilities, among workers from the United States Japan Pakistan China India Sri Lanka Singapore India Mexico Bulgaria and (as Sindai put it) at least ten or twelve other places. Results of a more formal study, on effects of diversity on group management performance, seem to confirm Sindais anecdotal observations. Knight, Pearce, Smith, Olian, Sims , Smith & Flood (1999) cerebrate that Diversity in ability enhances the team productivity if there is evidential mutual learning and collaboration within the team, while demographic diversity is likely to harm productivity by making learning and comrade pressure less effective and increasing team-member turnover. Hamilton, Nickerson, Jackso n, & Owan (May 2004) found, in a equal study, thatData from 76 high-technology firms in the United States and Ireland were used to examine three alternative models. The results showed that while demographic diversity alone did have effects on strategic consensus the overall fit of the model was not strong. Adding two intervening group process variables, interpersonal conflict and agreement-seeking . . . greatly change the overall relationship with strategic consensus. For the most part, TMT Total Management Team diversity had nix effects on strategic consensus.Jackson (2003) further concluded that Informational (education and function) diversity was negatively related to group efficiency when social category diversity (sex and age) was high, but not when it was low consequences . . . for team conflict were best unsounded by taking into account interactive effects for specific dimensions of diversity. (p. 803) An elicit and arguably related example, from the world of professiona l football game, and one that starkly and vividly exemplifies workplace diversity training gone awry (i. e. the San Francisco 49ers controversial diversity training tape that was leaked to the press (Ryan, Sunday June 5, 2005)) painfully illustrates how management attitudes anywhere, with any versatile group of people in any occupation, especially opposite number other groups of people, strongly inflect accepted or perceived conventionalism workplace attitudes about diversity (be they positive or negative), potentially polarizing, not unifying, workplace group members.As Ryan states, in analyzing this incident . . . the video, which the team was demand to watch, was peculiar(prenominal)ly insulting o deeply religious players. Imagine if a corporation made it mandatory for employees to watch a training video that featured soft-core lesbian porn and a racist depiction of a bumbling, bucktoothed Chinese man. . . because the employees happen to be football players, people seem wil ling to dismiss it as This incident effectively lampooned diversity training and workplace diversity itself, within an extremely high-profile professional, organization, and geographical location (one that possesses enormous cultural diversity among its residents and sports fan customers) instead of promoting it.The incident also likely reinforced pre-existing stereotypes of many sports and related industry professionals as boorish, intolerant, ignorant, or racist. Admittedly, the San Francisco 49ers football team and its management are non-equivalent, structurally, functionally, or in terms of goals or purpose, to Worldwide Telecommunications Nokia, HGST, or any other large global corporate entity.Nevertheless, the implied lesson, for corporations and managers, contained within this incident is clear (at least to this author) company and group attitudes about diversity and its desirability and value to (and within) an organization, come from the top and migrate downward. Further, p ositive attitudes about workplace diversity and about diversity in general (which affect workplace attitudes and behaviors, consciously or unconsciously) must be ripe reinforced repeated, and encouraged, in order for workers to embrace and maintain them.One other fact that emerges from research combined with interviewee observation of effects of diversity on group performance, and reality combined, is that genuine appreciation for demographic and/or cultural diversity is most powerful and lasting when it grows from within a diverse group itself, rather than being imposed from the outside. Jackson (2003) further explains that most diversity studies assumed that diversity influences affective reactions and social processes within teams and organizations.Social processes in turn were assumed to provide the explanations for the effects of diversity on team and/or organizational performance (p. 803). Moreover, according to Jackson Decades of research on similarity and attraction indicat e that people tend to dislike confused others, all else being equal. By extension, it has been argued that diversity is likely to have negative consequences for affective reactions such as cohesion, satisfaction, and commitment . . . Several early studies demonstrate that diversity was associated with higher turnover rates seemed to support that conclusion.Recent research on team and organizational diversity SWOT analysis and implications. ) Demographic and/or cultural diversity within transnational corporate workplaces may or may not enhance company performance, depending on the group its members its management and other influences and its implicitly shared (or not shared) values, goals, motivations, and work and other philosophies. Diversity of skill and ability is more likely to enhance group performance than is cultural diversity (Knight, Pearce, Smith, Olian, Sims , Smith & Flood, 1999 Jackson, 2003 Hamilton, Nickerson, Jackson, & Owan, May 2004).Winning performance, though, is pertinacious not so much by cultural and/or demographic diversity as by complementary skills synergy shared values and goals, and commitment. For optimal transnational workplace performance, demographic and/or cultural diversity must clearly be accompanied, in order to be effective, by personal and heartfelt cohesion among group or team members. In forecasting cultural changes, at World Telecommunications, Inc. and at other, similar entities, then, that particular conclusion, arrived at by researchers managers, and others, alike, might well be kept nearly in mind.