National Culture And Behavior Management Essay

Discuss about the National Culture and Behavior Management.

National culture refers to general acceptable behavior of a society based on beliefs and values that are developed over a long duration of time. They include values, beliefs, common knowledge, perception, and norms of behavior of a population within a sovereign nation (Branine, and Pollard, 2010). They define individuals of the same society and distinguish them from other societies. Behavior management refers to applied behavior analysis that involves application of psychological organizational behavior principles to organizations to enable improvement of group or individual performance in the work place. National culture influences behavior management. An individual or group behavior is determined by the country that they belong to. National culture is important for understanding and predicting individuals or group behavior when directing them towards a common goal. Organizational behavior management is important for managing organizational effectiveness and efficiency. Globalization has led to integration of economies and societies around the world that has brought individuals from different countries to work together. Globalization has removed boundaries and given rise to multinational companies’ that operates in different countries. Societies are not the same in terms of what normal or not normal to what is considered unacceptable or unacceptable. The difference in values, beliefs, practices are evident from one country to another. The differences in individual behaviors as a result of national culture necessitate different approaches to manage different groups. Employees in countries behave differently and therefore opt to be managed different to attain the same predetermined goods. Sensitivity of national differences by a manager can increase chances of success of a business. Therefore it is important to understand the concept of national cultures in organizations for management to shape and direct employees behavior towards achievement of specific goals. 

The following essay will discuss national culture and behavior management. This will involve a background study, discussion, significance, and recommendation of the topic under study.

The significance of studying and understanding national culture was as a result of increasing international businesses. International businesses have a challenge to successfully adapt to diverse cultures and manage it impact on their daily operations. In order for business to adapt, they require to understand cultural values, stereotypes, values, views and cultural diversity. The study of national culture has in the recent decades attracted researchers’ interests especially in cultural dimensions and attitude. The research has been aimed at improving business performance in different societies. Hodgetts, luthans and Doh (2006) defined national culture as shared beliefs and values that enables members of their society to determine what is right or wrong. Shachaf (2008), described culture as consisting of implicit and explicit patterns and behavior acquired and is transmitted through symbols that form characteristics of achievements of a group or population. Hickson and Pugh (2014) established cultures are common, symbolic, generational, and adaptive, integrated, and learned not inherited. There are different cultures that exist in the world and understanding their impact on human behavior is critical for international business. Zheng,Yang, and McLean, (2010) pointed out that if multinational managers do not understand the country culture that they operate in can lead to extremely negative business performance.

Significance of National Culture to Behavior Management

Hofstede (2010) defined cultural values as desirable beliefs and concepts that provide standards for evaluating certain actions, behaviors, and goals to ascertain what is bad or good, acceptable or unacceptable. Limsila, and Ogunlana, (2008), also defined cultural values as fundamental beliefs of people in a society regarding notions of evil and good, important and unimportant, right and wrong. Poole (2013) defined Cultural diversity as ways that cultures differ from one society to another. It shows the impact of how people behave and think within a society. Diversity exists between and within cultures.

There are three models of cultural dimensions that can be used to study a national culture. They include; (1) GLOBE’s model, (2) Hofstedeov model, (3) Trompenaarsov model. Hofstede model hold that national cultures have a lot of influence on work values. Hofstede dimension model was from a study of 53 countries. Hofstede found that managers and employees of different countries varied as a result of the following dimensions of their national culture; individualism vs collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, masculinity vs femininity, short term vs long term orientation. He stated that individual’s behaviors were shaped by the dimension of their national culture (De Mooij and Hofstede, 2010). The second model of Trompenaars was based on two rounds survey that involved over 45000 managers. The research found the there were seven bipolar dimensions. They were as follows; individualism and communitarians, universalism and particularism, neutral cultures and emotional cultures, specific cultures and diffuse cultures, job status or person status, internal guidance and external guidance and lastly the sequential access and synchronously notion. This model showed that individual or group behaviors in an organization reflected the national culture dimension. Lastly is the GLOBE’s model that was as result of 170 scientists working together with management students. The research was undertaken in 61 countries. The research aimed at studying the relationship between organizational culture, culture of the society, and organizational leadership (Brock et al., 2008). The model dimensions were as follows; focus on the future, sexual differentiation, uncertainty avoidance, assertiveness, power distance, institutional collectivism, within group collectivism, humanistic orientation, and focus on results. The GLOBE’s model is viewed as the most comprehensive compared to two models.

From the background study, national culture determines an individual or group behavior. Therefore, understanding national culture can enable global managers in behavioral management of employees in the organization.

National culture dominant and shapes organizational cultures and influence how they function. The national culture determines organizational culture of an organization and influences some practices that become part of the organization. The national culture shapes how people act, behave, perceive, hold values, and contribute towards the achievement of the organizational goals. An employee behavior is significant to achieving organizational goals through efficiency and effectiveness. The following are the significance of national culture to behavior management;

Communication

Communication is the process of sending messages through a language that a receiver can understand. Communication can either be verbal or non verbal. Verbal communication refers to sending of message though spoken language. Non verbal communication refers to body or symbol cues of sending a message that can be understood by the receiver. Communication is a cultural framework that enables decoding of a message from a correspondent to recipient. According to Ke and Wei (2008), the interpretation and the extent of understanding of a message from a correspondent to a receiver is highly influenced by culture. This entails that an individual ability to understand a message is based on the number of cultures one has lived in or familiar with. Communication builds relationship and determines how management interacts with the employees. The national culture determines acceptable or preferred methods of communicating in a business. National culture determines how people dress and how it is perceived. Some national cultures are more formal than other. Global businesses are therefore required to adhere to national communication cultures in order to create best impression to the local business partners or employees. For instance, business communication etiquette in Japan starts with handing of business cards. The Japanese culture is very formal and requires business cards to start a meeting. In addition, communication in a country or organization is determined by the national culture dimension. For example, in countries where there is high power distance, addressing employees should include their titles before their names of which not adhered can cause disappointment in the work place. Therefore, national culture is significant to understanding communication in the society that can enhance effectiveness of the communication in the organization.

The style of leadership to be adopted in an organization in a particular country is influenced by the nation culture. The style of leadership refers to manager’s style of implementing plans, motivating employees and providing direction. These are participatory, autocratic, and laissez-faire. The style of leadership determines the flow of power, responsibilities, and decision making in the organization. A participatory or democratic style of leadership is found in organization where the national culture dimension has low power distance, low masculine, and collectivism. These national culture dimensions encourage leaders to include employees in the management of the organization. The autocratic style of leadership is organizations that their national culture dimensions have high power distance, individualism, and masculine. The leader in an organization decides what has to be done and the employees are expected to follow instructions. Therefore, the culture influences the role and functions of employees and management in an organization. For instance, in countries with low power distance, the lower level employees are able to directly communicate to the manager which is opposite of cultures with high power distance.

Leadership

The style of leadership influences the behavior of the employees in the organization. This determines their contribution and engagement in the activities of an organization. This indicates that employees of different counties will have different expected style of leadership from their management. Therefore, adopting a style of leadership that does not align with the national culture can lead to employees protesting or have low morale at their work places.

Organizational structure refers to organization framework that defines the way activities are coordinated, allocated, and supervised (Han et al., 2010). Organizational structure ensures all responsibilities in the organization are defined and who reports to who is indicated. The choice of an organizational structure is influenced by the type of culture that the management wants to introduce in the organization. The organizational structure establishes the organizational culture and need to change the culture requires the organizational to change the organizational structure. The organizational structure establishes norms and practices that have to be adhered to by the employees. The organizational culture also establishes communication channels in the organization. In addition, organizational structure defines power in the position in the organization that managers in different levels have. This determines how the organization is managed.

The organizational structure of an organization should reflect the national culture in order to facilitate smooth functioning of the organization. For instance, the organizational structure should define the power sharing to avoid conflicts in high power distance societies. Organizations should also consider the relationship of the management and the employees because it influences employees’ motivation in the work place. Lastly, the organizational structure influences the organizational culture and therefore should ensure it reflects the society norms, beliefs, and values.

Turnover is the rate of employees quitting their jobs within a specific period of time. Absenteeism is a practice of an employee staying out of work. Turnover and absenteeism have adverse effect to the organization’s performance. The inconsistency behaviors experienced in organizations are as a result of acceptance of the organizational culture and the national culture. The organization culture and national culture can allow and tolerate employees to stay away from work or even quit any time they feel like. This is different to other cultures that do not allow employees or managers to stay absent from their work.

The national and organizational culture therefore dictates the values, norms, and acceptable practices in an organization. The national culture influences how people in the society values their job and the willingness to work without staying away from work or quitting.

Employee Motivation

Employee motivation refers to commitment, creativity, and level of energy that an organization’s employee brings in their workplace. Motivation determines the level of performance of the organizations (Tung, 2008). Motivated employees meet and exceed their targets while enabling the organization to attain competitive edge through innovations and inventions. Employees who are not motivated underperform in their workplace and they are a liability to the company. It is the responsibility of the management to manage their employees.  People don’t get motivated the same and it highly depends with the national culture to which a person belongs to. People in different countries value different things differently and therefore cannot be subjected in an equal measure for motivation. Motivation also depends on the organizational culture. For instance, organizations operating in collective cultures should ensure they respect their norms to individuals to feel motivated to work in the organization. People in collective society value to see their norms respected in their workplace and doing so makes them feel as part of the company and motivated to work. People in collective cultures also do not recognize personal motivation. On the other side, individuals from high power distance national countries value motivation based on personal interests. They associate motivation to how best it solves their problems and rather than job satisfaction.

Motivation is therefore based on national culture and failure to understand what motivates an employee in the workplace can lead to adverse organizational performance.

Organizational culture refers to shared values, assumptions, and beliefs that govern how employees behave in an organization. Organization culture has influence on how individuals act, dress, and perform their duties (Shimoni, 2011). The organizational culture differentiates one organization from one another. A good organizational culture gives an organization a competitive advantage. For example an organization culture that is innovation oriented enabled an organization to stay in the lead in the industry. The organizational culture is highly influenced by national culture. For instance, high power distance culture, organizations have centralized and bureaucratic organizational structures. On the other side, organizations in low power distance cultures, the organizational structure are flexible, flatter and encourage personnel participations. In another account, societies with high masculinity have women discriminated with few women in high ranks or even being given priority. This is different in low masculinity cultures as all genders are given equal opportunities in their workplace.

Conclusion

From the discussion in this report, national culture highly influences people behavior in the country. People living in the same society live under the same norms, values and beliefs that enable them determine what is right or wrong and therefore what to accept or not accept. The national culture can be analyzed and determined using three models of national culture. The models outline the drivers of the behavior in the society. The relationship between the national culture and individual behavior is based on the learned over time, symbols, beliefs and values. The national culture influences how organizations are formed and managed in a country. The national culture dictates how the people in the society communicate, get motivated, and consistency in their jobs. National culture also influences the most appropriate style of leadership and organizational structure to be applied in the organization. Lastly, the organizational culture has to align with the national culture to avoid internal and conflict in the organization.

Understanding national culture is significant for global managers in the process of managing employees’ behavior. It is therefore recommended for global managers to familiarize themselves with the national culture before starting working in a difference country. This will enable the organization to perform and meet it predetermined objectives in a foreign country.

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