Assessment task 2 team consultancy project written report lastly, recommendations are proposed for improvement in the workplace of generali the ability to empathize with each others

The case of an multinational insurance company, Generali will be applied to evaluate their practices in solving common cultural challenges.. Hence, as businesses evolve in theinternation

Assessment Task 2 - Team Consultancy

Project Written Report

Location & Campus RMIT Vietnam, Hanoi Campus

Tran Quynh Ngoc - s3636101

Pham Hai Yen - s3776356

Nguyen Phuong Hong Yen - s3695645

Executive Summary

Each person from various different cultures and backgrounds will have to interactwith each other more frequently in an increasingly globalized and growing economy.Regardless of whether everybody will work and attempt together decently well,diversification will in any case happen and cause furious struggles and clashes because of

an absence of comprehension of colleagues Diverse reasoning or methods of working areconsistently a difficulty that each organization or business will have The most clearexamples can be found in worldwide multinational organizations Moreover, in anincreasingly technologically advanced world, virtual communication between countries is abig step forward to help multinational groups communicate with each other quickly andeconomically However, global virtual teams (GVT) also hides many cross-culturalchallenges To relieve this issue, individuals in particular and businesses in general, shouldknow about the fundamental drivers that have an immediate impact

The objective of this report is to analyze several issues related to GVT of multinational corporations with the use of academic theories and real cases of an international company in Vietnam The case of an multinational insurance company, Generali will be applied to evaluate their practices in solving common cultural challenges Besides, a supporting article about GVT challenges perceived by millenials, is also reviewed As a result, in such a broad community, problems with communication and collaboration may often unintentionally offend each other Moreover, the interview conducted with Mr Nguyen Tung Lam, regional director in Hanoi of Generali, delivered a more in-depth perspective at the workplace from the viewpoint of a manager People communicate in their own unique manners, which may lead to misunderstandings when they

do not have the same level of understanding In detail, difficulties of Generali in cross-cultural virtual management could

be divided into 4 categories: leadership, communication, time issue and trust issue.

Lastly, recommendations are proposed for improvement in the workplace ofGenerali The ability to empathize with each other's cultural differences through trainingand preparation demonstrates one's effort when attempting to collaborate with aninternational partner It is important for a large multicultural corporation to create its ownmanagement structure in order to retain overall performance

1 Introduction

Many businesses are looking to expand their operations internationally By moving

to emerging markets, they will benefit from lower costs, as a result, contribute to theeconomic development of countries Generali, a big Italian insurance company is notexceptional when it operates branches in Vietnam However, doing business overseaspresents several challenges in terms of different human behaviors and a lack of knowledge,especially when there is a significant difference in business concepts between Western andEastern These difficulties become even more challenging in the virtual working context.The theory of cross-cultural management was developed to help businesses submit, control,and operate their business successfully on a global scale

2 Overview of issues

The global economy is increasingly developing and expanding these days, withtrade value accounting for 60.4% of world GDP (World Bank n.d) Globalization is anongoing process, and understanding cultural differences has become a key factor formultinationals to expand into emerging markets Hence, as businesses evolve in theinternational context and especially in the current covid outbreak then all companies have

to use virtual communication tools to support the work process, there is a question that topmanagers and company insiders need to consider: how to communicate well betweencultures, to operate the business effectively, and how leaders need to give direction to findthe best solution Therefore, there are four main problems that most businesses face in thecontext of international business

2.1 Communication problems within multicultural teams or across subsidiaries

Understanding a country's culture is about showing respect and ensuring effective communication among members of an organization Communication is the key to all problems that need solving, expressing their thoughts and direct intercultural communication can sometimes lead

to confusion because of different ways of presenting messages Especially during Covid pandemic,

it is even more difficult to transmit information or communicate in language when everyone has to switch to virtual communication tools There is research about low context communication terms (LCC) and high contextual communication (HCC) and how they affect understanding and interactions among people (Nam K.A 2015) When a group comprises multinational members, communication conflicts between people from LCC culture and people from HCC culture will easily lead to communication conflicts It is more common in LCC cultures in individualist cultures such as Western countries (Canada, Germany) They tend to express themselves through direct verbal communication, speaking straight to the point Verbal agreements are respected in HCC when doing business, written contracts and signed agreements are essential while in LCC (William

D 2015) This may cause conflict between enterprises when the business from LCC requires the enterprise from HCC to write a signed contract may be perceived as disrespectful, and a lack of trust can damage a relationship While the culture of contextual communication is high as in some Asian countries, the use of nonverbal communication involves paralinguistic signals (voice, pitch, volume) and non-verbal signals (eye contact, smile, touch, silence) They often speak through a message that they want others to ponder and understand Currently, to achieve high performance in a multinational environment, most companies adopt a Western working environment This will help employees be able to frankly express their individual opinions to make it easier to understand, collaborate and save time.

2.2 Leadership in multicultural organizations or between subsidiaries

Leadership and culture have similar relationships Different cultures will havedifferent images of a good leader A survey of employees’ IBM from multiple locationsworldwide and four dimensions that different cultures were identified (Hofstede 2001).While collectivistic culture is more team-oriented Individualistic cultures tend to preferindependent and different leaders (the GLOBE framework n.d) In the Certainty Avoidancedimension, countries with a high degree of uncertainty avoidance often favor morecontrolled regulators Besides, the Power Distance also contributes to an excellent leader indifferent cultures Employees from cultures with low power gaps cultures prefer active andparticipatory leadership In contrast, those from cultures with a high power gap tend towork better in a more directing style of leadership

2.3 Trust in multicultural groups or between subsidiaries within an organisation

Every branch of Multinational Corporations faces challenges related to different cultures as they resemble parent group operations in the local context (He R and Liu J, 2010) Administrative personnel play a vital role in the failure or success of a Multinational Corporation, they must deal with fundamental challenges like strategic and cultural differences Nationalism has created friction within a group that can cause trust between members or governance between the parent company and its subsidiaries Differences between cultures and languages can lead to misinformation, distrust, as the story of Japanese and Americans working together has been likened to mixing hamburgers with sushi (Hausmann R , Tyson D, Zahidi S, 2012) Because the Japanese and the Americans have a long history before, and some Japanese still keep that hatred against their partner and vice versa Alternatively, the Vietnamese are still skeptical of China; requests for trust from the Vietnamese towards their neighboring partners may be hard to accomplish Moreover, due to

the centralized decision-making power at the headquarters, promotion opportunities for theexecutive position of the host country nationals are limited This creates communicationbarriers, leading to misinformation and misunderstanding between host country nationalsand top managers of the headquarters Hence, headquarters will have limited understandingand interaction with the local staff to assess the performance of local ability for futureadvancement (Ando N, Rhee D and Park N, 2007)

2.4 Time issues within multicultural societies or between subsidiaries

The virtual aspects of communication also have an impact on aspects of themanagement tasks of MNCs The most significant reported impacts include time zonedifferences, response delays, and time limits for virtual communication (Kimble, 2001).Around the world, we have different time zones, it can be challenging to get everyone inthe right group It could be midnight in one part of the world, and it could be rush hour inanother This is a problem because everyone needs to be on the same page and doing thesame thing Team members must start work early and work very late to communicate witheach other, for instance, calling until 10pm or holding a three-way conference at 1 amSwiss time (Oertig M & Buergi T, 2006) Besides, response delays and time limits forvirtual communication are also factors that create obstacles in an international environment(See M 2018); in online meetings, they often bring up some new issues in meetings off theagenda It prolongs the meeting time and reduces the quality of the meeting Furthermore,when a subsidiary needs assistance from a qualified person, they cannot be present.However, that day falls during the host countries' public holiday time, which leads to adelay in reply while the subsidiaries need an immediate response

Figure 1 Workflow of Generali Vietnam

3.1.2 The article “When technological savviness overcomes cultural differences:

millennials in global virtual teams” (Velez-Calle et al 2020)

We selected the research paper on the topic of virtual group challenges under theperceived experience of millennials because this is one of the large demographic groups ofcountries around the world (Deloitte 2020), and is expected to hold the senior positions ofemployment in the next 5-10 years (Tilford 2018) The paper focuses on two major issues:evidence to contradict previous international business literature which argues that culturaldifferences are the main problem of GVT and how millennials work in GVT to deal withthe challenges of virtual teamwork and ensure effective team performance The studyanalysed 503 journals of undergraduate students from all over the world submitted to theGEE competition in 2012

3.2 Analysis of the case study and article

Our study analyzes the case of Generali and the findings in the article of Velez-Calle et al (2020), to uncover the key challenges companies face when working in multicultural virtual teams This study adopts the input-process-outcome (IPO) framework which was

adapted by Dulebohn and Hoch (2017) to align the context of the GVT1 According to Hoch

& Kozlowski (2014), the IPO is the most widely used framework which is a tool to categorizeand incorporate theories on GVT

3.2.1 Inputs

This study focuses on two input categories, which are team leadership and team composition Leadership plays an important role in virtual team performance The leadership style and management skills of team leaders significantly affect the working attitude and work efficiency

of the members (Serban - et - al.,2015) Unlike face-to-face team leadership, virtual team leaders require a higher level of communication skills and cross-cultural

understanding, since virtual communication is limited in space and time, as well as lacks non-verbal signals (Tenzer & Pudelko 2016) In particular, the study of Hoch and Kozlowski (2014) shows the importance of Cultural Intelligence (CQ) in virtual leadership Leaders with a high level of CQ have

a positive effect on the team's performance, strengthen team cohesion and encourage engagement of team members Velez-Calle et al (2020) also agrees with the importance of leadership in virtual teams Leaders in the analyzed cases are said to be the “rescuers” for the whole team when facing a crisis, and the one who provides the leading solution for the team's challenges However, the virtual team leaders at Generali, in general, have not paid attention to this aspect When asked in the interview what strategies the company has in place to improve the understanding of diverse cultures

of managers, it seemed to be a new concept to the interviewee There was a lack of proper - training

on how managers can solve problems related to multinational virtual teams.

The second input is team composition At Generali, the most visible difference on the surface of diversity is language differences English is used as the common language for the three countries to communicate with each other However, because this is the second language of all three countries, virtual team members have encountered many difficulties in expressing and understanding the message The barriers in verbal communication can be overcome more or less by non-verbal communication (DiStefano & Maznevski 2000) For example, when you are unable to express your ideas with words, gestures and facial expressions can assist in conveying your ideas However, when teams work virtually together, communicating from long distances through the middle technology platform limits non-verbal communication (Jimenez et al.2017) This limitation also makes it difficult to build close relationships between colleagues in different countries, which also limits the level of trust and team cohesion of multicultural teams (Ford, Piccolo & Ford 2017) The next component of team composition is the level of KSAs (knowledge, skills, and abilities) of

members In the case of Generali, the level of CQ once again needs emphasis For a multinational company, understanding and adaptability to diverse cultures are the minimum requirements for employees One of the important elements in cross-cultural communication is the cultural context, including low context and high context (Hall 1959) High context cultures like Vietnam emphasize implicit messages that cannot be expressed in words In

contrast, low-context cultures such as Italy emphasize direct verbal communication2.According to the interview, when working virtually, the lack of understanding of culturaldifferences has made some Vietnamese employees feel uncomfortable when receiving toofrank opinions from the Italian manager The limitation of the virtual working environmentfurther hinders mutual understanding

3.2.2 Moderators

This study focuses on virtuality as the main moderator in the case of the Generali company Virtuality factor is a broad concept, which includes geographical dispersion, spatial distance, temporal differences and configurational differences (Dulebohn & Hoch 2017) The time difference

is a key challenge that is associated with other cross-cultural difficulties in Generali In the article

by Velez-Calle et - al (2020), time difference is a frequently mentioned issue in students' journals However, the authors argued that the time difference problem does not belong to the concepts of cross-culture issues, including values, beliefs and social systems (Hofstede 1991) The article also cites one of the student journals in the study, where the time issue is mentioned as a solvable problem and less significant than the other challenges However, according to Dulebohn - and - Hoch - (2017), temporal difference is one of the factors that affects the inputs and outputs of teamwork, because it changes and connects relationships within the framework This is true in the case of Generali, where the time management problem, although not a culture issue, indirectly affects cross- culture challenges Firstly, the