Practical Applications and Recommendations for HR and OD Professionals in the Global Workplace_3 ppt

Because these are studied by means of questionnaires,the easiest way to understand what they are is to look at how thecorresponding questionnaire items are worded.• Values are measured b

normally supersede those of the corporation Quoting researchevidence, Adler (1997) explicitly dispels the myth that corporateculture can erase national culture Hofstede (2001), Trompenaarsand Hampden-Turner (1999), and other leading experts are ofthe same opinion.

What about management practices across the globe? Is it fair tosay that they are not converging either? Not quite After reviewingthe literature on this issue, Dorfman and House (2004) concludedthat there is some convergence of management practices acrossmany countries but there is no gravitation toward a single focalpoint In their view, most likely there is some convergence towardU.S practices, some toward Western European practices, andsome toward Japanese practices Nevertheless, the practical reality

is that there are bound to be strong residues of local practices inevery country Ultimately, this means that a typical multinationalwill exhibit a variety of management styles around the globe, con-sisting of various mixtures of imported and homemade elements

As a result, it is highly unlikely that a single style will prevail inmost countries in the foreseeable future

And what of beliefs? It is certainly easier to change one’s ward behavior (such as management practices) than one’s innerself Thus, when multinationals create commonality across sub-sidiaries, it mostly consists of shared practices, and not necessarilyvalues and beliefs (French et al., 2008; Hofstede, 2001) So

out-if underlying values and beliefs are resistant to change, howcan multinationals promote the shared practices that the lead-ers of an international company wish to see in all their sub-sidiaries

The Main Measurable Elements of Culture

By now it is largely accepted in mainstream social science thatculture can be studied objectively and that the results of theanalyses can be used to make verifiable predictions, though notwith engineering precision Culture consists of components thatcannot be quantified and compared (such as local customs, cer-emonies, and so forth) as well as of measurable elements thatcan be woven into statistically derived dimensions The measur-able elements of culture form two distinct groups: observable and

invisible The first group consists of behaviors and practices thatcan either be seen directly or deduced from national statistics,such as suicide rates, murder rates, birth rates, road death tolls,alcohol and tobacco consumption, and the like The second groupcomprises what is commonly known as values, beliefs, perceptions,and norms Because these are studied by means of questionnaires,the easiest way to understand what they are is to look at how thecorresponding questionnaire items are worded.

• Values are measured by asking the respondents what is

important to them in their personal lives Studies of valueshave revealed for example that religion, work, and family arefar more important to people in some countries than in others(Inglehart & Baker, 2000; Minkov, 2007)

• Beliefs are measured by presenting the respondents with

statements and asking them if they agree or disagree Forinstance respondents in some countries are far more likelythan other respondents to believe that men make betterleaders than women (World Values Survey, 2006) or that caringfor societal affairs only brings trouble (Bond et al., 2004)

• Perceptions are measured by asking the respondents how they

perceive some abstract aspects of their own lives, such as theirhappiness, health, and life satisfaction, or the degree of controlthat they think they have over their own lives Studies of per-ceptions (World Values Survey, 2006) have revealed enormouscross-cultural differences

• Norms are measured by asking the respondents what values

others should have and what they should do or should not do.Thus, norms can be called values (or desirable behaviors) forothers It is crucially important to understand the differencebetween people’s personal values and the norms that theyprescribe to others because these may coincide or be diametri-cally opposed For example, a person who is striving for powermay advocate submissiveness as a norm for others (Smith,2006) The two largest cross-national studies of nationallyrepresentative samples, the World Values Survey (2006) and thePew Research Center (2002; 2007), have revealed significantcross-cultural differences in norms, such as the degree to whichrespondents agree that poor people should be helped by thegovernment or their fellow citizens

Are Some Cultural Ingredients Better Than Others?

The bewildering diversity of values, norms, and practices that onecan observe in different societies often brings up the question

of whether some are better than others The answer, however,

is highly context-specific For instance, the values that promotenational economic growth in a particular historical period maynot be the same as at different times or even at the same time in adifferent society Thus, unless the context is clearly specified, it isdifficult to evaluate values and norms in an absolute sense.Some authors, however, downplay the importance of context

or cultural relativism, as it has become known Dowling and Welch

(2004), for example, promote the idea of universal values, such asthe biblical ‘‘Thou shalt not kill.’’ They ask whether corruption

is really acceptable in a country like Indonesia, even though

it is a relatively common Their answer is no, on the groundsthat it is ‘‘morally wrong.’’ However, some would argue that thisanswer is culturally specific In some cases, corruption is viewedquite differently For example, I know of East Europeans, NorthAfricans, and Middle Easterners who have expressed indignationafter Western officials declined their bribe offers From their owncultural viewpoint, the Western officials had spurned an offer ofcollaboration and friendship In short, the same practice is viewedvery differently as a function of one’s own cultural context.This is not a call for Western expatriates to engage in corruptpractices while working outside their home countries Quite on thecontrary, as already stated, values are very difficult to change andWesterners cannot be expected to trade theirs for a different cur-rency just because it appears to be ‘‘semi-legal tender’’ in a foreigncountry I simply use this example to expose the fallacy of the idea

of a universal morality, and to drive home the notion that whensome Western values are served up to people who have not grown

up with them, they may be as reluctant to adopt them as some erners may be unwilling, or just afraid, to engage in corruption

West-Main Cultural Dimensions with Implications

for Cross-Cultural Management

The research literature provides many accounts of cultural sions that seem to explain various societal differences, some

dimen-of which have implications for management and organizational

behavior The following is a brief presentation of those that may bemost useful to an international manager, while being scientificallysound and reliable.

Individualism versus Collectivism (Universalism

There are some divergent opinions concerning the right pretation of this dimension and what exactly is at its core Manyview individualism as being synonymous with selfishness and a

inter-preference to go it alone It has also been interpreted as

competition-orientation Collectivism, on the other hand, is often described as

a willingness to follow others, to cooperate, and to work in teams.However, these concepts are not meaningfully correlated with thepreviously mentioned large-scale measures of individualism versuscollectivism, as the latter reveal a different picture

Individualism versus collectivism also reflects some of theimportant differences between Western and non-Western cultures.Economically poor societies are often thought of as collec-tivist because they are characterized by strong and cohesivein-groups, consisting mainly of clansmen, close friends, and rela-tives, although the circle may be extended to include other groups,such as one’s loyal customers and employees People in collectivis-tic societies usually feel a strong moral obligation toward in-groupmembers, which may sometimes assume the form of self-sacrifice.Out-group members, by contrast, tend to be treated with com-parative indifference, which can escalate into outright neglect,negligence, disrespect, derision, and discrimination In worst-casescenarios, the result can be open hostility and abuse As Triandis(2000) puts it, ‘‘people in collectivist cultures are extremely sup-portive of their in-group members, but they have a cold, and evenhostile, relationship with out-group members’’ (p 29)

To avoid misconceptions, and to emphasize the practical cations of these cultural differences, Minkov (2007) proposed a

impli-new name for the individualism-versus-collectivism dimension:universalism versus exclusionism Exclusionism (collectivism) can

be viewed as a tendency to treat people on the basis of their groupmembership, refusing privileges to out-group members by means

of nepotism and discrimination Universalism (individualism) isabout the opposite: the degree to which a society is serious aboutstamping out nepotism and discriminatory attitudes and practices.This dimension is also a very strong predictor of corruption, asmeasured by Transparency International Poorer and more exclu-sionist countries invariably have more corruption Businesspeoplefrom a state official’s in-group deserve a preferential treatmentthat others are excluded from If they wish to receive a service orobtain a contract that is not meant for them, the only recoursethat they normally have is a bribe

Shades of gray It must also be noted that there are shades

of gray with regard to the distinction between individualism andcollectivism For example, research has shown that the indifferent

or cold attitude toward out-group in collectivistic societies maydisappear in some collectivist countries when strangers are per-ceived as being in need of help (Levine, Norenzayan, & Philbrick,2001) Moreover, it would be incorrect to say that the distinctionbetween in-groups and out-groups is totally unknown in the indi-vidualistic West, but it is far less pronounced For example, while

it is clear from the World Values Survey that racism (expressed as

an unwillingness to have neighbors of a different race) is muchstronger in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, thesame survey shows that ‘‘tolerance and respect for others,’’ as avalue that children should learn, is strongest in the West

Implications for Organizations

Individualism and collectivism have many implications for nizations, and we now turn to a few of the more obvious orpotentially challenging ones

orga-Nepotism Whereas Westerners tend to view nepotism asmorally wrong, it is viewed as more acceptable in poorer exclu-sionist (individualistic) societies In those societies, a person can

be dead (literally) without the support of his or her in-groupand is therefore obliged to prioritize commitments in their favor

In a poor society with limited resources, this is only natural Bycontrast, refusing preferential treatment to a member of one’sin-group can result in severe sanctions.

As a result, organizations in poor collectivist-exclusionist eties may look more like families in that personal and professionalrelationships are intermixed (Hampden-Turner & Trompenaars,1996; Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1999) A boss may ask hissubordinates to help him paint his house or run personal errandsfor him He is a father figure who disburses privileges on the basis

soci-of the loyalty and obedience that he receives, not necessarily onthe basis of personally achieved professional goals

Thus, in exclusionist societies, nepotistic practices can bequite strong, as are attempts to cover the misdemeanors of in-group members ‘‘Nothing personal’’ is a meaningless statement

in this type of culture because nearly everything is personal.Any direct criticism of an employee’s professional performancemay be interpreted as an assault on his character Hiring, firing,and promotions in a company’s hierarchy also reflect the quality

of personal relationships The idea of sacking an employee forfailing to achieve targets may sound alien My own consultingpractice shows that when the Western logic of this phenomenon

is explained to people with a strongly exclusionist (collectivist)mind-set, they find it abhorrent and unworkable Of course, layoffs

do occur in the poor world during crises, but firing people on thebasis of their mediocre performance, with no concern for theirpersonal relationship with their manager and peers, can be viewed

as shockingly immoral and incomprehensible

By contrast, in Western societies, an employee that does notvisibly contribute to the success of the organization is viewed as aburden that should be jettisoned as soon as possible A good illus-tration of the diametrical opposition in management philosophiesthat these cultural differences can produce is provided by the nar-ratives of two of the world’s most famous managers: Jack Welch,former chief executive of General Electric, and Akio Morita, thelate founder and president of Sony Welch was proud of a humanresource management system that required the heads of the com-pany’s different businesses to rank all their managers each yearand lay off the lowest 10 percent (Welch & Byrne, 2001, quoted in

‘‘Jack and the People Factory,’’ 2001, p 38.) Morita, by contrast,

practiced Japanese management, based precisely on the oppositephilosophy Once he complained to some American colleaguesabout an exasperating employee and admitted he did not knowwhat to do with him The Americans advised him to fire theperson ‘‘I was stunned by the idea,’’ Morita wrote, ‘‘I had neverfired anybody and even in this case it had never crossed mymind But to solve the problem by firing a man was the Ameri-can system’’ (Morita, Reingold, & Shimomura, 1986, quoted inHampden-Turner & Trompenaars, 1996, p 175).

Contracting Universalist (Individualist) societies have a dency to produce rigid formal contracts that must be respected,whereas exclusionist ones have a much looser attitude towardagreements, especially when they involve out-group members(Minkov, 2007; Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1999) For acontract to be honored in an exclusionist culture, one may need toform a very close relationship with one’s business partner, whicheffectively guarantees the status of an in-group member (Trompe-naars & Hampden-Turner, 1999) The universalist cultures of therich world and their higher concern for others, regardless of theirgroup affiliation, have produced formal legislation that makes itvery risky to renege on agreements

ten-Punctuality The anecdotal evidence in Trompenaars andHampden-Turner (1999), as well as research by Levine and Noren-zayan (1999), shows that Western cultures differ from the rest

of the world in terms of their greater respect for punctualityand faster speed of life This difference has been confusinglyinterpreted in terms of a ‘‘synchronic’’ or ‘‘polychronic’’ ver-sus ‘‘sequential’’ dimension (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner,

1999, p 123) In fact, it simply reflects differences in empathy:lower levels in the poor exclusionist world where people are lesslikely to show tolerance and respect for others, higher levels inthe rich universalist world As Trompenaars (2003) admitted, anacquaintance of his once made the following statement: ‘‘Theproblem of being late is actually the problem of those who are

on time.’’ This means that a lack of punctuality need not beexplained as a different perception of time It reveals a lack ofempathy and respect for those who are waiting Similarly, theso-called polychronic behavior of a clerk in an exclusionist societywho is talking to a friend while dealing with a customer simply

means that the friend is more important to this person than thebusiness.

Communication One of the potentially exasperating ences between exclusionist and universalist cultures has beendefined as high-context versus low-context communication (Hall,

differ-1959) High-context means beating around the bush: the message is

implicit and parts of it have to be inferred and guessed from thesituation in which it was made or from some external informationabout the speaker Low-context communication involves explicitstatements that leave little room for subjective interpretations.The fact that Western societies prefer long and precise contracts,which are atypical in the developing world, owes a lot to thiscultural difference Western culture is low-context: speaking one’smind clearly and precisely and being direct is considered a virtue

as long as one remains polite But in the high-context exclusionistworld, direct communication of bad news is normally viewed asrude and inconsiderate By way of example, Trompenaars andHampden-Turner (1999) tell a story about a Western doctor whowas killed by a colleague in a developing country for criticized hiswork Such extreme behavior is very rare but cases when criticisingpermanently damages a personal and professional relationship arevery frequent

Products, services, and safety One of the most importantimplications of universalism versus exclusionism differences forinternational managers is the different attitude toward productand service quality, as well as safety, in the West and the poorerparts of the world Alvazzi del Frate and van Kesteren (2004)report a study evidencing far more frequent consumer fraud inexclusionist countries than in universalist ones, whereas Trompe-naars and Hampden-Turner (1999) quote an IMD report oninternational competitiveness that includes a ranking on productsafety in 24 developed economies There is higher concern forsafety in the rich universalist countries

This is an extremely serious issue for management In ciple, it is multinational companies that bring to the developingworld the idea of consistent product and service quality for allcustomers and implement it after some considerable effort Forexample, although Bulgaria is considered the homeland of yogurt,

prin-it was not until Danone set up shop in that country in the 1990s that

Bulgarian customers could finally buy some yogurt of predictablequality Even today, the poor and inconsistent quality of manyfood products in Bulgarian stores and the fraudulent practices

of quite a few local producers are hotly debated topics in thecountry’s media

Power Distance and Authoritarianism

Power distance, another key component of culture, has beenthought of in different ways Hofstede (2001), for example, con-ceptualized this dimension as the emotional distance betweenleaders and their subordinates GLOBE focuses more on the dis-tribution of power (Carl, Gupta, & Javidan, 2004) and finally,Euwema, Wendt, and van Emmerik (2007) talk about directiveleadership as the degree to which managers supervise their sub-ordinates closely and expect precise and immediate execution

of their orders Despite these differences, the three concepts aremore similar than different The basic premise is that leader-follower relationships are more authoritarian in poor countries,which means that this dimension creates a geographic distri-bution that tracks closely with individualism and collectivism.For example, anecdotal evidence suggests that Asia has greatestauthoritarianism, evident in rigid hierarchies and caste systems,autocratic leadership, and submissive subordinates The Scandi-navian countries and the Netherlands, by contrast, are at theopposite extreme where an employee challenging the decision

of a manager would not necessarily be viewed as shocking ordisrespectful

For managers crossing these sorts of boundaries, it can bechallenging, to say the least For example, a manager from north-western Europe or an Anglo-Saxon country who is not used tosubservient yea-saying subordinates, but expects initiative andindependent action, may find it terribly frustrating to work withthose who prefer to sit back and wait for direction In a high-power distance culture, these sorts of qualities are found primarily

in top leaders and entrepreneurs, whereas middle managersand employees at lower levels are simply supposed to executeorders Even senior staff, such as a company’s director of sales

or human resources manager, may be reluctant to make any

move without the chief executive officer’s blessing Attempts tochange this type of culture and introduce notions like participa-tive management, independent decision making, empowerment,devolution, delayering, and flat company structures often failmiserably.

And even when one thinks that changes are executed, thetruth could be far different Examples from Hofstede (2001),Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (1999), and my own practicedemonstrate that even when some change is visible at the sur-face, the underlying situation may remain unchanged A Slovakexecutive from a large German company in Slovakia once told usthat the German leaders had spent a year on a delayering project.But the final result showed only on the new company chart Inpractice, the old hierarchies remained in people’s minds andmany employees still expected guidance and orders from thosewho had been their bosses

Uncertainty Avoidance

Hofstede’s uncertainty avoidance (2001), in a nutshell, refers tothe way that cultures respond to changes and deal with ambiguity.High–uncertainty avoidance cultures are generally thought of asconservative and law-abiding whereas low–uncertainty avoidancecultures are open to change, innovation, and diversity Therehas, however, been some confusion around rule orientation andspecifically whether or not this is indicative of one’s own personalvalues For example, if personal values guide behavior, then people

in Southern and Latin Europe, where Hofstede’s uncertaintyavoidance reaches its highest scores, should be the most law-abiding, but many observers have been puzzled by what theyhave seen in reality—a seeming South European tendency tobreak rules What are we to make of this? The answer lies inthe difference between personal values and norms for others In

Bulgaria for instance, the typical philosophy seems to be others

should be very rule-oriented but I must be allowed to break the rules

if it serves my own interest Thus, while Hofstede’s uncertainty

avoidance may explain how people in some countries react toother people’s transgressions it does not necessarily tell us aboutpeople’s personal rule orientation

And like anything else, there are shades of gray For example,regardless of where they fall on the uncertainty avoidance scale,

no society on earth is without some unbendable rules that body respects People in southern Europe make more trafficviolations than those in northwestern Europe, but they respectvarious other stringent rules that others may not have heard of.For example, Bulgarians never give a woman an even number

every-of flowers Another example: Indonesians drive in a way thatcan make a Westerner’s hair stand on end, but they have innu-merable indigenous social regulations from which they neverdeviate

Masculinity versus Femininity

Hofstede’s ‘‘masculinity versus femininity’’ dimension is also oftenmisinterpreted, at least in two ways First of all, it has nothing to dowith male dominance over women, as many people think Second,

it is not a measure of achievement orientation or competitiveness

in an absolute sense It is about the prioritization of achievementversus personal relationships in the workplace It reveals which

of the two would be more important if employees had to chooseonly one of them According to Hosfstede’s data (2001) from IBMaround 1970, employees in so-called masculine cultures (such

as Japan) attached a higher importance to achievement than torelationships, whereas the situation in so-called feminine countries(such as Guatemala) was precisely the opposite Nevertheless,Japan’s achievement orientation score was far lower than thescore of Guatemala In an absolute sense, Guatemala was muchmore achievement oriented than Japan

The World Values Survey, which relies on nationally sentative data, rather than matched samples from one and thesame corporation, shows a somewhat different pattern of work-goal prioritization In the majority of poor countries, the mostimportant goals are earnings and job security, whereas achieve-ment and relationships are usually lower on people’s priority lists

repre-In the United States and Australia, the most important goals areachievement and earnings; relationships are less important But

in Japan, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries, relationshipscome first

in Eastern Europe, East Asia (Korea, Taiwan), Pakistan, andThailand It is weakest in Norway, the United States, and Canada.

If this relatively new dimension is replicated and confirmed

in further studies, it may have serious implications for tional management For example, American managers in EasternEurope often wonder why they have to go to unusual lengths togain the trust of their subordinates Societal cynicism may provide

interna-a plinterna-ausible explinterna-aninterna-ation: in cynicinterna-al cultures, employees interna-and minterna-an-agers may form oppositional identities that are hard to dismantle

man-It is also likely that differences in societal cynicism partly accountfor different attitudes toward corruption

Utilitarian Versus Loyal Involvement

Smith, Dugan, and Trompenaars (1996) studied the norms andbeliefs of 8,841 managers and employees from 43 countriesand identified a dimension they called ‘‘utilitarian versus loyalinvolvement.’’ What it measures is the propensity and willingness

to work in a team and share responsibility with others Theirresearch revealed that individuals in Asia show the highest leveland Eastern Europeans score lowest This dimension captures aphenomenon that any Bulgarian, and probably some other EastEuropeans, will be aware of My colleague Michael Minkov and Ihave asked various groups of Bulgarians—business students, com-pany employees, and even high school students—whether theylike to work in teams, and have often heard a resounding ‘‘no,’’often accompanied by a wry grimace Attempts by managers fromEnglish-speaking countries to change this attitude are not likely

to result in quick success in any society where people prefer to begiven individual tasks and then be left alone

Economic Dynamism

Minkov and Blagoev (2009) have proposed a new cultural sion extracted from World Values Survey data Starting from theviews of leading development economists concerning the deter-minants of economic growth, and in particular of the East Asianeconomic miracle, we show a parallel between the factors pro-posed by the economists and a number of cultural values Wedemonstrate that nations that attached a higher importance tothrift and a lower importance to leisure in the 1998–99 wave ofthe World Values Survey registered considerably faster economicgrowth in the next decade We also found that these nations attach

dimen-a lower importdimen-ance to persondimen-al reldimen-ationships The highest scorers

on this dimension, which we called ‘‘economic dynamism,’’ areEast Asian and East European nations The lowest scorers are theLatin American countries

This dimension provides serious food for thought not only

to national governments but also to international managers.When expatriates from a country that scores high on economicdynamism become managers in one with a low score, they mayperceive the local workforce as indolent and unacceptably fun-oriented Paik and Derick Sohn (1998) quote South Koreanmanagers in Mexico who were upset by the fact that their work-ers listened to radios and talked a lot, instead of concentrating

on their work without getting distracted, which seems to be thenormal state of affairs in South Korea

Project GLOBE’s Leadership Dimensions

During the 1990s, Project GLOBE studied the preferred ership style in 62 societies (House et al., 2004) The resultsspecific to leadership from this study are presented in Dorfman,Hanges, and Brodbeck (2004) Six preferred leadership dimen-sions were extracted, describing broad leadership styles Althoughthese dimensions are still new to academics and practitionersalike, they are interesting For example, they reveal that charis-matic leadership, which captures the attention of many Americanresearchers, is indeed highly valued in the Americas, but far less so

lead-in many other countries, where employees rank the importance

of effective leadership traits in a different way

Although the GLOBE study is well known and widely cited,

it is not without controversy One issue of contention has to

do with the fact that the authors asked respondents to describetheir societies as well as the personalities of their fellow citizens.McCrae, Terracciano, Realo, and Allik, (2007; 2008), however,argued that this approach yields meaningful results only when theissues that the respondents are asked to discuss are very simpleand very salient A simple and salient issue could be the size of thetypical family in a given society Any question at a higher level ofabstraction can result in answers that do not contain meaningfulinformation for cross-cultural comparisons Question v163 in theWorld Values Survey Association (2008), for example, asks therespondents how much ‘‘democraticness’’ there is in their owncountries According to the nationally representative samples,there is more democraticness in Ghana, Vietnam, and Jordanthan in any Western country, such as Switzerland, Germany, theUnited States, Sweden, and Finland

There is a very important practical lesson here that national managers and consultants should remember Asking acountry’s citizens to provide information about their own culturecan be double-edged It can result in valuable information ormeaningless statements, depending on what you ask about

inter-Cultural Diversity: A Nuisance

or a Competitive Advantage?

In this chapter, we have presented just a fraction of the ingly rich cross-cultural variation in the world The full extent anddepth of cultural differences are hard to fathom and probablyimpossible to ever catalogue completely And as we ponder thosedifferences, it is worth revisiting the notion of cultural diversityand whether it is an aid or a hindrance to organizations Theanswer is complicated and depends on how you look at this topic

bewilder-Managers Managing Cultural Diversity

As international managers attempt to navigate these challengingwaters, there are probably two obvious ways that they can quicklyrun into problems with respect to culture Understanding these

problems can help turn culture from a nuisance to an advantage.The first is when managers are simply unaware of the manynuances around cultural differences The good news is that, tosome extent, lack of awareness can be remedied through cross-cultural training, coaching, time on the ground, and so forth Andwhile this may not guarantee cultural ‘‘fluency,’’ it can go a longway toward giving the manager a good working knowledge of therelevant norms, values, and expected behavior.

The second way that managers can get into trouble is haps more problematic, and that has to do with individuals whomay or may not be aware of the cultural nuances but regard-less seek to impose their own norms and values and discountthose of others A statement by two consultants with substan-tial cross-cultural knowledge and experience perhaps exemplifiesthe challenge of trying to change others: ‘‘Perfect integrationbetween Western expatriates and local executives appears to beimpossible’’ (Browaeys & Price, 2008, p 294) And this is not

per-a subjective opinion without bper-asis in evidence It summper-arizesthe findings of a study of Afro-Occidental teams by African andWestern scholars And it is a sobering call for realism Instead ofexpecting easy and complete solutions to all cross-cultural prob-lems, managers may sometimes have to accept that some seriousand possibly unpalatable differences will remain There may be

no further solution but to accept the situation by simply grinningand bearing it

International managers also need to keep in mind that there

is often a logic behind the differences that they may come across.Specifically, different geographic, historical, and social environ-ments will have created different cultures, all of which are quitelogical in their particular settings, even if a foreign national fails

to see this right away Understanding this can be a major firststep toward a reduction of the discomfort that people often expe-rience in an unfamiliar society, where things can seem to beupside down Then, managers can work out ways to deal with thechallenges of the local culture by accommodating its own logic

A study of Korean management in Mexico provides a good tion of culture-sensitive conflict resolution The Korean managersrealized the great importance of the family in Mexican society and