Trans-Cultural Human Values in Management and Management Education

12/12/2021 0 By indiafreenotes

Highly important values in transcultural conflicts include equality, communication, respect, open-mindedness, honesty and truth, calmness, appreciation, politeness, co-operation, teamwork and punctuality. It is clear that values which have been under-represented in apartheid (Hart, 2002), particularly, lead to conflicts in the described context in South Africa. Managers highlighted equality as one major value which still stayed unfulfilled in their work context. Values such as calm and appropriate communication, mutual respect, equality, appreciation, politeness and co-operation were experienced as missing. This shows that values which were described as “Missing” in the apartheid society and which have not completely been reinstalled in post-apartheid South Africa still spill over into today’s organisations in this country.

Misunderstanding and transcultural conflict seemed to arise through miscommunication between members of different cultural groups. They particularly included values, such as non-existence of collective transparency in communication processes, as well as unacceptable and inappropriate behaviour, such as shouting or cursing. Transcultural conflicts were interpreted as occurring due to cultural variations in values across managers of different cultural groups. Managers did not seem to have appropriate skills to manage these value conflicts appropriately in all respects and therefore cultural and value diversity within the organisation could lead to transcultural conflicts.

Cultural practices & values have become significantly important in corporate business. The synergy between corporate culture & managerial values gives rise to cross-cultural practices which helps in making effective strategic options & performing the business tasks successfully. Skills, capabilities, knowledge, technology & experiences are better facilitated by cross-cultural approach particularly in multinational organizations.

Compatibility between societal values & managerial practices influences the critical organizational success. Institutions of higher education can serve as the sources for providing global perspectives of multicultural education.

Multicultural education has two viewpoints:

Assimilation or melting pot: In this, small cultural people should give their original culture, identities, language, values, behavior & communication styles & merge into the predominant bigger culture.

Global perspective: It promotes trans-cultural human values & equity amongst all cultural groups in the society. It allows people to respect & appreciate all existing cultural groups.

Trans-cultural competence is the process in which a person adopts multiple ways of perceiving, evaluating, believing & solving problems to understand & learn to negotiate cultural diversity among nations.

Equity pedagogy: It aims at achieving fair & equal educational opportunities for all the children.

Curriculum reform: It should include curriculum theory & historical inquiry so that bias in textbooks, media & other educational materials can be easily detected.

Teaching for social justice: It develops understanding of the evidence of the individual i.e. what exactly an individual is.

This dimension includes the value domains of:

Universalism: Referring to issues of respect, transparency, open-mindedness, tolerance, understanding and appreciation; and

Benevolence: Referring to helpfulness, honesty, forgiveness, and mutual giving and taking.

Transculturalism is the mobilization of the definition of culture through the expression and deployment of new forms of cultural politics. Based on Jeff Lewis’ From Culturalism to Transculturalism, transculturalism is charactized by the following:

  • Transculturalism emphasizes on the problematics of contemporary culture in terms of relationships, meaning-making, and power formation; and the transitory nature of culture as well as its power to transform.
  • Transculturalism is interested in dissonance, tension, and instability as it is with the stabilizing effects of social conjunction, communalism, and organization; and in the destabilizing effects of non-meaning or meaning atrophy. It is interested in the disintegration of groups, cultures, and power.
  • Transculturalism seeks to illuminate the various gradients of culture and the ways in which social groups create and distribute their meanings; and the ways in which social groups interact and experience tension.
  • Transculturalism looks toward the ways in which language wars are historically shaped and conducted.
  • Transculturalism does not seek to privilege the semiotic over the material conditions of life, nor vice versa.
  • Transculturalism accepts that language and materiality continually interact within an unstable locus of specific historical conditions.
  • Transculturalism locates relationships of power in terms of language and history.
  • Transculturalism is deeply suspicious of itself and of all utterances. Its claim to knowledge is always redoubtable, self-reflexive, and self-critical.
  • Transculturalism can never eschew the force of its own precepts and the dynamic that is culture.
  • Transculturalism never sides with one moral perspective over another but endeavors to examine them without ruling out moral relativism or meta-ethical confluence.

Theoretical Reflections on Transcultural Management

This report aims at describing the status quo of transcultural management in selected focus areas in two global firms. More precisely, as part of a so called “field project”, we conducted case study research which allowed us to understand and describe transcultural learning processes that we consider constitute an inherent and fundamental element of transcultural management. In the following, we will briefly outline the major theoretical concepts behind transcultural management and transcultural learning, which serve as a basis for conceptualizing and analyzing our case study research.

Culture and Leadership

Culture can most simply be defined as how we view and do things. Within our community we construct our own world. Thus, culture is a shared set of meanings and interpretations of a collective represented by a group, a community or by an organization. Culture is embedded invisibly in the deep structure, which is called the core or inner layer, and has fundamental impacts on perception and behavior patterns influencing the interactional dynamics of that community. The outer layers are visible. The inner layer consisted of basic assumptions influences the way we cope with daily life, solve problems and meet changes and challenges. Consequently, culture defines our perception of truth and shapes community’s identity. In that sense, culture is a social construction based on shared experiences reflected and expressed in history and memory, and representing of the past in multiple ways. Language is the vehicle to construct and deconstruct the meanings of the experiences, and supports the process of attachment or detachment of the members in regard to their community’s organization. Within this context, culture has several functions. First it is a system of orientation, second it defines identity, and third it supports internal integration and external adaptation. It is constructed by and refers to the process of defining meaning in which a collective is involved.

Thoughts:

  • Setting direction: “Every organization needs to have its mission, vision, and values established, and everyone looks to the company leaders to either deliver that vision, and values established, and everyone looks to the company leaders to either deliver that vision or facilitate the process of generating it collectively…”
  • Gaining commitment: “Leaders don’t make people do what the leader wants; they make people want to do what the leader wants, and feel valued for doing it. When people talk about what energizes them about a good company, they generally rave about the company’s people and, more specifically, about the values of the people. There has to be a fit between the values of the organization and the individual. That fit is easier to accomplish if the values are clear and the company’s actions match the company’s words.”
  • Delivering results: “Set incremental goals and meet them. Deliver measurable results. What you measure is what people will put the most effort into, so make sure you’re measuring the right things. Vision is necessary, but it’s also important to set a plan and manage it. Make sure there’s follow-through on commitments, and check in on results. Focus on results, provide feedback, and monitor progress.”
  • Building relationships: “Investing your time and developing an awareness of yourself and others builds relationships and can have tremendous payoff in the form of committed employees, suppliers, and customers. People like to do business with people they trust and will even pay more for a service or product knowing that you are there to take care of them when needed. Build consensus, collaborate effectively, and provide support.”
  • Establishing credibility: “Having a strong moral compass, following through, and being good at what you do not just being the expert – are all part of establishing credibility. Don’t forget that you can also establish credibility if you are quick to acknowledge when you don’t have the answer. Bringing in other expertise to assist you isn’t an admission of incompetence, gain respect, think innovatively, and develop trust.”
  • Encouraging growth: “Are you taking interest in developing your people? Empower others, support learning, and demonstrate appreciation.”
  • Managing self: “Knowing and sharing your own strengths and weaknesses is a precept to leading others. A leader can create a supportive environment by modelling the need for support as well as a self-reliant approach to getting support in a timely and appropriate manner. Be persistent and reliable.”