Cross Cultural Management - Dancom Case Study

Drawing on theories of both cross cultural management and motivation, discuss the factors influencing the contrasting behaviour of both the hosting insiders and outsiders at Dancom. What could be done to help the outsiders become more involved?

To understand the case we have to first understand the theories of cross culture management and motivation.... we would be later on moving to the introduction and issues at Dancom. The last but not the least would be the suggestions and their implication in relation to the “outsiders” at Dancom along with the mentioned theories.

When a company goes to other country for business there is lot of capital and resources that are invested. There is a very famous saying that “when in Rome do as Romans do”. It is always better to accept and then expect. When such large investment is made than the company should enter another countries market with an acceptance to what is the culture of that country. Culture of a country emphasis on individual behaviour. It influences the thinking process, consumption habits, communication process, etc.... and the list is endless. The failure to consider cultural universals results in a tendency to overemphasize cultural differences. Note that shared values do not necessarily mean shared or identical behaviour. The manner of expressing culturally universal traits still varies across countries. Music is a cultural universal, but that does not mean that same kind of music is acceptable everywhere.

Dancom (not the real name) is a large Danish company which is a world leader in some of its business areas. The organization culture explains about the cultural divergences in its everyday interaction between its subsidiaries in more than hundred countries and more than 20,000 employees worldwide. Dancom started its activities in Russia in 1993. The study is about representing different national backgrounds (Danes and Russians), and different age, gender, and department affiliations without any bias of position or the time spend in the company.

MASLOW’S THEORY OF HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

The motivational theory by Abraham (Harold) Maslow (April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970) was an American psychologist. He is mostly noted today for his proposal of a hierarchy of human needs and is considered the father of humanistic psychology. His theory is all about the basic needs of a normal human being. There are at least five sets of goals, which we may call basic needs. These are briefly physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization. In addition, we are motivated by the desire to achieve or maintain the various conditions upon which these basic satisfactions rest and by certain more intellectual desires.

Level 1: According to this diagram the most important needs are at the bottom level that comprises of the very basic needs that are breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis and excretion. These are th e needs without which a normal human being cannot survive at all.

Level 2: The second level in the pyramid is need for safety. Every individual needs security of body, job, resources, family, health, etc. Level 3: This level in the pyramid comprises of love and the feeling of belonging from family, friends and sexual intimacy.

Level 4: The second last level explains us about the self esteem part which an individual acquires from confidence, achievement, respect from others and for others.

Level 5: The last and the least important level in the pyramid is tells about self actualization, the feeling of relating oneself with the other problem solving, acceptance of fact, lack of prejudice, morality, spontaneity and so on.

Diagram of Maslow's hierarchy of needs

HOFSTEDE’S FIVE DIMENSIONAL CULTURAL THEORY

Gerard Hendrik Hofstede was an influential Dutch writer on the issues between national cultures and organizational cultures. Hofstede demonstrated that there are national and regional cultural groupings that affect the behaviour of societies and organizations, and that are very persistent across time. These ideas were first based on a large research project into national culture differences across subsidiaries of a multinational corporation (IBM) in 64 countries. Subsequent studies by others covered students in 23 countries, elites in 19 countries, commercial airline pilots in 23 countries, up-market consumers in 15 countries, and civil service managers in 14 countries. Together these studies identified and validated four independent dimensions of national culture