Cross-Cultural Management in Globally Operating Hospitality Company

This report explores the organizational culture and cultural tension in a globally operating hospitality company. It discusses the theoretical approaches to cross-cultural management and proposes strategies for implementation. The focus is on the merger and integration of two hotels to address cross-cultural differences.

cross -cultural management in
globally operating hospitality
company

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Description of organizational culture of globally operating hospitality company and aspects of
the “dominating” national culture, that might influence the organizational culture....................3
Cultural tension between two hotels............................................................................................4
Theoretical approaches to cross-cultural management................................................................5
Application of theory of cross-cultural management in analysing issues of organization and
management.................................................................................................................................6
Cross-cultural strategy and program for implementation............................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
The cross cultural management is basically the strategy and approach which mainly aims
to manage and deal with the differences among people belonging to different cultural
background as well as proposes how they communicate with each other. The main aim of this
report is to analyze the cross cultural differences between hotels and propose strategy for
overcoming it.
This report provides an overview of organizational culture of Holiday Inn, cultural
tension between two hotels, cross-cultural strategy and program for implementation.
MAIN BODY
Description of organizational culture of globally operating hospitality company and aspects of
the “dominating” national culture, that might influence the organizational culture
Organizational culture is one of the most important aspect which is required to be
maintained within a hospitality industry organization. For hospitality industry organizations that
operates globally, it is important for them to maintain an organizational culture so that their
customers can get to know what their business is like every time they interact with the
organization (Arditi, Nayak and Damci, 2017). Organizational culture of Holiday inn is less
about policy and more about its people both people who provide excellent service to their
customers and customers who pay for those services. Internationalization of organizations such
as Holiday Inn has decreased country borders and increased need of an organizational culture
suitable for their organization. Holiday Inn operates in multiple nations, different cultures,
religions, beliefs ad races. They have a diverse and inclusive culture. They have diverse
workforce working for them so that enormous benefits can be brought to the organization. They
also have diverse leadership that further helps them to perform in a better manner financially.
But their dominant national culture aspect is that influences their overall organizational culture is
their inclusive culture which helps them respect, recognize, respect equality of all the cultivated
differences (Crane, Kawashima and Kawasaki, 2016). They focus on maintaining a positive
organizational culture so that their employees can experience a positive employment without any
kind of barrier.

Their one of the main dominant national culture aspects is receptivity i.e. they have
adopted different working styles which helps them to strengthen their employee’s abilities. It
helps them in motivating their employees by focusing on positive aspects of the employees rather
than their limitations. One of the main dominating national culture that impacts their
organizational culture is gender equality. In UK masculinity is high because of gender equality
there is also high. This impacts overall organizational culture of Holiday Inn and they have
adopted diverse and inclusive organizational culture. Another dominating aspect of their national
culture is that they value their people and tasks done or carried out by them (Arditi, Nayak and
Damci, 2017). This helps them to provide excellent customer experience to their guest regardless
of the country where they have checked in. this further helps them to maintain a culture of their
guest so that their they can experience same service again and again whenever they check in. this
further helps them to see things from a different perspective and if there is requirement of
bringing some changes within their current culture then they can focus on it and support it.
Cultural tension between two hotels
The cultural tension between the Holiday inn as well as hotel Pangu exists to a high
extent. These two hotels are basically the seven star hotel where Holiday inn has its headquarter
in UK while Pangu is headquartered in China. Due to the cross-cultural differences, there exists a
large number of issues between both the hotels.
Linguistic barrier
This is one of the major barrier as well as issue where the cultural issue exists. Linguistic
barrier is the greatest barrier which mainly relates with difference in the languages that us mother
tongue. In UK, the mother tongue is English and more than half of the population speaks
English. On the other hand, mother tongue of China is Chinese. There exists the cultural tension
between both the hotels where the staff as well as people visiting the hotels generally faces
problems in communication with each other as they find it complicated to speak another
language (Tsiotsou, 2019).

Beliefs and values
This is the another cultural issue which is being faced between both Holiday inn and
Pangu hotel. The beliefs as well as values of Americans as well as Chinese differ and thus both
the hotels faces a great amount of problem due to this. The major difference emerge in the
greetings. The simple way of greeting the customers in UK is addressed by just saying simply
hello while on the other hand, simply saying hello in the first meeting is considered as rude
behaviour in Chinese. The Chinese people bend while saying hello which represent their
generosity. This difference in the greeting becomes a great cultural tension in both the hotels
where the employees finds it difficult to analyze each and every culture (Lee, 2016). Along with
this, there also emerge a difference between the cuisine and diets of both the countries. This is
where both the hotels Holiday inn and Pangu faces problem. Where on one hand, Chinese are
more oriented towards eating healthy food and their diet contains more vegetables on the other
hand, meat forms the major food in UK. Pople in UK likes to meat products and thus most their
every dish consist of meat products. This is the another cultural tension and issue between both
the hotels where they have to focus on the food they are serving.
Theoretical approaches to cross-cultural management
Cross-cultural management is a study of management in the context of cross-culture. One
of the main aims of this approach is to identify factors which can influence societal culture on
management practices as well as organization members (d'Iribarne and et.al., 2020). One of the
main aim of developing approaches and having knowledge of approaches of cross-cultural is to
understand managerial attitudes, behaviours and values. Hospitality sector is the one who
requires different cultures of employees as they have to deal with different cultures race and
languages of customers.
But different cultures of employees can create some problem like language barriers,
communication problems, variation in believe etc. All these problems need to be solved and for
that it is important for Holiday inn to develop and implement appropriate theory and make their
environment effective. Hofstede cultural model is known as one of the best model or theories.
There are several elements which need to be considered by the company which include:
openness, trust, confrontation, proactively, autonomy and experiments. By focusing on all these
factors, Holiday inn can improve its working environment and communication as well. Rather,

all these things, company can also focus on its business structure working relations, business and
working practices etc.
Application of theory of cross-cultural management in analysing issues of organization and
management
There are several issues in a hospitality sector which can affect the performance and
productivity such as: language problems, variation in believe, cultural differences and
communication (Davidov and et.al., 2018. ). For solving this problem, it is important to apply the
best strategy of cross cultural by Holiday inn such as:
Hofstede cultural model is one of the best approaches which can help Holiday inn in
managing their all resources and identify effects of society’s culture on values of its members.
Collectivism Vs individualism: This element considers an extent which shows integration
of societies as well as their perceived obligation. Individual type of culture refers shows that it is
important to attain personal goals rather team. In this type, people focus on self image which
defined as I. On the other hand, collectivism type believes that it is important to get or achieve
team goals and in this self image is defined by We.
Femininity Vs masculinity: It considers preference of societies and people for attitudes
and achievement towards sexuality equality. In masculinity type, males are being given authority
to control and it comes from assertive and their concentration on material achievements.
Whereas, femininity comes with modest, caring and nurturing quality.
Short-term Vs long –term orientation: In the long term orientation, people mainly focus on
the future for accomplishing long term goals. For this they focus on persistence and long term
growth. In shirt term orientation, people focus on the near future and accomplish goals which
they can get quickly. They seek for quick results (Khlif, 2016).
So, as per all dimensions of cross-cultural approach, it can be said that by focusing on the
best dimension or culture, Holiday inn can make itself successful.
Cross-cultural strategy and program for implementation
The merger and integration of Holiday inn with Hotel de Rome of Berlin will help both
the hotels to settle down the cultural differences. This integration and merger will be helpful for
both the hotels and thus will enable them to address the various cross cultural differences.
Merger and integration is basically the process in which two organizations unites into the single

organization. In short, their assets and liabilities become one and they integrate their business
operations (Wang and et.al.,2019).
Focusing on the customer
This is one of the strategy which will affect both the hotel holiday inn and Hotel de rome
to solve their cross-cultural differences. Customers form the major strength as well as integral
part of the business and thus are the prime motivating factors for all the organization. The post-
merger integration will help both the hotel to attract different types of customers. Due to the
merger between the hotels of two countries, the cross-cultural issues will be resolved and this
will eventually lead to the entrance of a large number of customers. Firstly, the linguistic barrier
will be overcome. As the mother tongue of UK is English while that if Berlin is German thus this
integrations will prove to be highly beneficial for attracting the customers of both countries. Due
to this integration, both the hotels will not face the issue of communicating with people of UK as
well as Berlin as this merger will also result in the recruitment of employees of both countries.
As there will be employees of both the countries, thus it will be easy to communicate and interact
with the customers and resolve their queries in short period of time. Both the hotels holiday inn
and hotel de rome should implement this strategy by emphasizing on the market research and
focusing in the needs and demands of customers in different countries (Nkitseng and Kesa,
2018).
Employee communication
This is the another strategy which both the hotels should emphasize upon in order to
overcome the cross- cultural differences. The hotels post merger and integration should develop
a common line and channel of communication in order to make the interaction between
employees of both the countries more effective and efficient. Holiday inn and Hotel de rome
should implement this strategy where it should incorporate advanced technology within its
organization post merger so that employees can communicate with each other regarding issues
and languages for example regarding any issue from Berlin or UK. This will eventually help the
hotels to overcome the issue of cross-cultural differences as well as will enable them to
understand the values and beliefs of both countries (Nam and Kannan, 2020).

CONCLUSION
From the above assignment it has been summarized that there are different kinds of
organizational cultures that helps an organization to motivate their employees, enhance their
employee’s overall performance, enhance their customer experience and further helps them to
maintain their organizational value as well. Each organization that operates internationally has
one dominating culture that impact their overall organizational culture.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
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Crane, D., Kawashima, N. and Kawasaki, K.I., 2016. Culture and globalization theoretical
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Davidov, E. and et.al., 2018. Cross-cultural analysis: Methods and applications. Routledge.
d'Iribarne, P. and et.al., 2020. Cross-Cultural Management Revisited: A Qualitative Approach.
Oxford University Press, USA.
Khlif, H., 2016. Hofstede’s cultural dimensions in accounting research: a review. Meditari
Accountancy Research.
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cross-cultural perspective. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research.40(2). pp.162-197.
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