Cross cultural management: a case study

Running Head:INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
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1INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Background of Shell Plc..............................................................................................................2
Aims and objectives of the organisation......................................................................................2
Purpose of the report....................................................................................................................2
Main body........................................................................................................................................3
Cross cultural management research...........................................................................................3
Hofstede’s model of cross cultural management.....................................................................3
Globe Study on cross cultural management............................................................................4
Issues in cross-cultural management...........................................................................................5
Issues in organisational culture in the parent country.............................................................5
Issues to context and environment of the host country............................................................7
Issues to source HR in host country........................................................................................8
Issues related to performance management in host country....................................................9
Issues on training and development in the host country........................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
Reference.......................................................................................................................................13
Appendices....................................................................................................................................17
Appendix 1.................................................................................................................................17
Appendix 2.................................................................................................................................18
Appendix 3.................................................................................................................................19

2INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Introduction
Background of Shell Plc.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc. is an oil and gas company belonged to Netherland and the
headquarters is in Hague, Netherland. The organisation is primarily operated from United
Kingdom with the title of one of the ‘supermajors’ and the third largest company in 2018 in
terms of revenue generation (Shell.com 2020). The current revenue of the organisation is US$
400 billion approximately and it has an operational market in not less than 70 countries. This
massive market expansion of Shell Plc.proves its success in the competitive international market
of oil and gas. The trading environment of the organisation is currently unstable due to transition
of the world demand from traditional energy resources to the renewable energies. Therefore, it is
very important for Shell Plc. to adapt the changes positively in order to bring sustainability in the
organisational practice.
Aims and objectives of the organisation
The aim of the organisation is associated with the mission and vision of the organisation.
From the official site of the organisation, it can be derived that Shell Plc. intends to value its
stakeholders extensively. Moreover, providing a safe, environmentally sustainable and
economically optimum business practice is also identified as crucial aspects for Shell Plc. in
course of operating in the international market (Shell.com 2020). Therefore, the primary purpose
of the company is to thrive in the energy transition, builds a word class investment case and
facilitates strong license to operate. In this regard, the objectives of the organisation is also
resembled with the organisational aims where it can be found that Shell Plc.develops strategy to
become the leading energy company by emphasising over the upstream and customer oriented
business. Moreover, maintaining ethics and social responsibility are also considered to be
important objectives for the organisation.
Purpose of the report
This report intends to elucidate the cross cultural practices and issues regarding
implementing cross cultural management practice in course of expanding the market of Shell Plc.
in Nigeria. The report cares to discuss the HR issues and the potential training and development

3INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
challenges in the host country that can jeopardise the continuous growth of Shell Plc. in the new
market. Henceforth, the report seeks help from two cross cultural management tools in terms of
Hofstede’s model and Globe study.
Main body
Cross cultural management research
Hofstede’s model of cross cultural management
The Hofstede model is focused on a number of important aspects like power distance,
individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long term orientation and element of
indulgence. As far as the power distance is concerned, it can be stated that Netherlands scores
low with 38 that identifies the practice of being independent and sharing equal rights and
hierarchy for convenience. From the research of Beugelsdijk and Welzel (2018) it can be stated
that in Netherlands, the power of the organisations are decentralised where the managers are
often count on the team members to take important decisions. However, Nigeria is just the
opposite with a high power distance score of 80 that pushes the managers to follow a top-down
decision making practice. Inequalities in the society is prevalent that is attached with benevolent
autocracy (Ajekwe 2017).
As far as individualism is concerned, Netherlands practices a degree of independence by
maintaining social relationship with others. Therefore, the Hofstede model scores 80 as an
individualistic society. Therefore, Beugelsdijk, Kostova and Roth (2017) pointed out that the
society is driven by high self-esteem, friendly relationship between the employers and employees
and recruitment on the basis of merit. On the other hand, Nigeria follows less individualism with
a poor score of 30. It identifies the long term commitment towards community rather than
individual reliance. Maduagwu and Igwe (2018) pointed out that the collectivist mentality
existed in the culture of Nigeria that facilitates an extensive impact over the business
organisations to deal with the decision making in business as well. In addition to this, the
Netherland society is a feminist society where the work life balance is very crucial for the people
with support from the supervisors or the management. However, for Nigeria a completely
different picture can be seen as the society is masculine and people live in order to work. The