Cross Cultural Management

This project report focuses on cross cultural management in the context of a US-based company working on a project in Tanzania. It covers the national culture of Tanzania, leadership strategies, motivation theories, and HRM practices. The report highlights the challenges and solutions in managing cross cultural teams and provides insights for successful project completion.

Cross Cultural
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Category 1: National Culture.......................................................................................................1
Category 2: Leadership ...............................................................................................................2
Category 3: Motivation Theory & HRM ....................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCE...................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Cross culture refers to bridging gap between different people of different nation and
religion in business. It focus of reducing difference related to religion, ethics between them and
taking all of them together to work for common goal. For a business working on international
level, it is important to understand need of cross culture as it can affect their business
productivity. This project report include study of Hydro generation, a US based company. In the
organisation, people are of different background and culture and are working on a project which
is in another location in Tanzania in Africa. This project report include national culture of
country and their issue related to cross culture. It also include leadership to manage cross culture
with motivation and HRM practised in Tanzania.
MAIN BODY
Category 1: National Culture
Nation culture refers to culture of country, their economic condition, language and
culture (Bird and Mendenhall, 2016). Tanzania has different culture for employees of HG as they
are from different country. National culture of Tanzania is described in following terms:
Higher Unemployment: Unemployment rate in Tanzania is higher which indicate there
are more unskilled employees. People their hired through word of mouth as through family
members. It can be beneficial and non beneficial for business. Benefit of unemployment in
Tanzania is that they can get cheap labour for their project of Dam construction whereas
disadvantage of high unemployment rate is that there are unskilled employee which are
ineffective.
Lower GDP level: In Tanzania, GDP level of country is comparatively low which can
create problem for business. It indicate economic condition of a country and earning of
employees working in country. Lower GDP also indicate lower investment in country, lower
government spending in country (Hao, Farooq and Sun, 2018). Resources in that country are
relatively costlier as there is low income in that country. There are not proper facility and
resources in that country.
Low Per Capita Income: Tanzania has low level of GDP which also decrease per capital
income of people living there. There is increasing poverty in that country and low purchasing
power of people. The resources available in this country are limited and often costlier.
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Lack of Development facility: There are lack of development facility in Tanzania as it is
underdeveloped country. It will take a month to be phone installed and other facility in Tanzania.
There are late delivery of supplier in that country and it is difficult to get operating licence to be
issued. It is difficult for a business to survive in that country and require proper understanding of
different political, social, cultural aspect of country. It is also difficult for business to survive as
there are lack of facility for operation of business.
Corruption: There are corruption factor available in that country as government claimed
to be anti corruption in Tanzania but they take money for every work to be done. People art high
position demand for large amount for their service which can make project of HG more costlier.
Different Culture: In Tanzania there are mainly two culture. Most of people living here
are of Muslim or Christian religion. People living here are speaking Swahili which is official
language of Tanzania. Many people can speak English which can be beneficial of HG project as
people of Tanzania can understand their language.
Category 2: Leadership
Leadership refers to the ability of person to influencing behaviour of others to achieve
common goal of organisation (Mahadevan, 2020). Leadership motivate employees of HG to
work in Tanzania and complete project of business. In this situation, John should play role of
leader as environment of Tanzania is different for employees of Hydro Generation. There are
also cultural differences in organisation. So, John need to adopt effective leadership to manage
these problems and also managing team effectively for successfully completion of project.
Leadership strategies adopted by John to complete Dam project in Tanzania are as follows:
Provide vision to their employees: Hydro Generation provide vision to their employee
as it helps them to work to achieve in a unifying goal. Vision provide them a direction in which
they are working to complete working of business. In this situation, Hydro Generation has
employees with different culture and background. This create difference at work place and does
not allow employee to comfortable in working environment of organisation. In this situation,
effective leader solves this problem by provide vision to their employees and allow them to work
in one direction.
Encourage employees: Leader encourage their employees and motivate them to work
more willingly with more efficiency. John as a leader should encourage employee to work
effectively to complete work with efficiency. As environment of Tanzania is different for many
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of employees, so in this situation the role of John is very important. John should understand
needs of employees and encourage them by reducing cultural barrier in working environment of
project in Tanzania. This encouragement helps employee to move in Tanzania where culture is
completely and environment is completely different for them.
Promote relationship: Leader should encourage relation in organisation both formal and
informal as informal relation helps to make employee more comfortable with environment and
fellow colleagues (Johnson and Cullen, 2017). In Hydro Generation employee are of different
culture and country, as it is important for a leader to promote informal relation in work place as it
makes them familiar with one another. John is avoiding gathering with worker and engineer for
clubbing and church. It is against working culture of company but John is best suitable for the
working of project in Tanzania. To reduce cultural diversity, John should adopt this strategy of
promoting relation between employees.
Delegate to work: Delegation of work is giving credit of completion of work to others.
This will help leader to make their leadership more effective (Szőcs and Miska, 2020). In this
situation, John should be delegate to their employees. This delegation helps to increase trust of
employees on leader and make them more familiar with leader. This will also motivate
employees to work in order to achieve success of organisation. Trust between employees and
leader is essential in order to successfully completion of project in Tanzania where employees
are of different culture and project is facing objection from local community of Tanzania.
Category 3: Motivation Theory & HRM
Motivation is the process to creating urge inside people to complete a work to gain
desired result (Piekkari, Welch and Zølner, 2020). In this case employees working in HG not
ready to move in Tanzania as there are lack of facility and resources. To transfer employees to
complete project of Dame construction in Tanzania, HG need to motivate employees. To
motivate people of organisation, HG can adopt different motivation strategies like promote
employees, offer incentives, extra wages etc. They should understand problem and needs of
employees and aware them with benefits of project for organisation as well as for their carrier.
To motivate engineer and worker to work in that place HG can adopt following strategies:
Promote Employees: To motivate employees to work in organisation, managers need to
understand their problem and provide extra benefits to employees (Jackson, 2017). To influence
employee to move in Tanzania for a project require motivation which can be done through
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provide them promotion. HG motivate employees by offering them promotion which can satisfy
their needs and also motivate them to work for project. This promotion leads them to work
willingly and enthusiastically to achieve common goal of organisation. This will also make them
able to work by avoiding cross culture barrier and language barrier, the only focus of employees
will be to complete the work.
Increase in Salary and wages: In HG, employees are not ready to move in Tanzania as
there are lack of facility. They also fell alone in Tanzania as there are difference of language and
culture there. In motivation, managers often provide extra benefits and salary to their employees
in order to motivate them. HG can offer their employees extra salary and wages which can helps
to influence their decision related to move Tanzania. HG can also provide them extra benefit
which helps them to fulfil their family needs and also provide them facility to required to
complete work.
Communication: Communication plays important role in any management function or to
solve problem and conflict between two individuals (Riahi, Hamouda and Henchiri, 2020). To
motivate employee to move Tanzania, it is important for HG to communicate with their
employees. It is also necessary to aware the employees with benefits of this project to their
carrier. This communication should be in two way as it helps organisation to understand need of
employees and making employees aware with benefit of this Dam project. This will help
organisation to increase trust of employees and make them ready to do work for this project.
Maslow Theory: Maslow has given theory of motivation which helps to prioritize the needs of
human (Meares and Bennett, 2020). Maslow has divided needs felt by human in five stages
which can helps HG and John to motivate employees to work in Tanzania effective. These stages
of Maslow hierarchy are as follows:
Physiological need: This need include basic and necessary need which are important for
survival. It includes food, water, cloth etc. which is required by a human in order to survive. HG
providing good living condition to their employees which are working in Tanzania. HG has
provided John and other employees with upscale neighbourhood in Tanzania. This will satisfy
their basic needs and motivate them to work in the organisation.
Safety and Security needs: This level of hierarchy include security and safety needs of
employees. These needs can affect behaviour of employee for organisation. It includes financial
stability, health and working condition of organisation. Employees moving to work in Tanzania
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require better facilities, organisation should provide these facilities to their employee in order to
motivate employee to attain business goals.
Social Needs: Men is a social and animal and require love and belongingness. This level
includes emotional needs of human as it is important to build relation at work place which make
them familiar with working environment of organisation (Tietze and Piekkari, 2020). John
should allow employees to build informal relation in organisation as it helps them to satisfy their
social needs and make them more familiar with environment of organisation.
Esteem Needs: This level of need includes appreciation and respect which make an
employee more satisfied. These needs motivate employees and important for them gain respect
from others. Manager of HG can provide extra benefit and promotion to their employees which
helps to satisfy their self esteem needs and they motivate to move to Tanzania and work more
willingly to achieve organisational objectives.
Self-Actualisation Needs: This is last level of Maslow hierarchy and it include what a
people want to finally achieve in their life. This is stage in which talent and potential of
employee is fully utilised. HG fulfils this need of employee by providing them promotion within
organisation. This will increase loyalty of employees for organisation and their goals is to pit
efforts for success of organisation.
HRM practices: Human resource plays important role to successfully complete organisation
operation (Mead and Jones, 2017). To achieve business goal, organisation understand need of
human resource in order to gain profitability. Tanzania often hire employees of different
countries and are of different culture. This can create problem of cross culture and language
barrier in organisation. This can result in dissatisfaction of employee which reduce productivity
of employees. In order to solve these problems and to complete project of Dam in Tanzania, HG
can adopt different human resource strategy which are as follows:
Hiring of employees: HG can hire employees which are aware of culture, political and
social life of Tanzania as it helps them to get local community support to complete the project.
For this purpose, they can hire some labour from Tanzania as unemployment in that country is
higher so employees are available at a cheaper rate. This will also create employment
opportunity for local people of Tanzania and helps to get their support for Dam project. This will
help to successfully completion of project in Tanzania. Getting labour from Tanzania also helps
HG to reduce the cost of project.
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Reducing culture differences: It is duty of Human resource manager to reduce cultural
difference in organisation and make employees to work under unifying goals. Cultural
differences are sometimes making employees alone and differentiated in organisation. As in this
case, John is failed to manage cultural differences as manager is not participating with their
fellow colleagues in church and club but isolation of John from expatriate community helps other
employees to be comfortable in environment of Tanzania. Cultural differences reduce
productivity of employees and make them unsatisfied with work. It is duty of manager to make
employees familiar with culture differences.
Understanding needs and solving Problem of employees: To attain business objective,
it is important to understand needs of employees and solve their problem. HG understand
problem of employees and provide facility of living with upscale neighbourhood. They also
provide them adequate facility which helps to satisfied employees and make them to attain
business goals. Manager of HG are providing their employees with high standard of living and
motivate them to work willingly for the project work held in Tanzania.
Working environment: Working environment of organisation is that in which
employees work. It affects working of employees and productivity of employees. Maintaining
good working environment of organisation is duty of manager and make employees familiar with
working. Lifestyle of John is uncertain with the culture of HG as he does not participate in
gathering with fellow engineers and workers. But at the same time John provides employees with
full authority and responsibility of doing work. John also isolate himself from expatriate
community which helps foreign employees to be familiar in environment of Tanzania.
CONCLUSION
From above mentioned project report it can be concluded that culture plays important
role in efficiency of employees. Cross culture management refers to management of employees
and individual from different culture and background. It helps manager to handle conflict at
work place and reduce differences of culture in environment of work. To solve these problem,
leader plays very important role as they provide vision to their employee, communicate with
them and also effectively delegate to their employees. Organisation culture should be in that as it
provides familiar environment to employees of different background. Creating appropriate
environment in organisation is responsibility of manager, for this they should maintain relation
with employees and also communicate with them to reduce language barrier in organisation.
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Manager can adopt different motivational strategies which helps them to motivate employees to
achieve organisational goals. They can understand their needs, promote them and allow them to
participate in decision making which provide employees sense of belongingness in organisation.
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REFERENCE
Books and Journal
Bird, A. and Mendenhall, M. E., 2016. From cross-cultural management to global leadership:
Evolution and adaptation. Journal of World Business. 51(1). pp.115-126.
Hao, Y., Farooq, Q. and Sun, Y., 2018. Development of theoretical framework and measures for
the role of social media in realizing corporate social responsibility through native and
non‐native communication modes: Moderating effects of cross‐cultural
management. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management. 25(4).
pp.704-711.
Jackson, T., 2017. Should cross-cultural management scholars study race?.
Johnson, J. L. and Cullen, J. B., 2017. Trust in cross‐cultural relationships. The Blackwell
handbook of cross‐cultural management. pp.335-360.
Mahadevan, J., 2020. The concept of culture in cross-cultural management: genealogical
considerations. SAGE Handbook of Contemporary Cross-Cultural Management.
London: SAGE.
Mead, R. and Jones, C.J., 2017. Cross‐Cultural Communication. The Blackwell Handbook of
Cross‐Cultural Management. pp.283-291.
Meares, M. M. and Bennett, J. M., 2020. Cross-Cultural Management and Intercultural
Communication. The SAGE Handbook of Contemporary Cross-Cultural Management,
p.313.
Piekkari, R., Welch, C. and Zølner, M., 2020. 10 The Uneasy Relationship Between the Case
Study and Cross-Cultural Management. The SAGE Handbook of Contemporary Cross-
Cultural Management.
Riahi, R., Hamouda, F. and Henchiri, J.E., 2020. Measuring cultural dimensions for cross-
cultural management: Corporate governance outlook. Corporate Ownership & Control.
17(2).
Szőcs, I. and Miska, C., 2020. Ethics in the context of cross-cultural management. SAGE
handbook of contemporary cross-cultural management.
Tietze, S. and Piekkari, R., 2020. Language and cross-cultural management. The SAGE
Handbook of Contemporary Cross-Cultural Management, Sage, California, pp.181-195.
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