HI3042 - Cross-Cultural Management: HRM Issues for Woolworths

This report identifies seven potential HRM issues that Woolworths may face when expanding into China, considering the cultural differences between Australia and China. These issues include population differences, language barriers, cultural differences, geographical distance, national wealth disparities, lifestyle variations, and political factors. The report highlights the challenges in recruitment, communication, and team performance due to these differences. Recommendations are provided to mitigate these issues, such as language training for Australian employees, promoting effective communication, implementing virtual communication tools, and maintaining a competitive salary scale. The report emphasizes the importance of understanding and respecting cultural backgrounds to foster a positive workplace environment and successful business operations.

CROSS-
CULTURAL
MANAGEMENT

IDENTIFICATION OF 7
POTENTIAL HRM ISSUES
 Population difference
 Language
 Cultural difference
 Distance
 National wealth difference
 Different lifestyle
 Political factors

POPULATION DIFFERENCE
 The number of the individual per square
meter in China is 134.74
 The number of the individual per square
meter in Australia is 2.66 (Chen, Cheung
and Law 2012)
 Complexity while recruiting the most
efficient candidates from a large pool of
candidate
 Difficulty in handling a huge number of
job applications

LANGUAGE BARRIER
 only 22 percent of the Chinese residents
can fluently communicate in English
 Miscommunication resulting in
misunderstanding (Briscoe, Tarique and
Schuler 2012)
 major issues while communicating with
Chinese consumers as well as
employees
 Major conflicts may take place due to
misunderstanding
 Creation of a rejection prone mentality
among the Chinese consumers

CULTURAL DIFFERENCE
 Chinese population lacks cultural
competence
 lack of cultural competence can hinder
the performance of the team
 lack of cultural competence may even
result in employee attrition (Zalengera
et al., 2014)
 lack of knowledge of employees about
each other’s culture will deteriorate the
workplace environment

DISTANCE
 The distance between
China and Australia is
7,470 km
 increase in the costs of
the travelling (Xiao
and Cooke 2012)
 Woolworths will have
to bear the cost of
travelling of
employees as well
executives for business
purpose

NATIONAL WEALTH DIFFERENCE
 Lower national wealth imposes a direct
impact on the literacy and educational
qualification of China
 Difficulty in recruiting appropriate
candidates for higher posts (Zhang and
Morris 2014)
 Lower national wealth imposes a direct
impact on the literacy and educational
qualification of a country

DIFFERENT LIFESTYLE
 Chinese population habituated to urban
lifestyle and are less likely to go
outdoors
 Australian people prefer outdoor
vacations and spending time with
families
 Chinese employees are habituated to
start working at 11 or 12 am in the noon
and work till late night (Xiao and Cooke
2012)
 Australian employees prefer completing
their official duties by early afternoon

POLITICAL FACTORS
 Chinese government has lowered the
tax rates for the international
companies
 increasing number of Retail
organizations in China (Chhabra and
Kiran 2015)
 HR department of Woolworths may face
the competition while recruiting highly
efficient employees

RECOMMENDATION
 Australian employees should be
provided basis training for learning the
Chinese language (Xiao and Cooke
2012)
 the HRM of Woolworths should
encourage both formal as well as
informal communication within the
employees
 organizing ice-breaking sessions
 Establishing internal communication
tools like intranet (Yek 2014)
 Keeping the salary scale slightly higher

RECOMMENDATION
 Effective communication will not only
help the employees to understand as
well as respect each other's cultural
background
 Woolworths should implement virtual
communication tools like video
conferencing
 For recruitment purpose Woolworths
should implement virtual
communication tools like video
conferencing (Zhang and Morris 2014)
 Keeping the timing of the office similar

REFERENCE LIST
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and Beverage Sector. Productivity, 56(2), p.121.
Xiao, Y. and Cooke, F.L., 2012. Work–life balance in China? Social policy, employer strategy
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