Introduction
Culture covers vast societal issues that are shared such as values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts. This is handed down one generation after another through learning. Generally, it is the way of life of a particular people. In the current economic environment of globalized businesses, cultural difference is a major issue that is dealt with on many fronts. This is because organizations operate in multicultural environments and employees have diverse cultural backgrounds.
Intercultural communication encompasses how individuals from various cultural backgrounds strive to communicate with each other. It considers both verbal and nonverbal communication styles such as kinematics and aims at improving effective communication between people of different cultures within the organization. This paper concentrates on international staffing; an aspect of international human resource management, as a business issue that is affected by intercultural communication
Description of the communication issue
In multicultural multinationals, international human resource management is one key area that is highly affected by the intercultural difference. Communication within this kind of giant structured system is vital for the smooth running of the companies. Intercultural difference and hence intercultural communication though entangle some aspects of this. According to Bordo, Taylor & Williamson (2003, p. 85), cultural difference is a major factor that has to be dealt with when global human resources management is involved. These cultural differences vary from country to country depending on several factors.
They lead to corresponding human resource practices. A miscommunication on the understanding of these practices may lead to severe consequences for the company. A country’s culture entails certain values and symbols which the locals interpret in particular ways. The beliefs language and norms that outline the behavioral pattern, are also different. A particular learned behavior develops in an individual as a person grows up in a specific place from childhood to adulthood and should be taken into account when dealing with the individual (Dalton, 1998, p. 109).
To begin with, the basic components of international human resources management concern staffing, management training and development, performance appraisals, and compensation policies. Intercultural communication affects all the above, and if left unchecked could easily cripple a multicultural organization that employs people from different cultures and operates in various parts of the globe.
Staffing for multinationals in which employees have been transferred from the host country or parent company in a different location to the subsidiary is an example of such a situation. Appraisals are done by the human resources department for people of diverse backgrounds and assessors may not necessarily be from the same cultural cocoon as the appraised. There are also differences in what people value which affect reward schemes like bonus compensations.
Diagnosis of the communication issue
For a multinational to do business in another country other than where they operate, they need to learn the work culture of those particular countries and adjust accordingly (Baldwin & Martin, 1999). For instance, most people in the west work from Monday to Friday with Saturday and Sunday being a weekend. In the Middle East, the working days are from Sunday to Thursday with the weekend being on Friday and Saturday. This not only requires the companies to adjust to a different working culture but also communication times and days. For a company, a particular country’s laws especially those related to tax, customs, and procedures for background screening are some of the issues to put up with.
Variations in tax, living standards and other factors that affect particular employees are all considered in the pay package that new employees take home. The factors considered are normally the minimum wage that differs in various parts of a country from the big cities to the small counties (Otley, 2002, p. 237). The working times include: annual holidays, the time of the month for pay, paid personal days, times for vacation, the weekly working hours, and allowed probation periods.
Restrictions on overtime and payments, hiring and termination rules, and regulations covering several practices like medical cover and retirements benefits (Laabs, 1998, p. 13). Intercultural difference plays significant roles in determining the remuneration guidelines for employees in different parts of the world. In North America, emphasis is made on individualism and high performance, and compensation practices are tuned to encourage along these lines. The Europeans stress social responsibility and the Japanese tradition is to prioritizes age and company serves as the basic determinants of compensation (Barton, & Bishko, 1998, p. 67-69).
Staffing
Every organization tries to equip itself with the best staff possible. For multinationals, employees may be expatriates, host-country nationals, or third-county nationals. Significant background investigations may be done for each of the cases above before the employees are hired a move that is sometimes overlooked in nationally-based industries. Normally differences across cultures and countries are barriers to overcome.
Employees such as expatriates may find difficulty in adjusting to the new environment or are finally completely unable to do so. Reasons such as the physical conditions: temperatures, religion, or foods contribute to the barriers.
Staffing currently takes three generalized forms: ethnocentric, polycentric, and geocentric (Storey, 2001, p. 43). In ethnocentric, strategic management positions are all fields by nationals of the parent country of the company. These people are all of the different cultural backgrounds from where they operate. The policy normally produces resentments in the host country and sometimes leads to cultural myopia. The resentment is caused by the limited job advancement opportunities for the host country nationals and lowers the productivity of a company (Roberts, Ellen E. & Ozeki, 1998, p 96). It also increases the rate of human resource turnover.
Cultural myopia leads to failure in understanding the host country’s culture and the differences with the parent country. A good cultural understanding is necessary for other activities such as marketing of products and motivation of employees. In the second case, the subsidiaries are managed by the host country nationals while key headquarter positions are left for nationals of the parent country. This also limits the host country’s nationals experience to only within their country and generates gaps between the operations of the host country and the parent country (Laurent, 2006, p. 97; Cherrington, Reitz & Scott, 1997, p. 589).
The geocentric policy seeks the best suitable candidates for management positions regardless of their nationality or cultural background. The policy best suits global and trans-national businesses worldwide. Compensation structures in this system are complex, expensive, and sometimes even problematic.
Strategies for dealing with the issue
To reduce the kind of above incidences, preventive measures are taken in advance. For example, before departure, the foreign employees are oriented and trained in the challenges they may meet ahead in their new job placements (Conger, FineGold & Lawler, 1998, p. 653). Areas considered include among others: language, culture, history, local customs, and the living conditions in the host nation. During their assignments, they are helped to continue expanding skills, career planning, together with home-country development. The lifestyle, workplace conditions, and employees of destination are pre-mentioned in their briefing.
Ethnocentric type of staffing solves any problem of lack of qualified managers in the host country, unifies the corporate culture, and leads to transferring of core competencies. The polycentric arrangement is suitable for multi-domestic businesses. It not only helps to alleviate myopia but is also cheap to implement and helps in transferring the core competencies (Schuler, 1990, p. 213). The geocentric policy best suits global and trans-national businesses worldwide.
It allows the companies to maximize the use of their human resources (Jackson & Schuler, 1995, p. 276). Managers also get equipped to work in several cultures which improve intercultural understanding within the firm. There is also the building up of strong unifying culture and informal management networks that ease company operations (Jackson & Schuler, 1995, p 275). The policy reduces cultural myopia and creates value from location economies. Implementation of the policy is sometimes limited by national immigration laws.
Conclusion
Human resource management practices are great determinants of organizational performance. A good understanding of the cultural difference in an area of operation and correct utilization of the available human capital aids the company to perform better. In essence, correct allocation of duties to employees should take into account the vast cultural differences in the areas the company operates in and the cultural diversity of employees. The key is to strike a balance to optimize the resourcefulness of the entire workforce.
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