CULTURAL DIFFERENCE

How are cultural differences in management measured according to scholars?



How are cultural differences in management measured according to scholars?

Literature Review

Most probably the measurement of different cultures in terms of their similarity and differences, have been done over a range of business administration environment. Among them, most common are management, marketing, finance and accounting. In management, cultural difference has been used as a prime factor in strategy, management, organization, human behaviors and more importantly human resource management. The context further is pertained to multifaceted questions namely: creativity and organizational transformation to expansion in the global market and adoption of innovative technological base. However, the context had it due impact in the study within management. In order to ascertain the appeal of cultural difference, it is mandatory to recall the nature of the phenomenon it is set to grab. Perplexed, intangible and latent culture has remained to be a tedious task to be measured. Forming a measurement tool - distance - between the cultures has made the task even gruesome (Shenker, 2001, pp. 519-532). Cultural difference and its proxies over a period of three decades have been tested on a wide array of business related environments.

However, this test proved more successful in international environments. The symmetry of cultural difference is different from physical difference - difference between two points. Enhanced communication and interaction bridges the gap in cultural difference by prompting joining the different cultural systems. This implies that the difference between cultures diminishes over a period of time. Countries which are open to foreign culture have more capacity of convergence in contrast to closed countries where acculturation is low (Shenker, 2001, pp. 519-532).

Culture has become a fashion among managers, consultants and more importantly among educationists, with variations to some extent. Culture, as a matter of fact, has left its after effects on the organization perspectives. Organizational culture has adopted the status of which resembles arrangement, scheme and control. It is quoted that the culture and strategy merging, to a little bit. The characteristics of organizational culture, agreed by most authors, are: it is, holistic, historically determined, socially assembled, soft and difficult to change. These Characteristics have been acknowledged by many of the researchers in previous decades. Shared values represent the heart of the organization's culture. Shared opinions of routine activities are the centre of organization's culture. Shared perceptions of daily practices to be the core of organization's culture (Hofstede, et. al., 1990, pp. 286-316).

The use of qualitative methods has been well established among conventional cultural studies. Rooted from the anthropological order, this method provide knowledge of how organizational members understand their experiences and how these experiences influence their behaviors. As a matter of fact, it is very difficult to measure different cultures in organizations. Unlike qualitative, quantitative approach can help to solve this issue. With the help of questionnaire specifically tailored to gauge the organizational culture, researcher can conduct a wide scale survey to compare cultural differences. This method can further be used as complementary for ...