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Culturally Bound Management Issues in CzechGerman Companies: How to Solve Them

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Martin Luke 1, Julia B rger2, Hana indel rov 1 ... e.g. goal setting, motivation, criticising, change management, decision making ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Culturally Bound Management Issues in CzechGerman Companies: How to Solve Them

1
Culturally Bound Management Issues in
Czech-German Companies How to Solve Them?

Martin Luke1, Julia Bürger2, Hana indelárová1
1 Prague University of Economics, the Czech
Republic
2 University of Regensburg, Germany
November 9, 2005 InterKnow
Conference Vienna

2
Overview

Projects objectives
Cultural dimensions CR and G
Cultural standards CR and G
Methods
Research results and suggestions

3
1. Projects objectives

To identify the most problematic leadership and
management areas in German-Czech companies that
are based on cultural differences.
To come with suggestions for improvements in the
cooperation between Czechs and Germans who work
together.

4
2. Cultural dimensions CR and G

Various cross-cultural researches
GLOBE
(Koopman et al., 1999)
Schwartz Value Survey
(Schwartz, 1999)
Hofstedes VSM
(Hofstede, 1997, Kolman et al., 2003, Thorpe,
Pavlica, 1996)
Trompenaars research
(Smith, Dugan, Trompenaars, 1996)

5
2. Cultural dimensions CR and G (2)

Fully or partially contradictory findings in many
values and dimensions. E.g.
CR is less future oriented, not according to
Kolman et al., 2003
CR has lower gender differences according GLOBE,
is slightly more masculine according Kolman et
al., 2003, and with extreme masculine profile
according Thorpe and Pavlica, 1996
CR has lower power stratification according GLOBE
and contradictory higher power distance according
both surveys using VSM (Kolman et al., 2003,
Thorpe, Pavlica, 1996)
CR has lower uncertainty avoidance according
GLOBE, but slightly higher uncertainty avoidance
according Kolman et al. (2003), and Thorpe,
Pavlica (1996)

6
2. Cultural dimensions CR and G (3)

Hard to find anything we could rely on and
recommend for the use in practice to Czechs and
Germans who work together.

7
3. Cultural standards CR and G (1)

Cultural standards refer to certain ways of
perceiving, thinking, evaluating, and acting
shared by most members of a culture, i.e. they
are seen as normal, typical and appropriate
behaviour. They are used to evaluate and regulate
own behaviour and behaviour of other people and
usually are not conscious (Thomas, 1999).

8
3. Cultural standards CR and G (2)
Nový, Schroll-Machl (2003), Schroll-Machl (2001)
9
3. Cultural standards CR and G (3)

More useful for Czech German business practice.
Lacking empirical evidence from Czech German
companies (based mainly on research with student
samples).

10
4. Methods Project flow (1)

Definition of management and leadership tasks
29 in total
e.g. goal setting, motivation, criticising,
change management, decision making
that might be the areas of conflicts and
misunderstandings between Czechs and Germans

11
4. Methods Project flow (2)

Semi-structured interviews
goals
to get an overview about the most important
problems and the attempts to solve them
to have a data basis to develop items for a
questionnaire
to collect enough situations and examples to
create training and selection material afterwards

12
4. Methods Project flow (3)

Semi-structured interviews
procedures during the interview
division of cards with tasks written on them into
more and less problematic areas
selection of 5 the most critical areas in CR-G
mutual cooperation
detailed description of 5 critical incidents
recommendations for the solutions
evaluation qualitative content analysis

13
4. Methods Project flow (4)

Semi-structured interviews
sample
top and medium level management in Czech-German
companies
33 interviews in 12 companies in total
company size medium-sized to multinationals
14 Czechs and 19 Germans
4 women and 29 men
they worked mainly in production companies, half
of them in personnel, sales or marketing
departments

14
4. Methods Project flow (5)

Questionnaire survey
content areas
8 areas with the highest prevalence of examples
in interviews and a trust issue
the content of the individual items was obtained
from interview statements

15
4. Methods Project flow (6)

Questionnaire survey
form 1 (descriptions)
6-point Likert scale from 1fully disagree to
6fully agree
76 items totally
Information handover My ... colleagues give me
important information immediately.
Problem solving My ... colleagues like to look
for perfect solutions while solving work-related
problems.
Relations My ... colleagues try to create a
friendly work atmosphere.

16
4. Methods Project flow (7)

Questionnaire survey
form 2 (suggestions)
In order to avoid conflicts between Germans and
Czechs in our company concerning giving and
accomplishing instructions,
it has proven worthwhile
I and my colleagues now do the following
it must not happen
it would help
At the end evaluation of mutual cooperation,
sociodemographic and company data

17
4. Methods Project flow (8)

Questionnaire survey
procedure and sample
emails sent to 540 companies listed in the
database of DTIHK
with a link to the website with the online
questionnaire
N 92 (105 filled by 51 Germans and 54 Czechs),
13 excluded
71 of participants were men, mostly working for
medium-sized or large companies in automotive,
machinery, finance, services, and plastics
branches

18
5. Results Interview (1)

Problematic areas identification
from both sides 12 areas, e.g. time management
just from the Czech side 3 areas, e.g. personnel
development
just from German side 5 areas, e.g. customer
orientation
not important 9 areas, e.g. coordination

19
5. Results Interview (2)

Detailed problematic issues description
the same issues perceived in the eyes of the home
culture, e.g. time management
Czech view unnecessary strict long-term planning
German view insufficient long-time planning
the issues important just for one culture
e.g. German view Czechs take critique personally
the same causal reasons of the issue attributed
to the other culture
avoidance to take the responsibility for a
decision

20
5. Results Interview (3)

60 critical incidents
Mrs. Kopeckova works as a head of personnel
department in a big production company. She feels
it is hard for her to orientate in tons of
documents and papers Germans have. It seems
often impossible to find there the piece of
information she needs the what and why. It
is hidden because of many papers and check-lists,
the meaning is often lost to her. Especially when
she is a foreigner without excellent knowledge of
German language. She perceives it as a result of
German inability to tolerate uncertainty.
Everything needs to be made in detail, everything
has to be explained in order to have the
certainty one hundred per cent. As a consequence,
she and her Czech colleagues stopped to read the
rules and documents.

21
5. Results Questionnaire (1)
Interesting items
22
5. Results Questionnaire (2)
Scales reliability
23
5. Results Questionnaire (3)
Analysis of variance
p lt .001, p lt .01, p lt .05
24
5. Results Questionnaire (4)

German colleagues are evaluated higher in
detailed and structured instructions and in
certainty oriented problem solving without regard
to the nationality of respondents.
Only German respondents feel to be badly informed
by their Czech colleagues.
In the areas of decision making and criticism
both nationalities perceive Germans as more
willing to take responsibility and make decisions
and Czechs as more avoiding conflicts, but
Germans report higher differences.

25
5. Results Suggestions (1)

Example Area of Problem solving
13 suggestions from interviews, 204 completions
of unfinished sentences
Czechs should
Better structure the information, prepare enough
documents, be more thorough and have variant
options prepared.
Understand that processes made in details are
fool-proof, thus more useful e.g. for new
employees.
Improve knowledge of German.
Understand that their new solution can be also a
bad solution. They should discuss and consult it
before they change it.

26
5. Results Suggestions (2)

Germans should
Not require keeping all the rules, let more
autonomy and lessen the control, let there a
space for Czech creativity.
Try to be more flexible in new situations.
Act as partners and include more Czech colleagues
in problem solving.
Learn to work with less paper documentation.
Improve knowledge of Czech language and
mentality.
Have an expatriate in the Czech Republic who
mediates between creativity and standardization,
who can explain, control, discuss issue on place
and is patient.