Cross Cultural Communication

1
Cross Cultural Communication

• Chapter 9
• How We Manage Time

2
Learning Outcomes

• How we manage time
• Shared expectations about time
• Sequential Vs Synchronic
• Relative importance cultures give to Past,
  Present, and Future

3
The Concept of Time

• Primitive societies see the time in the context
  of before or after moons, seasons, sunrises
  and sunsets.
• For educated societies, two contrasting notions
• Time as a line of discreet events minutes,
  hours, days, months, years, each passing in a
  never ending succession.
• Time as a circle revolving so that the minutes
  of the hour repeat, as do the hours of the day,
  the days of the week and so on.

4
The Concept of Time

• Time is viewed as a factor that organizations
  must manage
• Time and motion studies
• Just-in-time
• Time-to-market
• Product life cycle (PLC)
• Time is considered universally in the categories
  of past, present and future but not equal
  importance is given to each of these.
• Conception of time is strongly influenced by
  culture
• Time is interwoven with how we plan, strategize
  and coordinate our activities with others
• It is an important dimension how we organize
  experience and activities

5
The Concept of Time

• Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck identified three types
  of culture
• Present-oriented relatively timeless,
  tradition-less and ignores the future
• Past-oriented mainly concerned to maintain and
  restore traditions in the present
• Future-oriented envisaging a more desirable
  future and setting out to realize it.

6
The Concept of Time

• Time has meaning not only to individuals but to
  whole groups or cultures.
• Time is a social construct enabling members of a
  culture to co-ordinate their activities Emile
  Durkheim, French Sociologist
• This has an important implications in a business
  context
• Time agreed for a meeting may be approximate or
  precise.
• There may be an expectation of mutual
  accommodation as to the exact time of delivery of
  product or there may be a penalty clause imposed
  by one party on another
• Organizations may look ahead a long way, or get
  obsessed by the monthly reporting period.

7
Sequential Vs Synchronic Cultures

• Sequential
• Line of sequential events passing at regular
  intervals
• Time is considered as a dotted line with regular
  spacings
• Events are organized by the number of intervals
  before or after their occurrence
• Critical path is worked out in advance with
  times for the completion of each stage.
• People hate to be thrown off the schedule because
  of unanticipated events.

• Synchronic
• People track several activities in parallel
  Multi-taskers
• Put emphasis on the number of activities run in
  parallel
• There is final, established goal but there are
  numerous and possibly interchangeable stepping
  stones to reach it.
• A person can skip between stoneson the way to
  final target.

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Sequential Vs Synchronic Cultures

• Sequential
• Sequential people tend to schedule very tightly,
  within thin divisions between time slots.
• Major influence on the conduct of business in N-W
  Europe and North America
• Straight lines may not be always the best way
  of doing something. It is blind to the
  effectiveness of shared activities and
  cross-connections.

• Synchronic
• Passage of time important but several others
  cultural values vie with punctuality
• Necessary to give time to important or higher
  status people.
• Meeting times may be approximate most of the
  people involved may be involved in parallel
  activities, any waiting involved may not be
  problematic.

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Sequential Vs Synchronic Cultures

• Sequential
• People do only one thing at a time
• Everything has its time and place for sequential
  thinker
• Any change in this sequence make the sequential
  person uncertain

• Synchronic
• Synchronic / polychronic cultures less insistent
  upon punctuality
• Passage of time important but several others
  cultural values vie with punctuality
• Necessary to give time to important people to
  show value to relationships.
• Meeting time may be approximate

10
Sequential Vs Synchronic Cultures

• Synchronic
• Effort towards developing closer relationships (
  long-term)
• People who do more than one thing at a time may
  unknowingly insult those who are used to do
  only one thing
• Lot of adjustments in terms of time, receiving
  guests, cooking more food, etc.
• More than enough food in case more guests drop in
  unexpectedly.

• Sequential
• Effort towards going from A to B in a straight
  line with a minimal effort and maximum effect (
  efficiency)
• People who do only one thing at a time may
  unknowingly insult those who are used to doing
  several things.
• In sequential / punctual cultures, exactly the
  right quantity of food will be prepared, may get
  spoiled or cold if guests not in time.

11
Measuring Cultural Differences in relation to time

• Methodology to measure approaches to time
  provided by Tom Cottle Circle Test
• Think of the past, present and future as being in
  the shape of circles. Please draw three circles
  on the space available, representing past,
  present and future. Arrange these circles in any
  way you want that best shows how you feel about
  the relationship of the past, present and future.
  You may use different size circles. When you have
  finished, label each circle to show which one is
  the past, which one the present and which one the
  future.

12
Measuring Cultural Differences in relation to time

• Findings shown in Fig. 9.1 four possible
  configurations
• Absence of zone relatedness typical Russian
  approach to time , no connection between past,
  present and future, though in Russian view,
  future is much more important than present and
  more important than the past
• Temporal integration French and Malaysians
  all three overlap considerably
• Partial overlap of zones
• Touching but not overlapping hence not
  sharing regions of time between them.
• Characteristics of Belgians British small
  overlap
• British strong overlap with the past

13
Time Horizon

• With reference to sharing short-term and
  long-term horizon, Cottles Test with Duration
  Inventory Technique, key findings suggested that
  
• Longest horizon found in Hong Kong and shortest
  in Philippines ( see Fig. 9.2)
• Japanese long term vision is in sharp contrast
  with quarterly thinking of Americans.

14
Time orientations and management

• Business organizations are structured in
  accordance with how they conceive of time.
• American view of the future that the individual
  can direct it by personal achievement and
  inner-directed effort.
• Individual achiever can not do very much about
  distant future, too many events can occur USAs
  idea of future is short term, controllable from
  present.
• going for quick buck great importance to
  quarterly figures
• In French Culture , the past looms far larger and
  is used as context in which to understand
  present.
• Past, present and future overlap synchronically
  so that the past informs the present and both
  informs the future.

15
Time orientations and management

• Human relations and and orientations to time
• Any lasting relationship combines past, present
  and future with ties of affection and memory
• Synchronic cultures are more weoriented (
  collectivistic) and usually more particularist
  in valuing people known to be special.
• Sequential cultures tend to see relationships as
  more instrumental
• Higher pay is the means towards still higher
  performance and customers purchase is a means to
  receive higher bonus.
• Durable, synchronic relationships in which the
  past, present and future of the partners are
  bound together in co-evolution may be becoming
  more effective way to manage.

16
Time orientation and management

• Time orientation and authority
• In nations in which past looms large and where
  time orientations overlap, status is more likely
  to be legitimized by ascription based on durable
  characteristics such as age, class, gender,
  ethnicity and professional qualifications.
• In sequential culture countries the future is a
  sequence of episodes of relative successes and
  failures
• People unburden themselves of relationships and
  dependencies not useful in the next stage of
  their career.
• Authority of individual depends upon the latest
  achievement those on the up today may be gone
  tomorrow.

17
Time orientation and management

• Policies of Promotion and assessment
• Sequential and synchronic cultures, and those
  concerned with the past or the future, may also
  assess and promote differently.
• In sequential cultures, the more that employee
  can be held responsible for a rise or fall in
  fortune the better, and the supervisor tempt to
  minimize their own roles, or that of the
  relationship with the employee, since it does not
  help the employee to see his or her own recent
  achievement separated out as an increment of gain
  or loss.
• In more synchronic organizations employee may be
  favorably assessed and promoted for the positive
  relationship established with the supervisors,
  who see that the relationship developing over
  time and accumulating knowledge and mutuality
• Supervisors acknowledge their role in making the
  subordinates career.

18
Time orientation and management

• Managing change in a past-oriented culture
• Synchronic cultures carry their pasts through the
  present into the future and will refuse to
  consider changing unless convinced that their
  heritage is safe.
• All change must include continuity, that is,
  staying the same in some respects so as to
  preserve identity.
• Tight sequential agenda might backfire in
  synchronic cultures
• In synchronic cultures, important thing is what
  they get to the end, not the particular path or
  sequence by which that end is reached.

19
Time orientation and management

• Planned sequences or planned convergence?
• Planning varies significantly between sequential
  and synchronic cultures
• In sequential planning
• It is vital to get all the means or stages right
  and completed on time.
• Planning consists largely of forecasts, that is,
  extending existing trend lines into the future
  and seeing this as more of the same
• Strategies consist of choosing desirable goals
  and then discovering the most logical and
  efficient means of attaining them
• Present and future are causally linked so that
  rewards produce greater achievements, which
  produce greater rewards
• When environment changes, everything to be
  recalculated from the start.
• Deadlines important they signal the end of one
  link in causal chain and the beginning of the
  next and keep the things on schedule

20
Time orientation and management

• Planned sequences or planned convergence?
• In synchronic planning
• The goals are what is most important
• More paths one can devise to their realization,
  the better the organization fares against
  unforeseen events that block one path or another
• There is growing evidence that sequential
  planning processes work less well in turbulent
  environments
• They are too brittle, too easily upset by
  unforeseen events
• Tend to concentrate on the near future testifies
  to the vulnerability of long sequences
• Synchronic plans tend to converge or home in
  upon predetermined targets, taking into
  consideration fusions and lateral connections
  between trends that sequential planning often
  overlooks.

21
Time orientation and management

• Planned sequences or planned convergence?
• Scenario Planning combination of sequential and
  synchronic styles of planning
• Scenarios for many alternative futures are
  presented as if writer was a contemporary
  commentator explaining how business had reached
  that point
• Past, present and future are synchronized within
  the imagination, and these developments are
  traced from the past through the present into
  diverging futures and are written up as stories
  or narratives
• Re-establish forecasts within the scenarios, so
  that each synchronic scene has a different
  sequence of events.
• Both sequencing and synchronizing work together.

22
Reconciling the Sequential and the Synchronic
Exercise I

• Some managers are arguing about the best ways of
  improving cycle time and getting products to
  market when they are needed. There were four
  possible views
• It is crucial to speed up operations and shorten
  time to market. Time is money. Enemies of tighter
  schedules and faster deliveries are too much
  talking and relating to each other.
• It is crucial to speed up operations and shorten
  time to market. The faster jobs are done the
  sooner you can pass the baton to colleagues/
  customers in the relay race.
• Just-in time synchronization of processes and
  with customers is the key to shorter cycle times.
  The more processes overlap and run simultaneously
  the more time saved.
• Just-in-time synchronization of processes and
  with customers is the key to shorter cycle times.
  Doing things faster results in exhaustion and
  rushed work.
• Indicate with 1 the approach you believe would
  be favored by your closest colleague at work, and
  with 2 the approach which you believe would be
  their second choice.

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Exercise I Findings

• Answer 1 4 show approval of respectively high
  speed sequences and just-in-time synchronicity,
  but reject the opposite orientation.
• Answer 2 approves of high-speed sequences and
  connect it to synchronic processes
• Answer 3 approves of just-in-time synchronicity
  connected to high speed sequences

24
Practical tips for doing the business in past-,
present- and future-oriented cultures

• Table 1 / Pg.138 highlight the differences
  between past-, present- and future-oriented
  cultures
• Table 2 / Pg.139 shows tips for doing business
  in past-, present- and future-oriented cultures
• Table 3 / Pg.139 recognizes time orientation in
  sequential and synchronic cultures
• Table 4 / Pg.140 shows when managing and being
  managed in sequential and synchronic cultures