Culture Counts

1
Culture Counts

• On the Effects of Ethnicity and Nationality on
  Heterogeneous Work Groups
• Astrid Podsiadlowski

2
Goals of the Empirical Study

• To analyse processes within multicultural work
  groups or teams (description)
• To determine factors which lead to successful
  teamwork (explication).

3
Structure of the Presentation

• Theoretical and empirical background
• Methods and design of empirical study
• Results
• Conclusions

4
What are Characteristic Features of Co-operation
in Multinational Organisations?

• Work groups or teams are an essential part of
  current organisational structures.
• Work groups are getting more and more diverse.
• Group members have increasingly different
  national cultural backgrounds.

5
Interdisciplinary Concept for Studying
Multicultural Work Groups
Research on Organisations
Research on Groups
Research on Culture
Research on Diversity
6
Diversity within Groups
Our definition of diversity reflects any
attribute that humans are likely to use to tell
themselves, That person is different from me.
(Triandis, Kurowski Gelfand, 1994, p. 772)
These perceived differences in world view,
values, norms and attitudes lead to different
behaviour patterns

• between individual persons for example within
  groups (Adler, 1996 Ting-Toomey, 1988
  Triandis, 1972)
• between different groups by developing a group
  identity. (Tajfel, 1978 Tajfel Turner,
  1979, 1986 Turner, 1978)

7
Multiple Cultures in Organisations
(Sackmann, 1997, S. 3)
8
Types of Diversity
Attributes Age Gender Nationality Ethnicity Religi
on Cultural Values Personality Attitudes Abilities
Socio-ecnomic background Education Function Profe
ssion Organisation Industry Organisational
Tenure Group Tenure
Types of Diversity
Demographic
Cultural
Values
Organisational
9
Chances and Barriers in Heterogeneous Work Groups
Potential disadvantages
Potential advantages

• More difficult communication(Jackson, Brett,
  Sessa, Cooper, Julin Peyronin, 1991)
• Less group stability(Cummings, Zhou Oldham,
  1993)
• Less group cohesion(Tsui, Egan OReilly, 1992)
• Less work contentment(Leiba Ondrack, 1994)
• More stress(Triandis, Hall Ewen, 1965)

• Productivity(Chatman, Polzer, Barsade Neale,
  1997)
• Effectiveness(Thomas, Ravlin Wallace, 1996)
• Innovation(Hoffman, 1959)
• Creativity(McLeod Lobel, 1992)
• Less group think(Hoffman, Harburg Maier, 1962)

10
Theoretical Explanations

• Social Identity Theory
• Contact Hypothesis
• Similarity-Attraction Paradigm
• Tokenism
• Competition Theories
• Cognitive Problem Solving Theories
• Intercultural Communication Theories

11
Effectiveness Within Multicultural Work Groups
Monocultural work groups
Multicultural work groups
Least effective
Most effective
On average effective
(See Kovach, 1980 in Adler, 1991, p. 135)
12
Cultural Diversity
Ethnic
National
13
Model of Workplace Diversity
14
Research Question
?
?
?

• Under which conditions
• does which type of diversity lead
• to what kind of results?

?
?
?
15
Effectiveness of Multicultural Work Groups
Dependent variables
Independent variables
Individual
Socio-demographic data Age, gender, nationality,
ethnicity, profession, position, Attitudes
Co-operation, collectivism Competence Languages,
intercultural experience

• Future
• Content-ment
• Perfor-mance
• Efficiency
• Creativity

Group
Characteristics Size, age Means of communication
Frequency and means of interaction, Composition
Gender, education, status, personality,
profession
Communication Processes
National cultural diversity a)Nationality b)
Cultural distance
Company
Characteristics Size, industry Location Country,
region, internationalisation
16
Dependent VariablesMeans and Standard Deviations

• Variable M SD Scale
• 1. Co-operation 3.3 0.40 1 completely wrong to
  4 completely correct
• 2. Collectivisma 4.1 0.51 1 not at all
  important to 6 very important
• 3. Heterogenityb 3.0 0.53 1 very heterogeneous
  to 5 very homogeneous
• 4. Communicationc 3.6 0.52 1 strongly disagree
  to 5 strongly agree
• 5. Group processesd 4.0 0.53 1 strongly
  disagree to 5 strongly agree
• a) ? 0.88 b) ? 0.78 c) ? 0.72 d) ? 0.76.

17
Dependent VariablesMeans, Standard Deviations
and Correlations

• Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5
• 1. Contentmenta 5.2 0.94 -
• 2. Creativityb 3.5 0.59 0.56 -
• 3. Productivityb 2.5 0.79 0.00 0.24 -
• 4. Efficiencyb 3.3 0.75 0.37 0.34 0.40 -
• 5. Futurec 0.48 0.39 0.16 0.35 -
• a) Kunin-Scale from 1 not at all satisfied to 7
  very much satisfied
• b) Ratingscale from 1 not very good to 5 very
  good
• c) Z-transformation horizontal figures (1 - 5)
  are correlation coefficients (r)
• for p lt 0.05 for p lt 0.01 for p lt
  0.001.

18
Value Orientations in Germany and Singapore

• Value orientations Germany Singapore
• According to Hofstede (1997) Index Rank Index R
  ank
• (1-100) (1-53) (1-100) (1-53)
• Power distance 35 42-44 74 14
• Individualism/collectivism 67 15 20 39-41
• Uncertainty avoidance 65 29 8 53
• Maskulinity/Feminity 66 9/10 48 28
• According to Schwartz (2000) M M
• Conservatism 3,182 4,212
• Intellectual autonomy 4,892 3,794
• Affective autonomy 3,915 2,967
• Hierarchy 3,182 2,660
• Egalitarism 5,044 4,682
• Authority 4,006 3,794
• Harmony 4,682 3,988

M Arithmetic mean on a scale ranging from 1
opposed to my values, 0 not important to 7
of supreme importance values should be assessed
as a guiding principle of my life (Schwartz,
1994, S. 99).
19
Relative Distance
1. Individualism/Collectivism
dj Relative distance of the j-th team member to
the whole group
2. Masculinity/Feminity
Group Distance
D Standarddeviation of the whole group
3. Uncertainty Avoidance
4. Power Distance
With
Mean value
N Number of group members k j Value of
Cultural Dimension of the j-th team member
regarding the values of the different cultural
dimensions
20
Socio-demographic Data I
Men
Yes
No
Yes
No
Women
42
40
46
40
46
57
n.a.
n.a.
14
14
n.a.
1
21
Socio-demographic Data II

• Variable M Minimum Maximum n.a.
• Age 33.9 years 21 years 54 years 6
• Intercultural experience 6.6 years 1 month 26
  years 3
• Experience abroad 3,3 years None 20 years 3
• Languages 3 lang. 1 language 5 languages 2
• Variable Verteilung n.a.
• Sex 57 women 42 men 1
• Academic degree 40 with 46 without 14
• Managing responsibilities 40 with 46
  without 14
• N 84 underlined mean Median n.a. no
  answer.

22
Cultural Background of Interviewees

• Variable N Characteristic
• Nationality 9 Singapore, Germany, Malaysia,
  India, China, Great Britain, USA, Australia,
  Philippines
• Country of origin 11 Singapore, Germany,
  Malaysia, India, China, Great Britain,
  Australia, Philippines, Greece, Russi,
  Indonesia
• Ethnicity 5 Chinese, Caucasian, Malay, Mixed,
  Indian
• Religion 5 Christianity, none, Buddhism, Islam,
  Hinduism
• Residency 4 Singapore, Germany, Indonesia, India
• N 84 order of characteristics correspond with
  frequency.

23
Composition and History of the Group

• Variable Median Minimum Maximum
  n.a.
• Group size 6 3 - 29 1 Number of 3 1 - 9
  1Nationalities
• Number of women 4 0 - 16 1
• Variable M Minimum Maximum n.a.
  Group age 2,2 Jahre 2 Monate - 13 Jahre 6
• Group 1,2 Jahre 2 Monate - 6 Jahre 3
• membership
• N 84 n.a. no answer.

24
Group Variables and Their Effectiveness
Zahlen sind standardisierte
Regressionskoeffizienten (?) für p lt 0,05
für p lt 0,01 für p lt 0,001
Group
Effectiveness

• Numbers are standardized regression coefficients
  (?)
• for p lt 0.05 for p lt 0.01 for p lt 0.001

Group Age
Future
? 0,29
Group Size
? 0,28
Contentment
Organisational Diversity
0,39
0,29
Efficiency
Percentage of Women
0,26
Number of Nationalities
Creativity
0,29
Cultural Distance
25
Results of Hierarchical Multiple Regression
Analysis for Variables on Group Characteristics,
Group Composition, and Cultural Distance on
Contentment

• Contentment
• Variables Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
• Group size -0.30 -0.28 -0.38
• Group age 0.11 0.08 0.14
• Heterogeneity 0.15 0.19
• Women () -0.11 0.06
• Cultural distance 0.43
• r2ADJ 0.07 0.07 0.20
• F 2.87 1.89 3.52
• ? r2 0.11 0.03 0.14
• F for ? r2 2.87 0.91 8.78
• Durbin-Watson 1.84

p lt 0.05 p lt 0.01 p lt 0.001 Numbers
in the upper part of the table are standardized
regression coefficients (?).
26
Final Equations of Multiple, Hierarchical
Regression Analyses

• Variablen Contentment Creativity Efficiency
• Co-operation 0.33 -0.13 0.18
• Collectivism - 0.11 0.13 0.05
• Group size - 0.11 -0.01 0.13
• Heterogenity 0.07 0.15 0.21
• Cultural Distance 0.28 0.15 -0.22
• Communication 0.35 0.20 0.30
• Group processes 0.11 0.41 0.06
• r2K 0.40 0.22 0.18
• F (2,7) 6.03 3.11 2.62
• Numbers in the upper part of the table are
  standardized regression coefficients (?) for p
  lt 0.05 for p lt 0.01 for p lt 0.001

27
Conclusions

• Ethnic and national cultural diversity have
  different effects on work groups.
• The different types of diversity (demographic,
  cultural and organisational) have to be separated
  to be able to assess processes and outcomes of
  heterogeneous work groups.
• While heterogeneity in education, status and
  profession improves efficiency, the number of
  nationalities positively influences creativity.
• There is a need to distinguish between the
  different outcomes of work groups into measures
  of performance, well-being and viability.
• The more nationalities in a group the more
  creative they are whereas cultural distance
  improves contentment.
• Cultural distance contributes significantly to
  explaining contentment in a positive direction.