Question:
Discuss about the Problems faced by Lee, a Korean by birth, who has joined a food and beverage Company in Korea.
Culture, though a broad multi-dimensional term, is in general a collective phenomenon. Culture can be defined as a collection of several norms, which are unwritten but are present invisibly in an individual’s life and which shapes up the lifestyle of individuals, both in personal and professional domains and determines the code of conduct of individuals belonging to a specific group. In other words, culture is one of those yardsticks, which separate one ethnic or geographical group from another (Moran, Abramson and Moran 2014). Many a times, stiff differences in cultural patterns between two geographical locations create difficulties especially for those who try to move from one of these locations to another. The problems, though appear to be non-significant in personal domain, are more apparent in professional set up of an individual as these can leave negative implications on his or her career. This assignment deals with the issues faced by Lee (Barak 2016). A Korean by birth, Lee has been in Australia for one and a half decade for higher studies and MBA. Lee has also bagged an internship here, before moving to Korea, to join an international food and beverage enterprise (Yang et al. 2012). Accustomed to Australian culture and way of living, Lee faces several issues in the Korean company. The problems faced by Lee are mostly due to the differences in the cultural patterns of the two countries. This situation is analyzed in this report, with the help of Hofstede’s Framework, which deals with several cultural dimensions (Hofstede, Jonker and Verwaart 2012).
The Framework designed by Hofstede, analyzes the cross-cultural differences in communications and behaviors of different countries with respect to the following indices of measuring cultural dimensions (Geert-hofstede.com, 2017):
Collectivism and Individualism- The societies, where, in general people prefer working together in a collective and integrated framework and aim towards fulfilling community goals over individual interests, usually score more in collectivism criteria. On the contrary, individualistic societies consist of majority of such people who puts achievement of personal targets and gaining personal material satisfaction over welfare of the society as a whole (Gorodnichenko and Roland 2012).
Index of Power Distance- Power distance refers to the presence of hierarchy in a society and the stiffness of the relationships between an individual and his or her superiors. High scorers in this index are those societies where there are existences of stiff hierarchical constructs and the juniors have to maintain strict code of conduct to approach their superiors. On the other hand, societies with comparatively flatter dynamics score low in this index (Hofstede 2013).
Masculine and Feminine-Heroism, personal accolades and material achievements are linked with success in masculine societies, whereas, those scoring low in masculinity, gives more emphasis on cooperation, modesty and collective, non-materialistic achievements and cares for the ones with lesser capabilities (Hofstede, Jonker and Verwaart 2012).
Indulgence- Indulgence means fulfilling ones’ personal desires and living the life one wants to live. A society allowing these activities and putting lesser restraints on how an individual should express his desires and emotions scores more in this index than those imposing greater restrictive norms on lifestyles of its members (Kohun, Bur?ik and Skovira 2012).
Index of Uncertainty Avoidance- Generally, greater rigidity and lesser acceptance of new and innovative ideas fetch more score in this index and a more flexible and accepting society, which accepts non-conventional ideas and implements, changes more easily, scores less in this dimension (Geert-hofstede.com, 2017).
Long Term Orientation (Alternatively Confucian Dynamics) – This is the sixth dimension in this framework. Higher ranks in this index signify that the particular community is more inclined towards practicality and applicability than following of traditional norms only (Fitzgerald 2013).]
The situation faced by Lee in the Korean company, can be explained with the help of the above framework. Lee’s habit of leaving early after completion of his tasks can create a negative perception about his professional conduct in the Korean company (Barak 2016). This may be because Korea, in general is a high scorer in the Power Distance Index, implying that a rigid hierarchical construct is present in the society as a whole and several norms are abided by the juniors to not appear rude or non-accepting the superiority of their seniors. Accustomed to Australian way of living, coloring his hair or wearing casual clothes in workplace may not seem to be anything unnatural to Lee. However, in his Korean work environment, these simple behaviors may have significant implications; mostly negative (Bae, Rowley and Sohn 2012). Scoring low in Indulgence Index in the Hofstede’s Framework, the company may perceive these behaviors of Lee as an indicator of non-acceptance of Korean work culture, thereby, creating difficulties for Lee to blend in the new work environment (Kohun, Bur?ik and Skovira 2012).
Lee has an individualistic approach in general, living mostly in Australia. He targets to attain personal appreciations and tries to stick out of the crowd by giving efforts to gain personal attention of his superiors. This may however, appear inappropriate to his coworkers as they are more accustomed to collective way of working and aim towards achievement of team goals and group appreciations over personal accolades. Korea is also a high scoring country in the Uncertainty Avoidance Indicator (Rinne, Steel and Fairweather 2013). This may imply that the Korean company, which Lee works, may not be very accepting to new and innovative ideas and prefer to go on working following the traditional norms. In this set up, Lee’s approach of coming up with new and innovative suggestions for the company may not be seen as an appropriate formal behavior and though his seniors may hear to his suggestions, they are less likely to be implemented for real. These factors in a cumulative manner may have attributed in the creation of an environment, hostile and unfavorable for Lee in his new workplace (Warner 2014).
Most of the issues faced by Lee, in his new Korean work environment, are due to the differences in the work cultures of Australia, where he has stayed for long and from where his lifestyle has shaped up and Korea, where he has come to work recently. Many of his trivial habits and not so significant behaviors in the new Korean workplace, has led his coworkers to create non-favorable perceptions about Lee’s professional attitude, thereby creating a hostile and non-welcoming environment for Lee in his new professional domain (Warner 2014). However, the situation can be handles and improved if Lee implements several small changes in his appearance and behavior in the workplace. Not only this can help in easing the work environment and relationships of Lee with his colleagues, it will also help in his image building which can have long term benefits (Bae, Rowley and Sohn 2012). Few recommendations regarding such changes are as follows:
Instead of leaving his work place early (though he might have finished all his works), waiting for his superiors to leave fast may be seen as a good professional conduct on part of Lee. This may be seen as a way of paying respect to his seniors, which will be welcomed by his superiors as Korea in general has a rigid hierarchical construct (Warner 2014).
Lee may start coming to his office in simple and decent formals instead of casual clothing. Avoiding loud hair dyes may be a simple and easy step that Lee can take. Although this may appear apparently non-significant and may not have any effect on Lee’s lifestyle at all, this may have substantial positive implication in his work life, as he will not stick out of the crowd. This will make it easy for him to mix well with his co-workers thereby decreasing the hostility in his job environment (Holmes and Stubbe 2015).
Individualistic approach of Lee is one of the primary reasons for the non-friendly job environment he gets in his work place. To create a positive image for himself, Lee can replace his efforts to gain personal appreciations by sticking out from others with a collective approach. He can try to work together with his team and target team achievements. This may help in taking his team forward on one hand and help him in gaining confidence of his co-workers, which in turn may have positive effects on his career graph (Moran, Abramson and Moran 2014).
Lee can also create a favorable place for himself in his Korean work set up by maintaining a more introverted and reserved approach as a part of his formal code of conduct. This will most likely be perceived as a symbol of his wisdom and control over his emotions and will fetch him respect as well as cooperation from his co-workers in the Korean company (Holmes and Stubbe 2015).
With the advent of new-age business framework, post globalization, creation of an integrated, flexible and change-accepting work environment is mandatory on part of the Korean Manager of the concerned company (Buja 2016). He can integrate the individualistic but talented employees in his office in the following ways, without sacrificing the competitive edge:
Conclusion:
In the above discussion, the problems faced by Lee in his new work environment, situated in Korea are analyzed in details. Much of these problems are found to be having their roots in the cultural differences between Lee, who is more accustomed to Australian lifestyle and his Korean workplace. The discussion tries to recommend several simple to implement strategies for Lee, which can solve his problems to considerable extent, without changing his lifestyle as such. The report, in the later parts, also discusses about the potential strategies that the Korean Manager can take to keep his employees, especially those individualistic but talented ones, who can be valuable assets for the company.
References
Bae, J., Rowley, C. and Sohn, T.W. eds., 2012. Managing Korean business: Organization, culture, human resources and change. Routledge.
Barak, M.E.M., 2016. Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage Publications.
Buja, E., 2016. Hofstede’s Dimensions of National Cultures Revisited: A Case Study of South Korea’s Culture. Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 8(1), pp.169-182.
Fitzgerald, A., 2013. Long Term Orientation. Month.
Geert-hofstede.com (2017). [online] Geert-hofstede.com. Available at: https://geert-hofstede.com/ [Accessed 17 Aug. 2017].
Gorodnichenko, Y. and Roland, G., 2012. Understanding the individualism-collectivism cleavage and its effects: Lessons from cultural psychology. In Institutions and comparative economic development (pp. 213-236). Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Hofstede, G., 2013. Hierarchical power distance in forty countries. Organizations Alike and Unlike, ed. CJ Lammers and DJ Hickson (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), pp.97-119.
Hofstede, G.J., Jonker, C.M. and Verwaart, T., 2012. Cultural differentiation of negotiating agents. Group Decision and Negotiation, 21(1), pp.79-98.
Holmes, J. and Stubbe, M., 2015. Power and politeness in the workplace: A sociolinguistic analysis of talk at work. Routledge.
Kohun, F.G., Bur?ik, V. and Skovira, R.J., 2012. Research into Hofstede’s thesis. In Knowledge and Learning: Global Empowerment. Proceedings of the Management, Knowledge and Learning International Conference (pp. 989-997).
Moran, R.T., Abramson, N.R. and Moran, S.V., 2014. Managing cultural differences. Routledge.
Rinne, T., Steel, G.D. and Fairweather, J., 2013. The role of Hofstede’s individualism in national-level creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 25(1), pp.129-136.
Warner, M., 2014. Culture and management in Asia. Routledge.
Yang, L.Q., Spector, P.E., Sanchez, J.I., Allen, T.D., Poelmans, S., Cooper, C.L., Lapierre, L.M., O’driscoll, M.P., Abarca, N., Alexandrova, M. and Antoniou, A.S., 2012. Individualism–collectivism as a moderator of the work demands–strains relationship: A cross-level and cross-national examination. Journal of International Business Studies, 43(4), pp.424-443
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