Organisational And Managerial Cultures Between China And Brazil

Chinese Organisational Culture

Question:

Describe about the Cross Culture Management of China and Brazil?

As the assignment is part of the continuous project of the previous work which was related to the culture differences between two China and Brazil. Here the discussion would be organisational culture and managerial culture between the above two nations (Chen et al. 2005). The work culture of these two is nations are poles apart and their managerial function is very much different from the other. The study will focus on the cross culture differences within their working environment. Apart from that, the study will also give importance to the managerial abilities and designations hierarchy process between the nations.

China

As china is known for the socialist economy, employees and workers respect a strong leader.  Orgnisationla culture of the China is traditional and are like family sorts where the boss is being  patriarch  of the company (Gudykunst, 2003).  Employees within the organizational are looking up to their leaders and obeying the leaders of the company. Employees  and workers are very much are keen  to know who is doing what  and each of their personal responsibility must be clear along with exact hierarchy structure  within the company. The owner of the company is been very much responsible and accountable for the major decision making (M.H, 2007).  Apart from that, the companies their generally are giving promotions and higher designations as per the seniority basis.  With ages comes seniority within the existing working place and there is certain level of formality within the working environment.

 The group is very much important than the individual in china.  A person is part of the  number of societal groups, work family and school , community is basic assumption of the Chinese culture (Samovar  et al. 2008).  Within each of the group, He/She has number of obligations  and expect the certain behaviours from them.  The Chinese mythology and culture give importance to the e employees their extended family and describes the every single member importance within their working extended family (Sitaram et al. 1998).

However, after the Globalization, the modern Chinese  work environment  is very much planned and develop  around hierarchy.  Only few executives and get the private or the separate offices places.  Some of the major Real estate and fast food chain organization are using the American style of panel system within the working environment (Adair, 2010). One of the major reason for the real estate is following the American style of  Organizational culture because real estate  in the major cities  are expensive , the size of individual  work stations  is small  which is 5 by 5.

Organisational Structure	Total ($)
Population	1338,612,968
Labour force	0-14years =20% 15-64 years =72% Above 65 years =8%
Occupation	Agriculture :40% Industry= 27% Services=33%
Working population age	Total 34 years Male: 34 yrs Female : 35 yrs
GDP purchasing power	8.76 trillion
GDP per capita	6500
Primary lanugae	Chinese , mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, Minbel Xiang etc
Internet users (2010)	298 million
Cell phone users (2010)	634 million

Table 1: Organisational Structure of China

(Source: Bass, 2010, pp-123)

Brazil work culture is very much friendly; open a one that easily accommodates many ethnicities.  Designations and the hierarchy reflect the importance of the members in the business situations even though work is being carried out laterally more oftenly (Allen, 2009). Communication and conversations can be heated with the arguments and disagreements along with interruptions   which are very much normal organizations cultural of Brazil.

Brazilian Organisational Culture

 The work place in Brazil is frequently changing with the changing times. New companies like McDonalds and Banco Santander in Brazil are basically using lower height walls to promote the interactions and increase everyone access to give their feedback on the bigger decision makings (Barrett and Mayson, 2008).  The general office life in Brazil remains hierarchical.  Employees are communicating with their supervisors may be depend upon their educations level and as well as an employee’s level of security within its current designations.  The government of the Brazil has made the working hours from 9am to 6pm (Bass, 2010).  This can be adjusted with mutual adjustment between the workers and the owners.

However, although Brazil has labour 95.21 million workforce but the brazilin companies are very much conceal about the attractions and retentions of the employees. Technology use is very much modern and stylish in new Brazilian offices. The Brazilian companies are basically judging the employees on their individual performance rather than team performance (Hunter, 2008).  The individual intelligence is one of the key successes for the organization in the Brazil rather than team.

Organisational Structure	Total ($)
Population	196,739,269
Labour force	0-14years =27% 15-64 years =67% Above 65 years =6%
Occupation	Agriculture :7% Industry= 26% Services=68%
Working population age	Total 29 years Male: 28 yrs Female : 39 yrs
GDP purchasing power	2.024 trillion
GDP per capita	10,200
Primary language	Majorly Portuguese then Spanish, German, Italian , Japanese and English
Internet users (2010)	65 million
Cell phone users (2010)	151 million

Table 2: Organisational Structure of Brazil

(Source: Hao et al. 2012)

China

The managerial cultures within the Chinese organization are based on the respect and follow the instruction in order to maintain the culture, trust and decorum within the workplace (Losey et.al, 2007).  Questions about age, marital status and salary are some of the normal parts of exercises in order to getting know each other.  A typical work station for the size of the individual work stations is very much small which 5 by 5 cubical surface is.  The privacy within the Chinese workstation is very much less. This suggests that whatever the working labour are doing needed to be transparent in their process (Hunter, 2008).  Depending upon the  level of supervisors and the first level managers of the company gets  same level of  work stations as the people that report  to them  and will be get acquainted with each very well in future.   For instance, Bank of China and Exim Bank of China employee move up to the hierarchy they will get slightly larger  personal spaces  with additional privacy  and storage options (Bass, 2010).

However, most of the companies do not maintain cubical form of work stations rather they develop benching system within their work stations.  Benching increases the density and also offers lower real estate costs.  Its linear set up also allows for easier cabling (Gong and Wang, 2009).   In addition to that, Chinese companies treat their employees as their family and the decision made is in the superior level. While making the decisions no feedback is taken from the employees because owners feel they don’t have enough experience in their field (Liu and Jiang, 2015).

Figure 1: Sample of Chinese managerial structure

(Source:(Malik, 2012, pp-19)

The communication process  used by the Chinese companies are own way communications. Apart from that group is more importance than the individuals in compare to the Brazil where the individual owners are created in order to create great leaders (Meira, 2014).

Chinese Managerial Culture

Brazil managerial structure is very much modern and is based on two way communications.  Brazilian companies will tend to be organised  along with hierarchical lines with information flowing  in a very much structured  way (Parra et al. 2012). Most of key decision is made by the managerial level and higher along with feedback from the several board members and the mangers. Relationship  are  given key   importance  in this Latin culture,  the owners/CEO  and subordinates  works hard  to foster relationship  based on the trust and respect  for the personal dignity.  

Managers of the companies needed to be discussed their decision making to their subordinates in order take their feedback system (Tong, 2002). Country is very much fall under participative leadership style. The subordinates and the permanent employees can argue or the give their feedback which could be different from the decision has been made by the superior.

Figure 2: Brazilian existing managerial structure

(Source: Wallace, 2014, pp-200)

Managers of the company shared their view for few hours together with the managers of separate departments before allotting the work to the respective departments.  Office standardization and employee benefits are the two major agenda for the global organizations which may helps to develop standards which have used in other nations (Wang and Li, 2013). Brazilian companies are very much aware of the competitive global business environment. Therefore some of the companies Banco Santander are keeping the cross culture training in order maintain the attitude of the exiting employee towards the other nationality employees same. Brazilin companies hires the international top ten management graduates in order to secure a position on the great places to work and best companies to work for (Zhou, 2005). This is major tool used by the companies to recruit and retain the employees.  The above the organizational structure shows that, managers of the companies are very much separated as per the department and modern.

Cross culture management theories will help to shed light on the certain parameters which will helps to gain and assess the parameters to measures the organizational tool.

Adler has developed the first holistic theory of personality, psychopathology and psychotherapy that was ultimately connected to the humanistic philosophy of living.  The Adler theories explain that when the employees feel encourages, they feel capable and appreciated and are generally acted in a connected and cooperative way (Kim,  2008).  When the employees are discouraged felt to unhealthy to act and compete to withdraw or giving up.  Adlerian theory and practice have proven especially productive as applied to growth and development of children.  Adlerians theories states that,  in order to maintain peace and harmony  within the company , cross culture psychology  to focus on the people efforts are to be made in order to reduce the inferiority among the different culture employees (Adler et al. 2001). Adlerian theory is based on the certain philosophies such as:

Unity of individuals: Some of the major psychotherapy like thinking, feeling and emotions and behvaiour can only be understood as subordinate to the individual’s style of life or consistent pattern of dealing with life (Gardner and Cogliser, 2009).  The individuals or organizational structure is not internally divided within the battle ground of conflicts forces. Each of them poses certain points in the same directions.

Brazilian Managerial Culture

Goal orientations: The goal orientations shows that, there is one central personality dynamics which helps the cross culture employees to derive growth and forward movement of life itself (Adler et al. 2001).  It helps to shape up the future orientation by striving towards goals of significance, superiority and the success.

Self determinations and Uniqueness: With the help of real goals and objectives the bring out the creative power of individuals and is consequently unique. Usually, individuals are not fully aware of their goals (Kellett et al. 2002). With the help of leader’s instructions, coping patterns and previous memories the employees tries to infer the goals as their working hypothesis.  

 The feeling of community: Each human being has the capacity for learning to live in harmony within their working stations. Within the working station, each people are needed to communicate and be friends show that working structure become more productive and help to benefit in achieving the larger goals (Kim and Brymer, 2011).

 As noted by Mulnix (2013), autocratic leadership form of style is very much result oriented and the entire decision making is done by the senior member of the organization in order to maintain the peace and harmony within the organizational culture. China strictly follows the Autocratic form of leadership with their organizational structure.  Autocratic leadership can be very much beneficial in managing the conflicts and the working as per the owner will (Bel, 2010).  In order to fulfill the deadline, decorum and strong leadership, autocratic form of leadership is required. Most of the manufacturing companies in China are running the autocratic form of leadership.

As china is known as the production nations worldwide , it has been found that, autocratic form of leadership shows that , company is able to manage and control the diversify work culture within the organizations. However, autocratic form of leadership is very much strict and is very much outdated for of leadership style (Changingminds.org, 2015).   Too much of scrutiny and too much of inspection makes the life of the worker more miserable.  Being an effective leaders means being  very intentional about the when and how  demand are made on team performance.

Here the decision making is based on the employee’s feedback and they have high willingness and high ability to approach things. Leaders should rely  on delegating  when the follower can do the job and is motivated to do it (Chen et al. 2007).  Leaders here delegates the leadership within the subordinate in order to give them confidence and create sense of loyalty towards the organizations. This helps to reduce the organizational conflicts among the cross culture MNC. Brazil uses delegation of authority form of leadership that has made the country to grow more in recent times (Brown et al. 2008).

However, delegation of authority increases the time of decision making which will hamper productivity and profitability of the company. There has been ample evidence which shows, delegation authority is modern approach and better than autocratic form of readership but it is very much beneficial in army and manufacturing industries (Bel, 2010).  Followers of the delegation of authority needs less support and are been frequently been praised because of the individual performance.   The delegation authority leadership falls in to the category of participative and transformational for of leadership which would help to increase the company productivity (Kim and Brymer, 2011).

Organisational Structure of China

 Some of the major similarities between the two major nations within their organizational culture are given below :

• One of the major similarities is both of the nations are developing at the higher speed. Both of the nation’s organizational culture is different but the modern of office is based on 5 by 5 cubical form of stations (Kellett et al. 2002).
• Both of the nations have horizontal form of organization culture and structure. China and Brazil have very little difference in way of handling the stress management within their organizations via giving adequate training and development to their respective employees (Economywatch.com, 2015).
• Brazil and China are both have hierarchical form of structure which consist of manager and the owner along with sub departments (Old.caba.org, 2010). Both of the national people are very much looking for the job security rather than designations. Both of the nation are giving higher priority to the education and as per the specialization places the employees within the organization structure in order  increase their productivity (Brown et al. 2008).
• Both of nation are very particular about the decision making. Both of nations are very much uses transactional form of leadership in manufacturing industries in to reduce the error within the manufacturing of goods and services (Kim, 2008). Since both of the nation are developing at rapid speed both of them should look to manage and control their form of organization which will helps to tackle reduce the managing the cross culture.
• Apart from the above, managing the relationship between employees is one of the most important parts of the managerial functions (Zhou, 2005). Relations and communication between the employees keeps via face to face or via socializing during training and development is general form of managing the relationship between the employees.

There are various differences between the nations between their organisational culture and managerial culture such as :

• In Brazil major populations are into the service who is very much part of the decision making. Permanent employees and the managers can be  get into the argued or heated communication which is general practice in Brazil (Wang and Li, 2013). However, In China , most of the decision making are made by the leaders which are eventually an owner of the company. Chinese people are very much used to following the steps of leaders.
• China follows the one way communication only to direct what to do and what no to do. This has led to decrease the periodicity of the labour and discourages the employee’s confidence (Tong, 2002). However, Brazil strictly follows the tow way communication within the organization culture which has increase the productivity bit also increased the conflicts.
• Brazil follows the participative form of leadership which to give the  decision making power to the manager and the team leader whereas the Chinese follows the autocratic form of leadership style where the entire major decision making would be  taken by the owner or the entrepreneur (Changingminds.org, 2015).
• China believes in group form of working style whereas the Brazil belies individual wonder. Most of the companies like Banco Stander and Acesita steel are using the individual intelligence in using to make the future leaders for the nations (Chen et al. 2007).  Chinese organizational structure suggests that, employees are given their promotion as per their seniority basis within their organisations. However, Brazil managerial structure suggest that, promotion and designation is given on the basis of the employees intelligent and their performance (Economywatch.com, 2015).

Brazil	Chinese
Freedom	Belonging
Independence	Group Harmony
Self reliance	Collectiveness
Equality	Age /seniority
Individuals	Group consensus
Competitions	Co-operations
Efficiency	Quality
Time	Patience
Directness	Indirectness
Openness	Adaptable

Conclusion

From the above study, it has been found that, both Brazil and China are growing nations are part of the BRIC nations. Both them ahs their different form of organizations culture as per the engage of labour forces which is largely is based on service sector for Brazil with 68% and china is major population in manufacturing and the agriculture.  The work culture of China is very much based on the traditional style and also follows the autocratic form of leadership style. On other hand, Brazil is been using the participative form of leadership and are modern in a sense of leadership. Apart from that, both of the nations are keen in managing the relation between the employees stronger. Both nations have different approaches in terms of giving the promotions china gives the promotion on the basis of seniority basis whereas the Brazil gives the promotion on the basis of the performance of the employees.

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