A Human Resource Approach to Cross-Cultural Management

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Organisational Culture

Organisational culture represents values, norms and attitudes of organisational members and how achievements are made. Organisational culture is defined by Drennan (1992) as how things are done around here, which implies having a clear understanding of the organization as a whole. Organizational culture is influenced by belief, values and attitudes which certify that organizations are unique in their own way. Power culture is believed to be common in American companies, as managers are more dictatorial whereas in Europe, flexibility is encouraged. As seen from the case, John exercises complete freedom over site selection and personal matters, together with greater authority over capital expenditure, which significantly clashes with Dutch ‘person culture’ which is more flexible as Dutch employees can decide on their own work allocation.

Recruitment and HR Planning

Recruitment as defined by Edwards (2006), is a decision making process whereby organizations research on what they need in a candidate and impose techniques on how to attract the most equipped candidate for the job. Regardless of the fact that Manners Europe is an American Company, its policy is still in place, where employees and managers are recruited from their country-of-origin (Netherlands), where the stores are located. However, only 10% of the Dutch aggressively sought employment with the United States because they saw US companies to be too heartless, too demanding and requiring too much hard work. Newspaper ads for instance, for clerks or cashiers went unanswered. Recruitment was of great concern to John Wilman because of the issue that unemployment rate in the Netherlands was at a low rate with an average of 2% across the country. Most problems organizations encounter in terms of recruiting the right candidate is the issue of human resource planning (Kwiatkowski, 2003). HR Planning of an organization involves the strategies and routines undertaken by the company in order to be better prepared in the analysis and development of its human resources and this depends on the extent to which the organisation invests its attention and effort in understanding these strategies and routines (Doving, 2010). There was no evidence of adequate human resource planning in Manners Europe. They lacked proper recruitment strategy which led to the current problems. It was difficult for Manners to find the desired candidate for the job, as there was no supply of generally educated B.As in Netherland compared to North America. Even though this was the case, some candidates who had higher status degree refused supervisor’s positions, because they felt it was beneath them. This proved complicating for John, because although others had business school diplomas, it was difficult judging the qualitative level of the degree they possessed. Recruiting from America doesn’t only contradict the company’s policy but also very expensive as the estimated cost is about three times as high as recruiting from Netherlands due to the additional benefits of working abroad such as bonuses, travel expenses, cost of living expenses, accommodation bills as well as basic salary. Also, hiring an experienced candidate from other firms was subject to uncertainties, because of the Dutch law that prohibits negativity about an employee or former member. Companies can easily hire an unprofessional based on this law, because it is difficult to dictate the right candidate for the role. Government regulations state that companies should not fire any employee with more than two month’s seniority, unless there’s a clear proof of fault (theft). As a result of these, John had to offer employees to sign a six month contract; this approach can however lead to lack of job security for employees.

The fact Manners Europe heavily depends on John Wilman is quite worrying because John himself has no understanding of the Dutch culture and the case signifies that he is struggling to find an experienced employee.

Communication

Schramm’s definition of communication states that information is of no use if the person receiving the information cannot understand the information and give feedback. Encoding helps in converting the thought into content. As the information reaches the recipient, it is the responsibility of the recipient to understand what the speaker intends to convey. Encoding and decoding are however believed to be important factors that contribute to an effective communication. Feedback must be received from the recipient to the sender before communication can be complete (Schramm, 1954). This method of communication can be difficult for organizations, especially when found in countries that speak different languages. Other barriers to effective communication like structure of the firm as a whole, lack of feedback, emotions, stress, family problems and poor questioning technique should also be taken into consideration. Hall contributed to the study of culture; he contrasted the differences between high and low-context societies. In high-context societies, communication is done indirectly including the use of non-verbal communication whereas in low-context societies, communication is done directly (verbal or written), with an addition of detailed precise information (French, 2010). Hall’s study is evident in the case where an employee refused working on a Saturday and only gave reasons that he won’t be in the city. This was perhaps not new to John as he already knew the employee goes horse-riding every Saturdays. As America is considered to be a high-context country, the meaning behind the employee’s response was naturally perceived as an excuse for his normal Saturday activity. Furthermore, there were no right mechanisms in place for managers and employees to have the right flow of communication.

Motivation

Motivation is the desire or zeal an individual has to get the work done. Absence of motivation in an organization can lead to underperformance and loss of productive resources for the organization. For this reason, organizations tend to use incentives and rewards to attract and retain employees. Maslow believes there’s an active drive towards health, growth and actualization of the human potential (Adair, 2009). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is categorized below:

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The satisfaction of physiological needs encourages employees to work and be motivated at the workplace (Maslow, 1987). Safety needs becomes predominant once there are satisfactions of physiological needs. Maslow describes safety needs as protection, security, stability, etc. and most individuals tend to be satisfied