Shift in culture, culture as a factor in people response to change.

1. Shift in culture:-
1.) Culture: In 1870, Edward Taylor, defined culture as “ that complex whole which includes
knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and other capabilities acquired by man as a member
of society.
Another definition by Geert Hofstede (1980) “ the collective programming of the mind which
distinguishes the members of one human group from another…….culture, in this sense, includes
systems of values; and values are among the buildings blocks of culture.
2.) Shift: The term shift mainly focus on the following practices:
-performance appraisal
-training and development
-compensation
And so on.
Here the question arises why “SHIFT IN CULTURE”?
This will help, to be shifted from the process perspective to the outcome perspective how each of
them can contribute to the system to capitalize the patriation(evaluation) as a process of adding
values to the organizational competency.
Further expanded the answer of this question we say, shift in culture will provide the unique
opportunity for the MNE (who potentially loss their identity in home country) to develop a
strong tie expatriate and the organizational culture of the MNE, thereby supplanting the national
culture with that of the organization as the „foundation‟ culture of the „multiple‟ expatriate and
his/ her family. This „superimposed‟ culture will have to be built on trust between the expatriate
and MNE.
SPEED OF CULTURAL SHIFT:-
Problem recognizing to those cultural shifts that promise to have long- term effects on the market
and workforce values are complicated when the deep values of cultural changes slowly.
Why the cultural often slow to shift? FIRST, any change can be painful. People‟s values are
reinforced by habit and a fear of to much novelty. SECONDLY, individuals start learning their
values in earliest childhood. At this stage culture is learned without conscious effort and
conscious effort. This learning is very deep rooted, and so the individual is slow in modifying
his/her unconscious values in later life. This has general implications; not only individuals but
the groups to which they belong cannot easily shift their unconscious values.

2. However, in recent past there have been notable examples of cultures apparently making radical
shifts in a short space of time. One example is Japan.

3. Culture as a factor in a people response to change:-
In organization, Culture is shaped not only by the technologies and markets, but also by the
culture preferences of leader and employees. Factors that cause the culture to shift:
The culture may shift in response to significant changes in the business environment (such as
economic change, technology, foreign interventions).
1) Influenced to a degree by individual consideration, such as
a. magnitude of the change from home to the host culture.
b. the length of the time spent in the host country.
c. the frequency of and time spent on return trips to the home country.
d. the total time away from the home country.
2) Why change?
e.g, Companies operating only within the borders of the United States generally have the luxury
of dealing with a relatively limited set of economic, cultural, and legal variables. The United
States is a capitalist, competitive society. And while the U.S. workforce reflects a multitude of
cultural and ethnic backgrounds, shared values (such as an appreciation for democracy) help to
blur potentially sharp cultural differences. Although the different states and municipalities
certainly have their own laws affecting HR, a basic federal framework helps produce a fairly
predictable set of legal guidelines regarding matters such as employment discrimination, labor
relations, and safety and health. A company operating multiple units abroad isn't blessed
with such homogeneity.
3) Cultural factors:-
Countries differ widely in their cultures-in other words, in the basic values their citizens adhere
to, and in the ways these values manifest themselves in the nation's arts, social programs,
politics, and ways of doing things.
Cultural differences from country to country necessitate
corresponding differences in management practices among a company's subsidiaries. For
example, in a study of about 330 managers from Hong Kong, the People's Republic of China,
and the United States, the U.S. managers tended to be most concerned with getting the job done.
Chinese managers were most concerned with maintaining a harmonious environment, and Hong
Kong managers fell between these extremes. A classic study by Professor Geert Hofstede
identified other international cultural differences.
4) Cultural diversity:-

4. Another term include under this is cultural diversity. Cultural diversity exists on following
dimensions:-
a.) lndividualism and Collectivism. After the study of culture of sixty countries, Hofstede, a
Dutch researcher, has concluded that people differ in terms of individualism and collectivism.
Individualism is the extent to which people place value on themselves; they define themselves by
referring themselves as singular persons rather than as part of a group or organization. For them
individual tasks are more important than relationships. Collectivism is the extent to which
people emphasise the good of the group or society: They tend to base their identity on the group
or organisation to which they belong. At work, this means that relationships are more important
than individuals or tasks; employer-employee links are more like family relationships.
Countries that value individualism are USA. Great Britain,
Australia. Canada. Netherlands, and New Zealand. Countries that value collectivism are Japan,
Columbia, Pakistan, Singapore, Venezuela, and Philippines. India may be placed near to
collectivism.
b.) Power Orientation: Power orientation, also known as orientation to authority.
c.) Uncertainty Avoidance: Uncertainty avoidance also known as preference for stability.
d.) Masculinity: Masculinity, also known as assertiveness or materialism.
e.) Time Orientation: Time orientation dimension divides people into two categories:
long-term orientation and short-term orientation.

5. Significance of shift in Culture:-
# Workforce Diversity: Workforce is the building block of any organization but there is
workforce diversity in global companies. Based on their place of origin, employees of a typical
global company can be divided into the following groups:
a. Parent-country national – permanent resident of the country where the company is
headquartered.
b. Host-country national-permanent resident of the country where the operations of the
company are located.
c. Third-country national - permanent resident of a country other than the parent country
and the host country.
Further, workforce diversity can be seen in the context of employee mobility from
one country to another country for performing jobs. On this basis, an employee can be put in one
of the following categories:
a. Expatriate-a parent country national sent on a long-term assignment to the host country
operations.
b. Inpatriate-a host-country national or third-country national assigned to the home country of
the company where it is headquartered.
c. Repatriate-an expatriate coming back to the home country at the end of a foreign assignment.
Workforce diversity implies that various categories of employees not
only bring their-skills and expertise but also their attitudes, motivation to work or not to work,
feelings, and other personal characteristics. Managing such employees with predetermined HRM
practices may not be effective but contingency approach has to be adopted so that HRM
practices become tailor-made.
# Language Diversity: Language is a medium of expression but employees coming from
different countries have different languages. Though English is a very common language, it does
not serve the purpose adequately as it does not cover the entire world. While employees coming
from different countries may be encouraged to learn the language of the host country for better
dissemination of the information, it does not become feasible in many cases. An alternative to
this is to send multilingual communications. It implies that anything transmitted to employees
should appear in more than one language to help the message get through. While there are no
hard-and-fast rules in sending such messages, it appears safe to say that such a message should
be transmitted in the languages the employees understand to ensure adequate coverage.

6. # Economic Diversity: Economic diversity is expressed in terms of per capita income of
different countries where a global company operates. Economic diversity is directly related to
compensation management that is, paying wages / salaries and other financial compensation to
employees located in different countries. One of the basic principles of paying to employees is
that "there should be equity in paying to employees." However, putting this principle in practice
is difficult for a global company because its operations are located in different countries having
different economic status. In such a situation, some kind of parity should be established based on
the cost of living of host countries.

7. Economic factors and shift in national culture:-
1.) National culture: The culture characterizes the national group and influences the behavior of
its individual members. Dimensions of national culture:
-power distance
-uncertainty avoidance
-individualism/collectivism
-masculinity/femininity
2.) Importance of National Culture: National culture sets the direction of how foreign
investors are perceived by the host country and defines the host government‟s preferences in
economic and social forms and consequently in its trade policies. Through their institutions,
nations affect the norms according to which buying firms manage the post-acquisition process.
3.) Economic factors: Economic factors are included economic organizations
-socialist
-capitalist
-communist
-individual ownership
-company ownership
-government ownership,
power of labour and employers, the nature and composition of the labour force and the sources
of supply and demand in the labour market.
Now, question arises HOW ECONOMIC FACTOR INFLUENCE SHIFT?
The possession of wealth does not itself lead to economic development. The most populous
country in Africa, Nigeria, has received approximately $300,000 million in oil revenues since its
independence, but its now probably poorer than when oil was first discovered there in the 1950s.
Because these revenues were controlled entirely by the government, participation in government
because the royal road to fast and fabulous illicit wealth………..enterprising Nigerians- of whom
there are many- concentrated their efforts on gaining political influence rather than more
productive activities.

8. However, in some circumstances a correlation occurs between wealth and individualism. The
wealthier countries tend to be more individualist.

9. Foreign Intervention and influence on shifts in Local Cultures:
There are two major sets of contingencies that can affect the intervention success:
- Those having to do with the change situation.
- Those related to the target of change.
Both type of contingencies need to be considered in designing interventions.
Researchers find out number of contingencies present in the change situation that can affect the
intervention success. These include individual differences among organizational factors,
organization members, and dimensions of the change process itself. Unless these factors are
considered, designing an intervention will have little impact on organizational functioning or
worse, it may produce negative results.
Human process interventions typically focus on the total organization or an entire department, as
well as on relationship between groups. These include the following three change programs:
1.) Organization confrontation meeting.
2.) Intergroup relation.
3.) Large group intervention.
Intervention by an outside power may cause a major shift in the culture. To shift people to the
new culture , shifting of the following four components is must –
Results
Actions
Beliefs
Experiences
Factors Influencing Intervention
The conditions under which intervention by “outsiders” will significant influence the culture :-
1) The outsiders are respected.
2) They have regular contracts with significant groups within the society, they create
relationships and role models .if any attempts are made to block these contracts, these
trends to be unsuccessful.
3) Significant locals want change, and local political and social structure seems incapable of
facilitating these changes.
4) The outsiders are perceived to offer the desire change.

10. Technology and shifts in national culture
Financial wealth is likely to influence the process of social change and cultural shift when it
contributes to economic development. In practice, this means when the wealth is applied in
technological innovation.
Technological development has three main stages:
1) Acquisition of existing technology.
2) Adoption of existing technology to local needs.
3) Creation of new technology.
How technology influences values at macro level
Technology innovation must be accompanied by a willingness to adjust to social consequences
of the innovation. The precise social impact of development is influenced at macro level by the
extent of the investment in appropriate technology, and at micro level, by the impact that the new
technology has upon the values of those implementing it.
At macro level, Japanese development in the 1970s and 1980s shows the
interplay between technological policies and culture;
- How values influence the choice of technology.
- How its application influences social development.
A fear of over-dependence on a single (UNITED STATES) market prompted JAPANESE
companies to move many of these industries off- shores and invest at home in high technology
This switch in technological focus couple with the shorter shelf-life of
technological skills in new industries had the effect that increasing numbers of workers become
technological obsolete when still in the mid career. Dropout from other industries had to be re-
trained in order to stay in the workforce.
The extent of JAPANESE lifetime employment has been exaggerated in the past
and certainly never extended all workers.
How technology influences values at a micro level
At a micro level, how does technology influence the behavior of individuals directly associated
with its implementation?
Within the organization, technology gives members the power to:
1) Create the :-
a. Same numbers of old products or services more efficiently,
b. Greater member of old products or services.
2) Create new product or services ,
3) Develop new organizational structure and systems.

11. New technology causes members to adjust their relationships. e.g if the supervisor understands
less about the new technology than one has to do or explain its use to him/her, and spend less
time in listening his/her instructions.
In developed economies younger managers are increasingly less prepared to devote
their lives to work for their own scale and instead demand career that offer “self-fulfillment”
define in western terms.
However, international manager cannot assume that technology exerts the same
pressure on all cultures, and cannot assume that in all culture relationships are modified in the
same way. That is, he cannot infer from the universality of the technological revolution that all
cultures are converging.