Theories 25th Aug
Cultural Intelligence (Earley and Soon Ang 2000)...
speaks of one's ability to adapt appropriately and effectively to new cultural environments, whether it be in a new cultural setting or country, or in an intercultural communication situation.
Possession of CQ requires 3 components:
-Cognitive aspect of CQ, which is the ability to be aware of alternative cultural scripts, understand values and motives of people from different cultures and also the ability to reflect on one's (mis)understanding of other cultures (which is also referred to as cultural metacognition)
-Hofstede's and Trompenaar's dimensions of national culture, and the idea of cultural distance would probably fit in here; to be cognizant that there ARE cultural distances and cultural harmony cannot be taken for granted.
-However, more than the above 2 gurus, this aspect includes Identity Theory, which is self-concept (sense of self, closely tied to culture if one looks at Hofstede's pyramid of mental programming). Salient identities manifest themselves in cross-cultural settings, and hence it is the role of multinational organizations to foster strong organizational identity to replace or alleviate the effects of cultural identity.
-Behavourial aspect of CQ, which is the ability to present oneself appropriately, and to understand that self-representation affects others' (locals or culturally diverse others) perception of them.
-This brings in a plethora of cross-cultural concepts like proxemics, body language, facial expressions, time-orientation and even heck, physical attractiveness. B aspect of CQ is the sum manifestation of cognitive and motivational aspects, and is able to use CQ to further personal agenda.
-Finally, Motivational aspect of CQ centres around values, personal efficacy and goal-setting. More than merely a person's 'personality disposition' and 'open-mindedness' to new cultures, it is also about what can motivate a person to develop CQ. This goes in line with expectancy theory of HRM, in which when goals are clearly set and articulated, people, as rational beings, will take progressive steps to attain that goal, including developing cultural cognizance as a means to an end.
-There are also a whole host of fancy terms spotted in IHRM books (or book I must admit..but hey! It took a lot of time!) on global citizenship (Ashwill), global mindset (Vance) etc.
On preferring CQ as a theory to Hofstede's...
CQ as a theory certainly goes beyond national cultures theories because it looks at the level of individuals, and what cultural intelligence means to individual behavoirs. Also, studying national cultures theories may not be so appropriate if field research is on human resource practices involving multinational work teams or other practices, the only application being if I were to study IJM's networks or casework collaboration models in other countries, or even to diagnose the 'health level' of multicultural work teams (by measuring cultural distances or even deciding on recruitment practices).
Maybe the closest subsitute for CQ theory is the theory of Intercultural Competence, which, according to Deardorff, is unsatisfactory because there is yet no empirical evidence testing the components of intercultural competency, except for a study done by the same author in 2004 which documents consensus by US's intercultural experts on what makes up ICC. Yet, the classification is different for both theories.
To apply CQ theory to HRM is via the theory of Cross-Cultural Management.
Preamble: Cross-cultural management appears (to me) to be subset or recent fad of human resource management. Basically it encompasses most of the different aspects of HRM like employee motivation and job design (and by implication, reward and performance evaluation system, training and development opportunities), communication process (or information management) and also team management. As they say, organizaton strategy is closely tied to human resource management practices as human capital is the key to an organization's competitive strategy and the way to retain talent (esp for non-profit organizations!).
Question will be answered in next session!
Before I leave..
Organization or Corporate Culture management is one aspect of HRM, the reason being that an organization's culture partly depends on its job design, the people it hires, and how it evaluates and rewards performance, and of course, communication processes. Obviously corporate culture is also a strategy (well..not so obviously..maybe in how the org thinks and responds that gives it its identity and solutions..)
How Hofstede is thus useful in this area is that he has identified different types of organization cultures which he connects with Mintzberg's organizational structures (i.e org structure depends on or is influenced by national culture and in turn impacts organizational culture) e.g process vs results oriented, loose vs tight control, open systems vs closed systems etc (ref to Chapters 9-10).
I can thus use the HofMintz theory to understand the culture orientation of IJM (Anglo-Saxxon culture, impacting its values and missions, and..yea [desired] corporate culture etc), and how at the same time because it (apparently) has a multinational workforce or networks in other continents, identification with organization culture (hence identity) has to be emphasized to alleviate disparate cultural identities.
speaks of one's ability to adapt appropriately and effectively to new cultural environments, whether it be in a new cultural setting or country, or in an intercultural communication situation.
Possession of CQ requires 3 components:
-Cognitive aspect of CQ, which is the ability to be aware of alternative cultural scripts, understand values and motives of people from different cultures and also the ability to reflect on one's (mis)understanding of other cultures (which is also referred to as cultural metacognition)
-Hofstede's and Trompenaar's dimensions of national culture, and the idea of cultural distance would probably fit in here; to be cognizant that there ARE cultural distances and cultural harmony cannot be taken for granted.
-However, more than the above 2 gurus, this aspect includes Identity Theory, which is self-concept (sense of self, closely tied to culture if one looks at Hofstede's pyramid of mental programming). Salient identities manifest themselves in cross-cultural settings, and hence it is the role of multinational organizations to foster strong organizational identity to replace or alleviate the effects of cultural identity.
-Behavourial aspect of CQ, which is the ability to present oneself appropriately, and to understand that self-representation affects others' (locals or culturally diverse others) perception of them.
-This brings in a plethora of cross-cultural concepts like proxemics, body language, facial expressions, time-orientation and even heck, physical attractiveness. B aspect of CQ is the sum manifestation of cognitive and motivational aspects, and is able to use CQ to further personal agenda.
-Finally, Motivational aspect of CQ centres around values, personal efficacy and goal-setting. More than merely a person's 'personality disposition' and 'open-mindedness' to new cultures, it is also about what can motivate a person to develop CQ. This goes in line with expectancy theory of HRM, in which when goals are clearly set and articulated, people, as rational beings, will take progressive steps to attain that goal, including developing cultural cognizance as a means to an end.
-There are also a whole host of fancy terms spotted in IHRM books (or book I must admit..but hey! It took a lot of time!) on global citizenship (Ashwill), global mindset (Vance) etc.
On preferring CQ as a theory to Hofstede's...
CQ as a theory certainly goes beyond national cultures theories because it looks at the level of individuals, and what cultural intelligence means to individual behavoirs. Also, studying national cultures theories may not be so appropriate if field research is on human resource practices involving multinational work teams or other practices, the only application being if I were to study IJM's networks or casework collaboration models in other countries, or even to diagnose the 'health level' of multicultural work teams (by measuring cultural distances or even deciding on recruitment practices).
Maybe the closest subsitute for CQ theory is the theory of Intercultural Competence, which, according to Deardorff, is unsatisfactory because there is yet no empirical evidence testing the components of intercultural competency, except for a study done by the same author in 2004 which documents consensus by US's intercultural experts on what makes up ICC. Yet, the classification is different for both theories.
To apply CQ theory to HRM is via the theory of Cross-Cultural Management.
Preamble: Cross-cultural management appears (to me) to be subset or recent fad of human resource management. Basically it encompasses most of the different aspects of HRM like employee motivation and job design (and by implication, reward and performance evaluation system, training and development opportunities), communication process (or information management) and also team management. As they say, organizaton strategy is closely tied to human resource management practices as human capital is the key to an organization's competitive strategy and the way to retain talent (esp for non-profit organizations!).
Question will be answered in next session!
Before I leave..
Organization or Corporate Culture management is one aspect of HRM, the reason being that an organization's culture partly depends on its job design, the people it hires, and how it evaluates and rewards performance, and of course, communication processes. Obviously corporate culture is also a strategy (well..not so obviously..maybe in how the org thinks and responds that gives it its identity and solutions..)
How Hofstede is thus useful in this area is that he has identified different types of organization cultures which he connects with Mintzberg's organizational structures (i.e org structure depends on or is influenced by national culture and in turn impacts organizational culture) e.g process vs results oriented, loose vs tight control, open systems vs closed systems etc (ref to Chapters 9-10).
I can thus use the HofMintz theory to understand the culture orientation of IJM (Anglo-Saxxon culture, impacting its values and missions, and..yea [desired] corporate culture etc), and how at the same time because it (apparently) has a multinational workforce or networks in other continents, identification with organization culture (hence identity) has to be emphasized to alleviate disparate cultural identities.
posted by Candida at 8/26/2011 03:35:00 AM
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