Cultural Differences In Management

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Literature Review Cultures have an impact on the ways of managing people. Therefore, Newman and Nollen (1996) have suggested that the differences in management practices is the result of differences in cultures. Laurent (1986) has supported by saying that the culture differences could lead to differences in preferences and perceptions in human resource management practices. Previous research has found that the process of selection of applicants could be influenced by national culture. This could be done in various ways, which include through the profile of the ideal applicant, selection criteria and methods of selection (Đorđević 2016). The four basic cultural dimensions that have been proposed by Hofstede (1980) are individualism versus collectivism,…show more content…
Stone et al. (2007) have found that individualistic cultures multinational companies would prefer that applicants who shows great independence when performing tasks, who are proactive and result-oriented, usually in U.S. whose culture is individualistic. On the other hand, collectivist culture multinational companies would give priority to the applicants who are team-oriented and who put group interest beyond his own interest (ibid). Ramamorthy and Carroll (1998) and Hofstede (2005) have mentioned that recommendations by in-group member play important role in selection process and it is rare that the applicants would be selected through test in collectivistic culture. For example, cultures in Asia, Central America, South America, and Africa tend to be more collectivistic, where the recruiters would prefer the candidates who are helpful, generous and dependable (Milikić 2009). Furthermore, Hofstede (2001) has found that nepotism and favoritism are common in collectivistic culture, where the friends and family members of employer and employees are preferred in selection…show more content…
In other words, people in certain culture could not accept high degree of power inequality than people in other culture. The relationship between the managers and subordinates is dependent in the high power distance culture. In contrast, the relationship between the managers and subordinates is interdependent in the low power distance culture. Latin, Asian and African countries are at the high power distance culture, where people in this culture tend to accept the fact that power inequality is appropriate and the orders from authorities should not be questioned (Hofstede 1980). On the other hand, Germany is one of the countries at the low power distance culture, where the people in this culture believe that the power is only used for legitimate purpose (ibid). There are limited number of studies examining the impact of power distance on the selection process. But Ryan et al. (1999) have argued that the multinational companies in high power distance cultures are more likely to emphasise on educational qualifications in selection
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