A Framework for Evaluating Cross-Cultural Management

Performance

Peter WoodsGriffith Business School

Griffith UniversityIFSAM 2004, Gothenburg, Sweden

Outline

• Definitions• Problems• Aims• Brief Literature Overview• Methodology• Results• Implications• Further Research

Definitions

• ‘Cross-cultural manager’ - a manager who supervises and directs people with a different cultural identity to their own.

• Expatriate - a person working in a country they regard as ‘foreign’ (Cohen, 1977).

• ‘Performance' is defined as 'the cumulative stakeholder perceptions of attainment level on specific behaviours and actions that capture the full spectrum of job activities' (Fraser, 2001) p. 3.

Problems

• Problem of Australian cross-cultural management identified by Karpin (1995)

• Many models but very few based on empirical research

• Most from quantitative, close ended question research (Brewster, Tregaskis, Hegewisch & Mayne, 2000)

• Most based on questioning expatriates only• Most are ‘US centred’• Focus on adaptation rather than the unique

skills of cross-cultural management

Aim

• To build a framework for evaluating the individual cross-cultural manager

• Use established research as a very broad ‘starting point’ structure only

• Find out what is considered effective in managing across cultures

• Utilise the perspectives of experienced expatriate managers and host country nationals who have worked with expatriate managers

Table 1 – Proposed performance element

categories   Performance

ElementDefinition Main Research

1 Personality The relatively stable psychological and behavioural attributes that distinguish one person from another

Van der Zee and Van Oudenhoven (2000, 2001)

2 Engagement / Experience

The degree of interaction with host country nationals and length of service on international expatriate postings

Jordan and Cartwright (1998), Caligiuri (2000)

3 Attitudes Complexes of beliefs and feelings that people have about specific ideas, situations or other people

Ajzen and Fishbein (1980)

4 Knowledge/ Awareness -

Awareness of information or understanding of particular information areas

Early and Erez (1997)

5 Skills/ Competencies

Behaviours that can be modified through training and experience

Fish and Wood (1997), Jordan and Cartwright (1998)

6 Other Performance elements outside of the expatriates control that have an impact on cross-cultural management performance

Mamman (1995), Kraimer, Wayne and Jaworski (2001)

Methodology

• Qualitative, theory building approach• Semi-structured interviews• Focus group using the nominal group method

(in Singapore with Australian expatriates)• Analysis using thematic and exhaustive coding

(Stauss & Corbin, 1998) using QSR Nudist• Two parallel raters• Test inter-rater reliability (Phi 4 point correlation

as a binary analogue of the Pearson correlation coefficient) and category relationships (ANOVA) using SPSS

Interview Format• The open-ended questions – ‘Describe the

successful expatriate manager’ and ‘how can you tell if an expatriate manager is relating well to host country nationals?’

• Participants were asked to nominate what aspects of personality, experience, attitudes, knowledge, skills and ‘other aspects’ (for non-category responses) were needed by expatriates to effectively manage across cultures

• Importance of nominated element - 1- very unimportant, 2 – unimportant, 3 – important, 4 – very important, 5 – depends (please list conditions)

Sample

• 68 interview participants

• 69% male, 31% female

• 72% expatriates, 28% subordinates

• 29% Australians, 71% from 24 other countries

• 32% of sample over 5 years international experience

Table 3 (Extract) – Top Personality Aspect

by Frequency and Importance Score Personality Aspect Frequency of

ResponseImportance Rating

Open-minded 100 359

Adaptability 74 268

Patience 54 206

Extroversion 42 151

Emotional Stability 26 96

Sense of humour 25 84

Conscientiousness 24 86

Table 3 (Extract) – Top Experience Aspects

by Frequency and Importance Score Experience Aspect Frequency of

ResponseImportance Rating

Mixing Socially With Cultural Others

58 194

Working With People From Other Cultures

55 194

Relevant Work Experience 39 140

International Travel 36 121

Life Experience 30 104

Table 3 (Extract) – Top Attitude Aspects by

Frequency and Importance Score Attitude Aspect Frequency of

ResponseImportance Rating

Manager Respects Locals and Their Culture

68 254

Caring and Kind Towards Locals 45 154

Fairness Towards Locals 33 115

Empathy Towards Locals 29 105

Tolerant Towards Differences 24 86

Willing to Mix With Locals 24 83

Interest in the Host Country 20 73

Table 3 (Extract) – Top Knowledge Aspects

by Frequency and Importance Score

Knowledge Aspect Frequency of Response

Importance Rating

Cultural Awareness 104 376

Knowledge of Local Business Environment

59 254

Manager Understands Locals and Their Motivations

54 193

Knowledge of Host Country Society

40 137

Education Relevant to the Managerial Role

39 137

Table 3 (Extract) – Top Skills by Frequency

and Importance Score

Skills Frequency of Response

Importance Rating

Language Skills 69 214

Communication Skills 55 203

Cross-Cultural Skills 51 184

Leadership Skills 40 150

Expertise in Their Work Area 38 131

Interpersonal Skills 36 126

Able to Adapt Management Practices Across Cultures

35 116

Table 3 (Extract) – Other Aspects by

Frequency and Importance Score Aspect Frequency of

ResponseImportance Rating

Age 17 53

Family Support 12 43

Figure 3 - Mean frequency of responses for

Attitudes by expatriates and subordinates.

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

Expatriates Subordinates

Attitudes

Figure 4 - Mean frequency of responses for Knowledge and Skills by Australians and

Non-Australians.

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

Australians Non-Australians

Mean Frequency ofResponses forKnowledge

Mean Frequency ofResponses for Skills

Figure 5 - Mean importance rating for Personality by Australians and Non-

Australians.

3.4

3.45

3.5

3.55

3.6

3.65

3.7

3.75

3.8

3.85

Australians Non-Australians

Personality

Cross-Cultural Management Skills

Open-minded

Adaptability

Patience

Extroversion

Respects locals & their culture

Caring & kind towards locals

Fairness towards locals

Education relevant to the managerial role

Host cultural awareness

Local business environment

Understands locals & their motivations

Host country society

Language skills

Communication skills

Cross-cultural skills

Leadership skills

Personality

Attitudes to Cultural Other

Knowledge of Cultural Other

Overall Assessment of Cross-Cultural

Management Performance

H2

H4 H3

Engagement with Cultural Other

Extent of international travel

Extent of mixing socially with cultural others

Extent of experience in working with cultural others

H1

Cultural Toughness Company International Orientation

H5

Figure 6 - A Model of Cross Cultural Management Performance

Empathy towards locals

Expertise in work area

Interpersonal skills

Relevant work experience

Life experience

Implications - Personality

• Personality has a an impact on performance – but as a ‘relatively stable’ attribute, should it be assessed in performance?

• ‘Patience’ as a personality variable is highlighted – not emphasised in US studies.

• ‘Sense of humour’ may be a distinctive coping attitude in Australian expatriates – internal as external aspects

• Effective expatriate managers could be a ‘special breed’ who should be targeted in expatriate recruitment and selection.

Implications - Experience

• This results strongly supported the role of experience and engagement with cultural others in defining successful expatriate management performance.

• This would extend the contact hypothesis (Caliguiri, 2000) to embrace the idea that the more positive social and work based experiences that the manager has with cultural others, the more positively their cross-cultural management performance is perceived.

Implications - Attitudes

• Managerial attitudes emerge prominently when subordinates are asked to comment on performance variables.

• The emphasis on the attitude variable ‘respects locals and their culture’, is culturally bound when translating to behaviour. This underlines the importance of utilising host country nationals in a performance evaluation of an expatriate’s cross-cultural management performance.

Implications - Knowledge

• The aspects of ‘knowledge of the local business environment’ and ‘manager understands locals and their motivations’ indicate the importance of ‘on-the-job’ learning. On-site mentoring and in-service training support ‘on-the-job’ learning.

• The identification of the manager ‘understands locals and their motivations’ is a variable that needs comment from host country nationals in order to be effectively evaluated.

Implications – Skills• A strong emphasis on both language and

communication skills along with ‘mixing socially with cultural others’ highlights that the effective cross-cultural manager is an engaging, relational person who is regularly communicating with host country staff.

• The strong emphasis on language skills stands in contrast to US expatriate research where the language factor usually receives less emphasis. This is possibly a ‘blind spot’ of US self-reported expatriate research, where the international business language of English is often assumed.

Implications – Other

• Family support was not nominated as an important performance factor by many respondents in the sample, and this is consistent with the findings of Kraimer, Wayne and Jaworski (2001) who found this factor was not strongly related to cross-cultural adjustment.

• Contrasts with quantitative study of 338 international assignees asked about success factors, where family situation was nominated most frequently (Arthur & Bennett, 1995).

Other Mediating Variables

Analysis based on the contingencies suggested by interview and focus group participants

• Job complexity – extent that a job involves mental processes such as problem solving, applying discretion and using technical knowledge (Dean & Snell, 1991)

• Company international orientation – ethnocentric, polycentric, geocentric, regiocentric (Permutter, 1969)

Further Analysis – Testing Findings With Experienced IHR Managers

• Focus group of 5 experienced IHR Managers

• Confirmation of importance of personality and attitude performance elements

• Suggestion that job complexity is an additional mediating factor

• Suggestion that amount of contact with cultural others is a mediating factor

• Performance needs further analysis

Performance Variables

• Task performance – effectiveness in meeting job objectives & technical competence (Kraimer, Wayne & Jaworski, 2001)

• Contextual performance – effectiveness in performing international aspects of the job that go beyond task specific issues (Kraimer, Wayne & Jaworski, 2001)

1. Cultural Awareness CA

2. Open-Minded OM

3. Flexible/ Adaptable FL

4. Knowledge of Other Culture’s Business Environment OBE

5. Respect for Cultural Others and Their Culture RCO

6. Other Language Skills OLS

8. Cultural Toughness CT

9. Job Complexity JC

10. Company International Orientation CIO

11. Task Performance TP

12. Contextual Performance CP

7. Amount of Contact with Host Country Nationals

CCO

Cross-Cultural Management Evaluation Model