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Culture Shock
Student’s name
Institution
Executive Summary
Philip is a renowned electronic firm with several offices in other countries. Due its global outlook it has employees in almost every part of the world for its efficient operations. It endures to challenges related to culture shock in German for new employees from the United States. It is therefore, important for the company to offer training to new Americans employees so that they can familiarize themselves with German culture to ensure that they can work without feeling being left out. Some of the culture shock new employee’s of Philip’s is likely to face are related to language barrier, social issues such lifestyle, handshake and food. German respects the chain of command different from the United States business culture. Philips will have train its new employees on social issues, business etiquette applicable in German, food and religion related issues. The training of new employees will take three months part time during evening after the day work. It would be cost effective and productive to conduct trainings in the evening for a period of three weeks. The human resources and other related department together with a consulting firm to come with the training manual for the training. It is approximated that the training of new employees to cost the company $15,000, which will be used to purchase of learning materials, consultancy fee, and for refreshment.
Concept of Culture Shock
Culture shock is regarded as multifaceted experience gained from several stressors occurring when an individual is in contact with a different culture. It normally occurs to immigrants, business people on oversee assignment, and Euro-Americans in their own culture. As stated by Romani, Mahadevan, & Henriett (2018) working in a different country is a quite challenging to people and one of the challenges related to culture shock especially employees working in a different country from home. Romani, Mahadevan, & Henriett (2018) pointed out that business practice is different in every country and understanding culture of a country is the best strategies to offer efficient of management. Without understanding culture of a host country, business operations of might be difficult. Employees might also be able to deliver tasks and therefore, it is upon a company to offer effective training to all its employees to adopt culture of a host country. Culture is part of business and must be key element for management of any organization.
In the case of Philip, workers from the United States are likely to experience culture shock. German and the United States are unique in the way business practices are conducted. As stated by Branine (2011), food, language, time management, and other social, political and economic factors are likely to impact new employees. Philip must take appropriate initiative to equate its new employees from outside German with different cultural practices to improve performance of workers. Without offering training or providing assistant to new employees, most new workers would be greatly affected because it may take foreign workers years to adapt to German’s culture.
Cross culture management (CCM)
The critical concept of cross culture management comes away from the inception of culture shock. Early researchers such as Hofstede pointed that culture does indeed matter in providing efficient management and organizational studies CITATION Rom18 \l 1033 (Romani, Mahadevan, & Henriett, 2018). The management must realign the operation of a company to its objectives and ensure that all workers adapt to Philip business culture. It is noted that social norms such as religion, social life, food and others affect the management and therefore, it is important for company to have a clear strategies to address culture shock related to these issues. Language is an aspect which continues to draw a lot attention in CCM. Branine (2011) stated that language is the circuit of power used by several merging Multinational Corporations. The usages of language are empowerment or disempowerment to employees who language proficiency is low. Research indicates that bi-cultural individuals have distinctive status and good networks by being culture and language savvy. This gives an employee a power base and a source of knowledge making an employee capable of effectively performing his or her duties. Philip must therefore, training its workers on language, gender related issues and business conversation and tactics applicable in German. The new employees from America would have to be trained on German’s values, country’s culture and general business etiquettes used by most Germans. For instant, respect to chain of command is paramount in German, therefore, employees would be taught to respect the chain of command, addressing the handshake, and eye contact. These issues must therefore, be addressed by Philip to ensure new employees from American could be able to work with the rest of employees without facing a lot of difficulties.
Philip culture training
Philip offers trainings in areas related to local country culture. In German the company provides training on social issues including handshake, business etiquette and language. The language training provision is meant to ensure that all new employees are able to understand the local language for easy communication with customers. Training on language help the company to address the issue of language barrier and therefore, increase communication among employees, especially between managers who are local and mostly speak German and new employees from America. Studies also indicate that Philip provides training on social life and business etiquette. According to Romani, Mahadevan, & Henriett (2018), business etiquette practice in German and the United States, is differently and it is important to introduce all employees to American and German business culture to make transition easier to ensure that the company is enable to establish understanding among employees for the common goal of the company. Business culture and etiquette training includes chain command practice in German and the United States, business meeting tactics and business language largely used by corporate. It would also important to ensure that new employees are trained to effectively interact with the local customers.
Impact of cultural Identity on an organization
Most studies indicate that cultural identify has positive impact on an organization. According to CITATION Reh15 \l 1033 (Raihan, 2015), it creates common values in the company and therefore, increases performance of employees and the company as well. With both management and employees coming from different cultural background, it is important to ensure that all workers are on identity properly. It is also stated that being in a multicultural affect performance of workers and therefore, identity of culture help in the facilitation of knowledge transfer. Cultural identity therefore, improves performance of a company. As stated by Branine (2011) cultural identity help employees to understand values, beliefs and business cultural of a host country. These help employees to realign themselves to the values and business practices of a company hence help in improving employees’ performance.
The cultural identity can be achieved through training of employees. Understanding local language and social issues of a local host is essential and with proper training on cultural related issues a company is able to understand what employees lack in terms of culture and offer the best solution. There is also interconnection between culture and language. Philip offer language trainings to new employees through partnership with local comp to provide basic training. Though language training is an areas Philip has been focusing, most employees recruited for station abroad are required to have basic understanding of the local language. Studies indicate that Philip performance in the United States, German and other countries has improved over the years. The improvement is due to the understanding of cultural practices which allows employees to offer efficient services to customers. It is also important to point that the cultural identity is done through efficient trainings on cultural related aspect. In the case of Philip, it cultural trainings should focus on the social issues including religion, gender, and language. The training of business etiquette is necessarily and it is applicable to Philip since it is operating German where different culture is used.
Outcome of the study
Philip has elaborate structure of addressing cultural issues in every country it operates. It is established that Philip has adopted several training modules working closely with consultants to realign its objectives and goals towards business culture in any country it operates. Though some researchers indicates that Philip lost of market share in foreign countries is due to lack of clear objectives regarding cultural issues, the company has training modules and usually implore diversity across all nations where it operates. For example, in the United States, company has employees from different races and countries including Holland and German. The aspect of inclusivity is evident in the company and therefore, it gives the company an international outlook. Philip has committed and done a lot of work to improve its cultural adaption through training of workers. I believe it is not enough; the company should be more inclusive and develop trainings which cut across many aspects of culture shock to ensure there is stability and efficient in terms of management of the company in foreign nations.
References
BIBLIOGRAPHY Branine, M. (2011). Managing Across Cultures: Concepts, Policies and Practices. 10.4135/9781446288177 , 2-35.
Raihan, R. (2015). Management Across Cultures: Challenges and Strategies. Journal of business and human resource management , 2-15.
Romani, L., Mahadevan, J., & Henriett, P. (2018). Critical Cross-Cultural Management: Outline and Emerging Contributions. International Studies of Management & Organization , 2-15.
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