TEACHING CULTURAL COMPETENCE: WHAT MULTICULTURAL ...

1 TEACHING CULTURALCOMPETENCE:WHATMULTICULTURAL MANAGEMENTCOURSESCAN LEARN FROMDIVERSITYMary Lou EganMarc Bendick, and Egan Economic Consultants, 2007 Bendick and Egan Economic Consultants, Westover Place NWWashington, DC 20016(202) CULTURAL COMPETENCE: WHATMULTICULTURAL MANAGEMENTCOURSESCAN LEARNFROM DIVERSITYIn today s global economy,multiculturalmanagementiswidely taught inAmericanBBA and MBA , these courses oftenencouragefundamental misunderstandings of when, how, andhow muchculture aboutnational CULTURAL differencesin ways whichencourage stereotyping and ,thesecoursesneed todevelopmanagers CULTURAL competence--critical thinkingskillstoanalyzeandworkwithcultur allycomplexindividualsinculturally complexbusiness and materialsfordevelopingtheseskillscan bedrawn fromsocial psychology and state-of-the-art belittle debatethat culture --"the logic by which I giveorder to the world"(Carroll,1988:3)--strongly influences the success of business enterprisestoday.

2 Inamulticultural worldand global economy,culturalmisunderstandingsconstan tly threatenfirms abilitytooperateefficiently, cooperatively andfairly (Tung, 1998; Storti, 2001;Caligiuri, 2000)Did a mergerbetween aJapanese-owned firm and an American-ownedfirmfail becauseofinferiorproductsandpoor pricing strategiesor because themanagerswerepersonallyincompatibleand theorganizations operating stylestoo disparate?Wasa clashof culturesthecause ofthe merger spoor performanceor merely a symptom?BBA and MBAeducationcannot simply makemanagersawarethatculture matters. Itmustequip them withspecificskills and knowledge to understandexactlywhen,how,andhow muchculturemattersin suchconcreteinterpersonal and ,undergraduate and graduatecoursesin MULTICULTURAL management(also called cross- CULTURAL management )

3 Are often not well designed toaccomplish thispaper,wefirstdescribethemulticultura l managementcompetencies3required for managerial success andmajorgapsbetween those target competencies relate these failures tomulticultural management coursesthemselves,especially their tendency toemphasizenationalcultural an alternativeteaching approachdesigned toenhancemanagers culturalcompetence,largely byteachinginformationfrom disciplinessuchassocial psychologyand MANAGERS NEED TO KNOWABOUT MUTICULTURAL MANGEMENTA mericanBusiness schoolsbeganto internationalizetheir curriculamore than50 yearsago(Albers-Milleret al., 2000:56-57). The process acceleratedduringthe 1980s withsupport fromthe Department of EducationforCentersforInternational BusinessEducation and Research (CIBERs)andevolvingaccreditation requirements bytheAssociation to Advance Collegiate Schoolsof Business International (AACSB).

4 AACSB(2007: 1)nowdirectsbusiness schoolstoprepare students fora businessenvironmentofstrong and growing global economic forces,differences in organizationaland CULTURAL values, andcultural diversity among employees and to current management education thinking, thepersonalcompetenciesrespondingto these requirements includeflexibility, resourcefulness,tolerance forambiguity,andability to articulate a vision, as well as global competenciesincluding(Cant, 2004: 177): CULTURAL self-awareness--anunderstandingofthe CULTURAL conditioningshapingthe manager s ownvalues, assumptions and beliefs (Adler,1991; Sokuvitz &George, 2003).4 CULTURAL consciousness--sensitivity and adaptability tooperate outside thecomfort of themanager sown culture (McCall &Hollenbeck, 2002); MULTICULTURAL leadership--the ability tocollaborate with andleadindividuals withdiverse CULTURAL perspectives, as well asmulticultural teams(Mendenall et al.)

5 ,2001). MULTICULTURAL negotiations anunderstanding ofindividuals varyingnegotiatingapproaches, styles and rules of the game. Global mindsetor global thinking --an appreciation ofthe strategicimplications of global commerce(Kanter,1994).DO MULTICULTURAL MANAGEMENTCOURSES TEACH THOSE SKILLS?Courses in multiculturalmanagementare generallytaughtwithinthefieldofinternati onalmanagement orinternationalbusiness (IB).To differentiate itself from other fieldsofbusiness TEACHING with which its coursesoftenappear to overlapand compete--such asmarketing, finance, and strategy--IB tends tohighlightdifferences among nationsasoneof itscentral, unique foci(Rosenzweig, 1994: 4).Thisfocus, in turn, stronglyinfluencesthecontent ofmulticultural managementcourses,leading themto devote considerable instructionalattention to IB researchon national cultures.

6 This research typicallyinvolvesframeworksdistilling the essence ofnational cultures intoasmall number (usually fewer than 10) mostwidely-citedstudiesin this traditiondescribehow nations differ in overallculture( hofstede , 1980a, 1991),relationship orientations(Trompenaars,1994),and leadership(House et al.,2002).5 Theearliest, most influential frameworkfirst appeared inGeert hofstede s(1980a), culture s analyzed surveydatacollected between1967 and 1973from more than88,000 employees of one company,IBM,in40 factor analysis, heclassified these 40 nations along fourculturaldimensions--individualism-co llectivism,power distance,uncertainty avoidance,and workremains someof the most widely-cited IB researchand hasinspiredthousand ofstudies in the same prominently,Tompenaars (1994) studiedmanagers from 23 countries and distilled their relationship orientations and otherattitudes into five dimensions: universalism versus particularism; individualism versuscommunitarianism; neutral versus emotional; specific versus diffuse.

7 And achievementversus (House et al., 2002) surveyed managers in the financialservices, food processing and telecommunications industries in 62 societies, clusteringsocieties that were similar along nine CULTURAL dimensions: uncertainty avoidance; powerdistance;societalcollectivism;in-gr oupcollectivism;genderegalitarianism;ass ertiveness; future orientation; performance orientation and humane ,suchresearch hasbeenstronglycriticizedfor over-simplifying complex cultures, generalizing from a limited number of companies orindustries, failing toreflectchanges in culturesover time, and ignoring within-countrycultural heterogeneity (Sivakumar & Nataka,2001; Kirkman et al. 2006: 286).Forexample,McSweeney(2002: 4, 28)challengesHofstede sassumptions thatnationalculturesare implicit, core, systematically causal, territorially unique and shared.

8 Othershave challengedsuchresearch for implying thatWesterncultureis universally6superior in a world divided betweena developed and modern side and a traditionaland backward side(Fougere and Moulettes,2006:16). Still otherscriticizeit fornotcontrollingethnocentrism and parochialism (Bartholomew & Adler, 1996; Hampden-Turner & Trompenaars, 1997).1 hofstede himself warns againstapplyinghiscultural dimensions,which heintended as descriptions of national cultures, to individuals( hofstede , 1991: 253):We do not compare individuals, but we compare what is calledcentraltendenciesin the answers from each country. There is hardly an individualwho answers each question exactly by the mean score of his or her group:the average person from a country does not ,Kirkman et al. s (2006: 288) review of 180 empirical studies incorporatingHofstede s framework found thatthemajorityignore his warning andanalyzeindividuals, groups, or firms, not ofapplying national patterns in sub-national nationalaverage characteristics are used to predict or explain the behavior of individuals, groupsor firms associated withanation.

9 The relatively low amount of variance explained bythe culturalvalues in many studiesunderscores the existence of the many other forcesbesides culture (which)determine the behavior and attitudes of individuals in societies (Kirkman et al. 2006: 313).Forinstance, Palich et al. (1995) found that hofstede scultural dimensions of independence, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity accountedforonly theperson-to-personvariance in employee cases,the research itselfteachesthatculturedoes notmattervery psychologists raise similar objectionsto such misapplicationsintheirconcept of purposes of this article,stereotyping may bedefinedasapplyingto an individual,work group or firmgeneralizationswhichhave beendocumentedfora broader entity, such as a is a normaltendencyinthe thinking ofall persons, who constantlyseekmentalshortcutstosummarize theirexperiencesand cut through , itleads tomisjudgments andmisperceptions when thegeneralizations havelittlepowertopredictthe characteristics orbehavior of the entities to which they are being that.

10 In dealing with individuals or small groups, behavior can beeffectively understood andpredictedonly by assessingtheindividualsor groups themselves,taking account of thefull range of their specific characteristics and contexts (Bielby, 2000).THE ROLE OF THESENATIONALFRAMEWORKSINMULTICULTURAL MANAGEMENTTEACHINGD espite such warnings,courses in MULTICULTURAL managementtypicallydevoteconsiderable attention todescribingIBresearchon national culturesand applyingtheirfindings to individuals, groups, temptation to do so is TEACHING MULTICULTURAL managementwithinIBby arguing thatthey offercontentwhich other, domestically orientedfacultydo not,namely,IB s insights intonational differences. But management is an applied field,withthemajority ofpracticalsituationsfor which BBA and MBA programs seek to prepare their studentsarisingattheindividual, work group, or firmlevels,not the national ofthese twocircumstances makesalmost inevitableattempts to useinformation aboutnationalculturestoguidemanagers sub-national business be sure,many textbooks and instructors in MULTICULTURAL managementcoursesexplicitlywarnagainst thentheycontradict their own warnings bypresenting materialwhichdoesprecisely example,anon-linecourse module oninternational negotiations--a process involving individuals and groups--offerstheadvicethat Scandinavians tend to be uncomfortable with much bargainingat all (MSU,2007).