Overview

Four international students are interviewing the father of one of the students, who is the CEO of the Central and Eastern European division of one of the biggest international accounting companies in the world, in order to gain insight on potential corporate cultural issues for a project. Two of the students study in Poland and the other two in The Netherlands. The CEO comes from Poland – a country with a very high level of uncertainty avoidance and a large power distance. 

The questions focused on the type of customers the company receives, their corporate culture and how the company deals with potential issues that might occur. However, during the interview an issue occurred – he refused to give detailed answers about the company and did not share any situation or negative incident where a cultural issue occurred, despite being asked several leading questions. All responses painted the company in a positive light. The interviewee said they hired the proper employees for the job which they do through an extensive selection process. When employees do get hired, they work in a very risk aversive environment where it’s prohibitive to make mistakes illustrated by their zero-tolerance policy for fraud and unacceptable social, racial or sexual behaviors. The result of this is an uninhibited independent structure for reporting abusive or inappropriate behavior. An example of this, would be the careful selection of qualified translators to assist in cross-border collaboration, depending on the region of operation. Through the inclusion and diversity programs employees are able to adapt to the company culture where all issues are dealt with. The CEO highlighted this by expressing that the company’s culture is rooted in their values, integrity, and open and honest communication where they focus on building trust and collaborating in a flexible and diverse environment, to bring out the best in each other.

The student team got together to discuss the interview and noticed a clash in perspectives. The students from The Netherlands viewed the answers as short and insufficient while the students from Poland found the information provided adequate. The Polish students argued that one of the issues that might have led to short, direct and repetitive answers is the fact that the purpose of the interview was not clearly stated before the interview. This meant that the interviewee was not aware how his answers would be used later on in the project. On the other hand, the students from The Netherlands viewed his responses as incomplete and concealed due to being from a highly masculine society where admitting to mistakes is inhibitive, as it is likely to reflect incompetence. Another factor that could have influenced the answers which received is the power distance. It could be that the interviewee felt it was prohibitive to disclose information about problems within the company because of the large power distance and role as CEO. 

Hofestede Dimensions

https://tcps.institute/cultural_bridges_tool.html

OUTCOME

Hierarchy: The CEO doesn’t want to answer the leading questions because he comes from a very large power distance society (68). A man of his stature in Poland is probably not used to disclosing such intimate details about his place of work as a high-ranking professional. It could also relate to the fact that his own son was the main interviewer and revealing issues within a company that he is in charge of can be inhibitive from his perspective. The students from The Netherlands made this assumption on the basis that Poland had a much higher power distance than The Netherlands and ruled it reasonable.

Identity: Although the Polish society scores lower (60) than the Dutch in individualism (80), it remains relatively high. Even though Polish society is an individualistic society, the employees within the company adjust to the internal company culture that is present within the workplace and behave as one collective group identity with the abovementioned shared values. 

Gender: There was a clear pattern in the CEO’s responses to suggestive questions by giving the short and repetitive answer of ‘no’. This pattern can be explained through the high masculinity score of Poland (64). The masculine society puts social pressure onto the CEO which makes it prohibitive for the CEO to admit problems that occurred within the company. Within the Polish society accounting firms are generally competitive and using emotive language such as “fraud” instead of more cognitive language could result in more defensive answers. This is done to maintain high standards and not “lose” in the public’s eye.

Truth: The company seems to have adopted a high uncertainty avoidance mindset according to multiple answers provided by the interviewee. All answers illustrated high precaution and high-risk aversion such as their extensive hiring process and their zero-tolerance policy for fraud and unacceptable social behaviors. In addition, the Polish students defended the interviewee’s answers by saying that he might have been uncertain about the usage of his information. They suggested this is what resulted in the interviewee giving short answers to avoid both cultural and brand image issues. Once again, this highlights the very high level of uncertainty avoidance (93) in the Polish culture that the students from the Netherlands may not have perceived as inhibitive, due to having more uncertainty tolerance.  

Best Practice (within the team): In an ideal situation, it would be of great importance to pay more attention to the verbal and non-verbal communication in context. Just by looking at the words used in response to the questions, the verbal element of the interview was perceived as inadequate by some of the students. However, it was pointed out by the other students that the interviewee was very straight-forward in his non-verbal expression and did not hesitate when answering, deeming his contribution as adequate. The value of direct communication (bottom of the iceberg model) is shared by both Polish and Dutch culture, however, the expression (tip of the iceberg model) of responding in a short manner was perceived differently by the team – the students from Poland (more high context) did not see an issue in comparison with the students from the Netherlands (more low context).

Best Practice (within the organization): Ideally a company wants to not have any cultural problems when working with translators and interpreters. According to the CEO his firm does this by recruiting suitable and qualified translators and interpreters. The company does this through having a very extensive and strict selection process which properly identifies whether the potential employees are suitable for the company. This comprehensive selection process can be linked back to the high uncertainty mindset that the firm has. Other companies could minimize their risk of cultural problems by seeing if the potential employees are able to adjust to company culture.

Authors

Arcadi Abas: Block 2, Semester 1, 2020/2021
(LinkedIn)

Sara Miqdadi: Block 2, Semester 1, 2020/2021
(LinkedIn)