Overview

For this interview, the vice president of a multimedia company was interviewed. In this interview, the cultural differences and situations of the interviewee were shared. The interviewee explained and gave insights on several situations where the cultural aspect is listed in. Furthermore, examples of inhibitive and prohibitive situations on the work floor are mentioned (Hofstede et al., 2002). The company consists of a very diverse company culture, where all the cultures and behaviours are respected. This is seen by the diverse ethnicities in the workplace with co-workers with an Indian, Polish, Russian and Japanese background.

Looking at the company and the interview the situations mentioned are mostly from the countries in the diagram. There could be many differences when looking at the several dimensions such as a very high power distance in Russia in comparison to the Netherlands. This can also be understood and seen out of the examples mentioned in the interview regarding the direct behaviour of the Russian Co-workers. Furthermore, looking at the Individualistic behaviour of the Netherlands in comparison to India it can be understood why the Indian co-workers are more likely to say “yes” instead of directly saying “no”. Another example that is evident in the differences of the dimensions between Dutch and Japanese culture is Japanese achievement and uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede et al., 2002).

Outcome

In our interview with our interviewee, we have obtained a good overview of the way culture influences the working environment of the company. As this is a large company, our hypothesis is that a large variety of cultural backgrounds exist within the employment of the company, from top to bottom. We also suppose that this variety will heavily influence the company from within. This hypothesis is clearly confirmed by the interviewee. First of all, people from different cultural backgrounds will result in a situation where people have different mother tongues. To cope with this, the company incorporated English as their ‘’company language’’. This means the social norm is to speak English with your colleagues. It is strictly prohibited to speak another language when a fellow employee has not mastered that language. Nevertheless, the interviewee indicated that he speaks Dutch with his colleagues when all his fellow employees have a C1 (European Framework of Languages) language level in Dutch (Hofstede et al., 2002).

Secondly, hierarchy is observable in the company, as it is in most of the large companies around the globe. However, this hierarchy is different than in French or German companies. Hierarchy is, as it is in most Anglo-Saxon companies,  more seen as a tool instead of being a measurement of power. Our interviewee indicated that, as Vicepresident, he uses the well known 80/20 rule. He believes 80% has to be discussed by the whole team involved, and 20% of the decision making process has to come directly by orders of the manager. He feels inhibited to give orders to his peers on all subjects. His vision is to always have an open discussion with the whole team and to include them in almost all decision-making processes. Consequently, employees are more enthusiastic and thinking outside of the box and this enhances the final result. To quote the interviewee, he calls this ‘’creating a playing field’’.

Furthermore, our interviewee has explained that you have to keep in mind that people from different backgrounds respond in different ways in particular situations. To give an example, during a business dinner, Americans generally love to speak about sport, where Japanese people prefer to keep the conversation more to the point. So for our interviewee, this of course means it is inhibitive to speak about sport with Japanese colleagues/partners. For people from all cultural backgrounds, it is strictly prohibited to speak about religion and politics in business dinners (Hofstede et al., 2002). You don’t know how someone will respond to such topics and to use the Weaver Iceberg model they might agree with you on the surface but in reality, could be offended and this would not be known because it is below the surface.

We also discussed how to interculturally interact with peers. Indian people for example will never say no in your face. This is inhibitive for them. On the other hand, Dutch people are very straightforward (Hofstede et al., 2002). Our interviewee’s vision is that you have to understand yourself first (i.e. you have to know what it means to be Dutch, what the Dutch culture means etc.), and from there you will find a way to deal with different cultural backgrounds. His solution to navigating communication with Indian peers is to ask them more questions to establish a clearer view of their position in a particular case. In the case of Americans, his experience is that they will never tell you exactly the context, but will ‘’describe’’ it. To deal with them, he found out you will have read between the lines. When making a deal with the Japanese people, an agreement is an agreement and they stick to it. Whereas an agreement is only accepted when the Russians have paid and the money is in your bank account. Lastly, the Polish can be perceived as quite stubborn and can get nervous if one could be too pragmatic which is part of Hofstede’s uncertainty avoidance. So when interacting with Polish peers, sameness and assimilation create a more levelled working environment.

This company does not avoid political issues. On the contrary, it embraces and works with the changing general opinion of society over time on some subjects, for example, ethical and humanitarian issues. It is strictly prohibited in this company to discriminate against people based on their background and this will not be tolerated (Hofstede et al., 2002). This applies to racial jokes and age discrimination as well. Employees receive training for this each year which is evaluated by means of a mock test. A lawyer participates in a discussion and gives an example of what could be perceived as discrimination. For example, there is a special LGBT acceptance training in the company. Since this program was implemented, the acceptance of LGBT people among employees has increased a lot, from the very top to the very bottom of employees in the company. A practical example from our interviewee is to hire someone who is not similar to him. His experience is that many different cultures will bring up many different skills, and if you join forces, there will be opportunities for development. He feels inhibited to work in a team with only people who are similar to his cultural background. He sees this as a moral obligation. In doing this he uses the rule of ‘’Treat people like you want to be treated yourself’’. This must be your moral compass.

Possible Solutions/ Best Practice

It is a very open-minded company, welcoming people from all cultural and social backgrounds around the globe. They avoid cultural barriers by training their employees in dealing with different cultures, letting teams exist of more than one ethnicity and provide tips when you make a small mistake in a particular situation. Our interviewee still feels very happy in doing his job and hopes to work for this company for many more years to come.

Student Authors

Louis Galeyrand (LinkedIn)
Kozminski University, Warsaw, Poland
Block 4, semester 2. 2021

Wies Duivenvoorden (LinkedIn)
Faculty Business and Economics, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Block 4, semester 2. 2021

Preshaya Kewalbansing (LinkedIn)
Amsterdam School of International Business, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences,  Amsterdam, Netherlands
Block 4, semester 2. 2021