People often assume cultural heterogeneity creates tensions for
organizations. The authors developed a pilot project interviewing with
eight companies and they found, instead, that nationality-based culture
was one of the less significant variables affecting the integration of the
companies and their organizational effectivenesss. Also, they discovered
that relatively few issues or problems arose which could be labeled
“cultural”, even though managers were able to identify style differences
easily that t common cultural patterns. In addition, they found that
very few measures were taken to facilitate cultural integration. Cultural
values or national differences are used as a convenient explanation for
other problems, both interpersonal and organizational, such as a failure
to respect people, group power and politics, resentment at
subordination, poor strategic t, limited organizational communication,
or the absence of problem-solving forums.
Most interviewees were able to identify a number of ways in which they
differed “culturally” from their foreign colleagues in values,
interpersonal style, and organizational approach. The first difference
issue mentioned was Language problems. American employees noted
cultural differences in decision-making styles. They also identified a
number of differences in interpersonal style between themselves and
their foreign colleagues which they attributed to national culture.
If cultural differences between a parent and subsidiary do not
necessarily lead to significant inter-organizational conflict, what is the
real cause? The factors that moderate the relationship between cultural
