April 30th, 2008
Yongbei Liu
Jingbin Xu
Jingling Zhang
Xianjing Zhou
EMLyon
Cultural Dimensions in People Management
For any international organization, it is of extremely significance to understand cultural
differences and make good use of them in the global context. Through insight into a
culture perspective, the article analyzes the role and impact of culture.
It starts by introducing prerequisite concept of socialization and then deals with four
cultural dimensions on the national level. Finally, it copes with corporate culture.
*ƒ¿*ƒ*†’*ƒ*…½*ƒ¿*ƒ”€š*ƒ‚ Socialization
Socialization, referred here, is the way in which a person is conditioned by environment(s).
It is the process in which individuals get involved in the society, communicate and learn
with each other. Before being socialized in a corporation, people are influenced by family
and school. This process, so called pre-socialization, has more impact on personal behavior
than socialization does.
The four elements in socialization are symbols, heroes, rituals and value.
1) Symbols, serving as bridges among feeling, thoughts and action, help people
communicate and share their frames of thoughts.
It may be exemplified in a case study of nurses on a hospital rehabilitation unit who had
requested a change in dress code. Pratt and Rafaeli (1997) discovered that the nurses social
identity was at the heart of the discussion. When nurses were talking about street clothes
vs. medical scrubs, they were actually talking about underlying philosophies related to
their patients, their work, and their professional identities. The nurses used the symbol of
organizational dress to represent and talk about the conflicting identities.
2) Heroes, on the organizational level, it can be the ideal manager or the founder. These
people always have the deepest influence on the company. The selection of ideal managers
depends on the organizational culture. If the company is conservative, there is no need to
find a manager to be ambitious; it will find a cautious person instead.
3) Rituals are always set for a long time, and seem to vary widely by culture. For example,
in the non-task stage in a negotiation, Americans generally spend less time than Mexican
and Japanese do. In those countries, cultural norm that forming a good interpersonal
relationship with business partners is likely to determine seal of a deal lead to the non-task
stage playing a critical role. When it comes to contract, Americans tend to prepare long
and detailed one while in Japan, it would be short and rough. In addition, contracts are
always signed in a formal setting such as an office or conference room in America while in
