Culture Issues

When addressing information systems and technology globally, culture is an important aspect to be considered as it influences the success or failure of global transformation. In the new challenge of globalization the reality of cultural diversity is not avoidable. Instead, organizations should be encouraged to embrace diversity and turn the multicultural characteristics into strategic advantages. Understanding this diversity is crucial to conducting any global business. As Kincaid correctly points out (Kincaide, 1999) doing business "requires a deep respect of the country's culture, religions and institutions." Furthermore, understanding the cultural issues and variables will provide organizations a certain level of competitive edge in the global business environment. O'Hara-Devereaux and Johansen (1994) introduced a multifaceted lens concept - a way of peering through the fog of cultural diversity. The multifaceted lens concept is based on the identification and understanding of various cultural dimensions including:

Language - refers to the vocabulary, structure, and meanings of oral and written communication. For example, a standardized global customer relationship management (CRM) application may require multiple interfaces designed in different language characters (such as English, Chinese, or Japanese) for subsidiaries in different countries. However, in a global organization it is very difficult for the internal communications to take place without an agreed common language.

Context - refers to the entire array of incentives surrounding every communication event. The measurement of context can be assigned either high or low. High-context cultures assign meaning to many of the incentive surrounding and unambiguous message. On the other hand, low-context cultures leave out many of those incentive and focus on the objective communication event (O'Hara-Devereaux and Johansen, 1994). For example, high-context culture refers to an individuals context or their relationship with other people (e.g., families and friends) as more important (that is the context in which the individual relates to people/ families) than the individuals themselves do. Low-context culture means it is less important whom an individual is related to (i.e., the context in which the person operates), but more importantly, what the individual does.

Time - the concept of time and time management differ widely from culture to culture. As per Edward and Mildred Hall (1990) described, cultural time differences can be thought of either monochronic or polychronic categories. In monochronic time category, people tend to do one single thing at a time, however, in polychronic time category, people can perform multiple tasks at once. Another aspect in relation to the time is the orientation. The time orientations are generally partitioned as past, present and future. According to O'Hara-Devereaux and Johansen (1994), cultures are either future-oriented or past-oriented. This means the current operations of business activities are designed to influence the future events or to be influenced by past events. Different cultures would have different emphases on time orientation. For instance, Asian cultures are inclined to be oriented toward a more distant future. On the other hand, many Latin cultures are heavily influenced by the past. When planning for cross-culture collaborative works, for example the global information systems development teams with members across nations and culture backgrounds, organizations need to consider the employees' attitudes toward time categories and orientations and derive a balanced "Time" solution for maximizing the performance in the global collaborative situation.

Power equality - refers to the degree of power and authority distribution and understanding of equality in different cultural perspective. Organizational units in various cultures may have diverse perception of power, authority, and equality to employees. For example, some cultures might demonstrate higher respect to professional, skilled employees than to general unskilled workers. Thus, skilled professionals would derive more power than unskilled workers would. In this dimension, organizations ought to carefully adjust the power, authority, and equality given to employees in diverse cultural backgrounds while maintaining equivalent level of distribution (power, authority, and equality) among business units.

Information flow - refers to the methods and paths of transferring information and data between people across levels and regions within the organization. Information flow is critical in productively carrying out business operations and achieving business objectives in a cross-cultural business environment. Global organizations need to realize the cultural impact on the information flow and ensure that information travels from one part of the organization to another within expected time, sequence, and format.

Additionally, many recent research publications have reported that the knowledge of culture and cultural environments is crucial for the success of the globalization process. In addition, a number of global information systems management issues related to culture and culture differences have been outlined by researchers (Burn J. et al., 1993; Ein-Dor, Segev and Orgad, 1993; Sauter, 1992; Yellen, 1997). These issues aim to draw organizations' attention intending to pursue globalization. There are several aspects pertaining to culture that need to be heeded by an organization planning to globalize its information systems management. These include education levels, geographical and time zones, religion aspect, demographic perspective, individual significance and objectives, communication, and leadership style. To recognize the importance of these, each aspect is further explored and discussed in the following sections.

Education Levels

The education level in relation to the information technology and globalization depends upon various aspects of a country's vision. In some developing countries such as China and India, information technology seems to be the main agenda in the national education strategy as the rationale of competing with developed countries. However, some other countries have much less emphasis on information technology education. A company's transition to globalization can be impacted significantly based on the level of education in the regions it operates.

Geographical and Time Zones

Geographical by dispersion of business units with respective time zone ranges are natural characteristics of organizations that operate their business globally. These can be both helpful and detrimental. These can be helpful because of round-the-clock information systems development scenario. On the other hand, the geographical and time zone differences could be detrimental. In videoconference and telephone conference situations, for instance, an inter-organizational meeting scheduled at two o'clock in the afternoon in Sydney would cause difficulty for people to participate in New York (as it would be the middle of the night there).

Religion

Sometimes religion has major influence on the daily schedule of business operations. For example, in the Islamic world, Friday is considered the holy day and is part of the weekend instead of Sunday. Business units or subsidiaries in Islamic areas must align their business hours to the religious activities. Religious events also affect organizations' non-working (holiday) periods. For instance, most of the Western world would have a one-week Christmas holiday; India will be in holiday season during Diwali, somewhere in between the end October and early November; Arab countries and China also have different holiday periods. Organizations with business units or subsidiaries operating in different countries need to ensure that there are no scheduled business activities during the times and days for religious activities and festivals.

Demographic Perspective

The focus of demographic aspect in global culture category is specifically associated with age and gender perspective. Age distribution can be quite different in every social culture. The general perceptions and values of age groups are also different from culture to culture. For example, many Western cultures value young people over the elders, whereas elders are revered in most Asian cultures. In the gender perspective, masculinity and femininity are the two key categories to be considered. In masculine cultures, gender roles are strictly distinguished; therefore, competitiveness and strength tend to be appreciated in organizations. In feminine cultures, values such as cooperation, caring and nurturing are valued and there is less demarcation between gender roles.

Although there is no perfect and standard solution to overcome the various cultural differences in age and gender aspects, organizations are strongly recommended to comprehend the meaning of these aspects in each culture and fine-tune the appropriateness to their working environment.

Significance and Objectives of the Individual

No matter where the employee is located or the position of the employee as a human being, an individual has its own objectives and meaning of the life. These objectives can be identified in three aspects: personal, social, and professional. From time to time, the emphasis of these aspects is changing, or conflicting with each other. For instance, an individual's personal objective is to spend more time with the family, but a promotion opportunity is given to the individual with the condition of working several months overseas. Hence, the individual has to decide whether to take the promotion opportunity and sacrifice the family commitment. Similarly, each organization has it own objectives and these objectives may conflict with employees' personal objectives. To overcome this conflict, the organizations must realize their employees' objectives, and negotiate with a realignment strategy to achieve a win-win situation.

Communication

As in the earlier discussion of O'Hara-Devereaux and Johansen's cultural lenses, communication primarily refers to languages in either verbal or written forms. Although English is the common language for business communication around the world in both written and verbal formats, there are other languages prominent in specific regions. For example, Chinese is the widespread language in greater China region (includes mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore); Spanish is the common language used in most Latin American countries. Adopting a language to be used across a multinational organization is a challenge task in the global transition process. In addition to language itself, methods used to flowing messages also play an import role in global business communication. The traditional ways of transferring messages amongst organizations are telephone conversation, fax and telex. On the other hand, e-mails, Web cam, and mobile SMS (Short Message Service) are the technological ways of transferring messages between companies.

Communication is always a major concern in most global organizations. Enterprises should ensure a standard communication topology is embedded in the policy and implemented in daily operations.