Swedish and Indian Teams: Consensus Culture Meets Hierarchy Culture in Offshoring Minna Salminen-Karlsson Uppsala University

Communities of practice Communities of practice, Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (2002): Groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis. Mutual engagement - domain Joint enterprise - community Shared repertoire - practice

Two communities model

Virtual communities “The people are identifified as members of the team; all members are responsible for the end product; the members communicate with each other; and the members are located in different countries.” Maznevski and Chudoba (2000)

Presentation outline Prerequisites for creating a virtual CoP. What kind of learning took place Virtual CoPs in the organizational context

Material European based MNC (previously Swedish company) Several Swedish offices, two offices in India visited Studied 4 teams in depth, 4 teams more superficially. Interviews with high level managers in India and offshoring facilitators in Sweden. Altogether 103 interviews. Atlas.ti coding

Creating virtual communities of practice Ability: Long practice in working cooperatively Security: No personal employment threat Possibility: Resources – technical communication and travel Motivation: The necessity of organizing work this way for keeping up the quality

CoPs as the only way to do good quality work I think the whole team was somewhat doubtful, wondering how this would end, how it would be, because we had been working so tightly together […] And there was this stubbornness and engagement, and now we have to set up communications, and we have to get them here, and we have to … it must not be some people who sit there far away and write code for us, and we don’t know what we get, and maybe they don’t know how, no, we must have very tight communication here.

Mutual learning Swedish oldtimers: New management styles How to behave in a hierarchy culture Flatten hierarchies Ask questions, give orders, feedback and rewards Language skills Knowledge of another culture

Learning new management styles In the first meetings it didn’t work very well, because our Indian colleagues said almost nothing, they were quiet. They did not want to tell that they had tasks left to do. It was because the project leaders were there, both the Indian and the Swedish one. Then, when the meetings were over, they could talk about it. Then I told the project leaders that they could not participate. It was the groups who would meet […], those who work with the details, and it started working. They could open up and tell that I have this much left, maybe ten per cent or five per cent and it is about this and that. And they discussed it in the meeting. So it’s possible to solve.

Learning new management styles You know, when you are in Sweden, there is consensus in the conference room, and you have talked for an hour and everybody gets up and somehow everybody understands what they are supposed to do. Of course that doesn’t work if you are working with a group who are sitting very far away and are working in a totally different manner, so I have learnt to be much more explicit. I have learnt to order people around.

Mutual learning Swedish oldtimers: New management styles How to behave in a hierarchy culture Flatten hierarchies Ask questions, give orders, feedback and rewards Language skills Knowledge of another culture Indian newcomers: New organizational culture and working methods How to behave in a consensus culture: Take responsibility for the product Contribute

Learning new organizational cultures We have made them work with modern processes of systems development, like those that have emerged after the year … It is important that every employee puts their foot down, every employee makes time estimates. It’s not the boss who says that this will take three weeks. That boss doesn’t have the faintest idea, but he says something because he has to say something … I have learnt how to plan the project, how to plan a single task. … how to plan the things, what are the responsibilities you have. You should know completely what responsibilities you have and when work comes across, then you should plan before you start.

Organizational problems for virtual CoPs Knowledge management vs social learning View on recruitment and attrition

Recruitment and attirition – knowledge and power Recruitment If I’m going to employ somebody or hire somebody, of course I interview them, for, I mean, one person is not like another… But there was this attitude that if you are going to have somebody Indian, you just take one off the shelf. Attirition Some of the managers in Sweden feel that X, Y, Z resources belong to me in India. If they do not do the work or if they leave and go then my quality suffers. My point is, you offshore some work to us. Now, whether X, Y, Z, is doing it or A, B, C is doing it, it is none of your concern

To summarize An existing CoP creates a virtual CoP – If they feel secure and have a motivation to include the new members Both newcomers and oldtimers broaden their repertoires – Newcomers learn new ways of solving problems and working together, in contrast to their previous organizational context In the meeting with the hierarchical Indian culture, Swedish managers used different strategies to keep their CoP approach, both towards their Indian team members and towards the Indian management.

Thank you. Questions?