1. Cultural Synergy What is Cultural Synergy? How Can it be Achieved?
How Can it be Used as a Competitive Advantage?

2. Cultural Invisibility
Cultural Blindness:
Choosing not to see cultural differences
Others become a projection of yourself
American’s are taught to blind themselves to gender, racial and ethnic differences.

3. Cultural Diversity can cause Problems
Most global managers can articulate the disadvantages of cultural divesity… few can articulate the advantages.
Cultural diversity can cause problems during convergent process (everyone needs to think/act the same).
Cultural diversity can cause problems when overgeneralizations occur of practices and processes from one culture to another (e.g. what works in one culture may not work in another)
Cultural diversity increases the complexity of company-wide policies (e.g. definition of “family” in one culture versus another).

4. Advantages of Cultural Diversity
In divergent process where expanded perspectives, strategies, tactics and ideas are needed.
Reduces the risk of GroupThink

5. Cultural Diversity Advantages/Disadvantages
Synergistic Advantages: Organizational Benefits Derived from Cultural Diversity
Disadvantages: Organizational Costs caused by Cultural Diversity
Expanding meanings:
Diversity increases ambiguity, complexity and confusion
Greater openness to new ideas, multiple perspectives, multiple interpretations
Difficulty converging meanings: miscommunication, harder to reach agreement
Expanding Alternatives:
Difficulty converging actions: harder to agree of specific actions
Increasing creativity, flexibility and problem-solving skills
Culture-specific advantages: Benefits from Working with a Particular Culture
Culture-Specific Disadvantages: Costs inherent in working with a particular culture
Better understanding of local employees
Overgeneralizing: policies, strategies, practices and procedures
Better able to work effectively with local clients and market effectively to local customers
Ethnocentrism
Increased understanding o local political, social, legal, economic and cultural environment

6. Strategies for Managing Cultural Diversity
Parochial (simply ignore diversity)
Choose not to recognize diversity
“Our way is the only way”
Ethnocentric (Either create homogeneous teams or attempt to mold teams to the dominate culture)
Recognize but see diversity only as a problem
“Our way is the best way”
Synergistic (manage the impacts of diversity rather than diversity itself)
See the diversity and recognize potential advantages and disadvantages
“Our way and their way differ but neither is inherently superior to the other”

7. Which Organizations Benefit from Cultural Diversity?
Parochial
Ethnocentric
Synergistic
“Our way is the only way”
“Our way is best”
“Leveraging our ways and their ways may work best”
What is the perceived impact of cultural diversity on organizations?
No impact: Cultural diversity has no impact on organizations
Negative impact: Cultural diversity causes problems for organizations
Potential negative and positive impacts: Cultural diversity leads to both problems and advantages for organizations
How should the impact of cultural diversity on organizations be managed?
Ignore Differences: Ignore the impact of cultural diversity on organizations
Minimize Differences: Minimize the sources and impact of cultural diversity on organizations. If possible, select a monocultural workforce
Manage Differences: Train managers to recognize and use cultural differences to create advantages for the organization.
What consequences can managers expect when using perception and strategy?
Problems: Problems occur but they are not attributed to cultural diversity
Some problems and few advantages: Managers reduce problems by reducing diversity; they ignore or eliminate potential advantages
Some problems and many advantages: Managers recognize and benefit from cultural diversity. Some problems continue to occur and need to be managed
Frequency
Very Common
Common
Less Common

8. Cultural Synergy
“the behavior of whole systems that cannot be predicted by the behavior of any parts taken separately”
Builds upon similarities and fuses differences resulting in more effective human activities and systems (Moran, Harris)
Assumes that similarities and differences share equal importance
Assumes equifinality- that many equivalent ways to live, to work and to reach goals exist.
Assumes cultural contingency- “the best way depends on the situation and the particular cultures of the individuals involved”

9. Misleading Assumptions
Homogeneity
All people are basically the same
Heterogeneity
The cultural mosaic

10. 3- step process to Cultural Synergy
Describe the situation
Determine underlying cultural assumptions
Assess cultural overlaps
Create culturally synergistic alternatives
Select an alternative
Implement the culturally synergistic solution
Step 1: Describing the situation
Step 2: Interpreting the Cultures
Step 3: Increasing Cultural Creativity

11. 3- Step Process 1. Describe the Situation
2. Culturally Interpret the Situation
3. Increasing Cultural Creativity
“What can we learn from one another?”
“How can we combine and leverage our various cultures”

12. Global Strategic Options
Cultural Dominance
Use approaches from home culture
Generally occurs when involving cultural values/ethics (e.g. safety violations, bribery)
Cultural Accommodation
Imitate other cultures
“When in Rome do as the Romans do”
Cultural Compromise
Both cultures concede

13. Global Strategic Options (cont)
Cultural Avoidance
Cultural Blindness- Ignore difference
Used when the issue is less important that the long-term business relationship
Cultural Synergy
Leverage the cultural differences
Cultural Synergy is an approach, not the approach