Cross Cultural management of a Mexcian MNC. Discuss critically how employees were motivated to participate in learning organisation environment of Equipos. You should draw on theories of motivation and cross cultural management in your answer.

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

“Learning Strategies rely heavily on employee involvement” (Gomez, 2003:3). Discuss critically how employees were motivated to participate in learning organisation environment of Equipos. You should draw on theories of motivation and cross cultural management in your answer.

1. INTRODUCTION:

MNCs is those organisations which are operational in different countries as franchise or itself business or in a form of international joint venture (IJV), though the concept and approaches of MNCs for the country were under studies since long but due to globalisation it pace of doing and managing a business is more rapid as ever before. Since organisations, now a day paying more focus on the soft side of HR as they realise employees, their skills and human related intangible stuff are no more alien for the organisation as in past HR was concerned as mob, for any organisational success, its human resource are playing the vital role and key difference among the competitors. Their intangible assets such as knowledge, skills etc. are essential to groom in an organisational context. Among several strategies, learning is key which produced drastic impact of organisational culture (Joy & Kolb 2009; Yoshitaka 2005). Also, these learning strategies can only be successful upon strong employee’s involvement. Todays’ diverse nature of these MNCs compels managers to use and understand different cross cultural approaches which motivate culture-specific employees to render their best for organisation. The case of Equipos is one example of such organisation which subsidies the impact of national culture (which is Mexican) and successful implement the learning strategies to turn itself into a learning organisation. This can only be possible by not cultural stereotyping, rather managers at Equipos struggled for achieving all this, by understanding the management of cross culture in the work place which urge the employees to participate in the organisational context. This study focuses different cross cultural theories and motivational frameworks with which Equipos manage to turn into a learning organisation.

2. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK:

The focus of this study is to analyse the statement that learning strategies rely heavily on employee involvement in the light of different cross cultural, motivation and learning theories. Though not a single theory can be fully implemented on Equipos, as it is the case of US MNC in Mexico which leads the cross cultural examination, but the main stress on the Hofstede, Trompenaars and GLOBE concept of managing cross culture including little emphasis on Schein’s model. This is because several of Hofstede five dimensions and Trompenaars seven dimensions are closely related with case, discuss in the analysis section. Learning theories which accounts are Social learning theory, Peter Senge model of LO and, that of 4I model of LO, especially the two dimension such as member solidarity and constructive engagement are more closely related as prove in the analysis section. Further, different motivational theories use in context to employees’ motivation at Equipos such as Handy motivational calculus’s need, desire and result used to explain those factors which urge employees’ involvement in organisational culture. This is supported by Porter and Lawler’s model which explains the two step performance based motivation process in the context of Equipos.

3. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION:

3.1 LEARNING BASED THEORIES IN CONTEXT OF EQUIPOS:

The main themes, which literature pointed out for enhancing the process of learning with in the organisation, may include knowledge diffusion, knowledge capturing and accumulation: are catches the significant importance while HR strategies are being an exercise within organisation. (Blacker, 1995) pointed out the five different types of knowledge repositories which helps an organisation to be a learning organisation it includes embrained , embodied , encultured , embedded and encoded knowledge which encompasses somehow the blend of tacit and explicit knowledge altogether. Among these types, embrained and embodied knowledge individually situated explicit and tacit form respectively which enables the individual to participate in overall organisational learning, if knowledge repository properly embrace with enough motivation.

Constructive engagement and member solidarity are two main components of (Jacky, Stanley, & Smith, 2006) social learning theory which engage the employees for active participation (Orlikowski, 2002) who recognise this as competence. Furthermore, open experience sharing is another key component of any organisational learning as well as constructive engagement where members exchanges their ideas, share their tacit knowledge (Wenger 1998). Whereas, the most significant part of this social theory of motivation is member solidarity which creates the sense of mutual trust and accountability enhance motivating individuals with in organisational context to share their embodied and embrained knowledge with each other as in the case of Mexican organisation which is US based MNC’s subsidiary.

Research indicates that the international joint ventures may weaken the organisational learning if differences occur at senior management level (Danis 2003), but in this case study, American businesses and Mexican managers have done nice job and was well planned and committed to organisational learning from the start of business because rather than fully owing the organisation they started their business by Joint venture which integrated senior level managers from Mexico as well, furthermore, company retained those managers remain at same when company owned the organisation as a subsidiaries(Gomez 2004) .

(Crossan et al. 1999) suggested the 4 I framework ...

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(Crossan et al. 1999) suggested the 4 I framework for learning organisation (LO) which includes intuition, interpreting, integrating, and institutionalising as key methods for LO at individual, group and organisation level. The application of 4I model is visible in the Mexican subsidiary of US MNC i.e. global learning for an organisation with in such cross cultural environment can only be possible while these factors ( 4 I ) are actually implemented and synchronise, for example, in 1992 ,the plant initiated the process of employee empowerment which was the first step towards self-managed teams. This process required high level of involvement by each individual of organisation since it worked in team fashion in which team leader was rotated every three months. Without using individual correct intuitive and interpretation power , one cannot execute the role of team leader and after that integration is done by manager which called their selves as facilitators in the context of employee empowerment, this ultimately institutionalise and practice the self-managed teams at end. Furthermore, this enable organisation to practice the shared vision, personal mastery, systematic thinking, and managing the diversity in organisation (P. Senge 1994; PM Senge et al. 1994), which overall enhance the employee motivation. For example, in Equipos the process of ownerships to self-managed teams reflect its true application.

3.2 CROSS CULTURAL MANAGEMENT IN EQUIPOS:

On account of national culture, Mexican culture is high power distance culture (G Hofstede 1984) which means acceptance of inequalities, power is distributed un-equally, acceptance of hierarchies are embedded in organisation structure. According PDI ( power distance index) , Mexico’s score were 81 than that of US ( Whose was 40) which supports high power distance culture (G Hofstede 2009), furthermore, by investigating other Hofstede’s cultural dimensions such as Mexican culture is less individualistic than that of US ( IDV score is 30 as compare to 91 for US ), this reflects that to implement successful learning strategies in Equipos is more cumbersome because of their high power distance and highly collective culture which is oriented towards family and extended family members such as friends. Also, it is worth noting that Mexican culture is more uncertainty avoidance culture ( UAI score is 82 than that of 46 for US), which interpret as intolerant to deviant persons and ideas (Browaeys & Price 2011; Orr 1990), this might rigid their behaviour towards learning leading to resistance towards organisational learning which occupied with individual behaviour (Nonaka & Konno 1998). Due to these culture specific characteristics it is incongruent to align and engage Equipos directly with organisational learning practices, so to encourage employee involvement in more significant manner, the process of learning began with employee empowerment rather than the direct learning strategy i.e. self-managed work teams (Gomez 2004). Both , Mexican and US culture are of Masculine in nature( MAS score is 69 and 62 respectively) which means ambition motivates (Browaeys & Price 2011) the employees to perform well and involve more enthusiastically.

Similar to Hofstede’s cultural dimension, GLOBE ( Global leadership and organisational behaviour effectiveness) research also suggest same dimensions such as power distance and uncertainty avoidance while studying the cluster of Latin America (House et al. 2004). Another interesting dimension of GLOBE which might be relate in context of motivation with cross cultural practices is Performance orientation which in literature supported by McClelland (1961) work on motivation such as need for achievement (Wolf 2004), which if great then people have rigorous desire to success and vice versa. As from the Mexican cultural aspect it is quite clear that they enjoy showing their work and have it recognised by their peers which act as motivator to them for McClelland above dimension of motivation, keeping this fact, organisational culture of Equipos are designed for employee involvement by organising ‘ Continuous improvement fair’ and ‘Liberation ceremony’ (Gomez 2004) which provide them chance of showing their actual potential and work to their colleagues and bosses , further supported by bonus which is some extrinsic motivation.

Another significant culture dimension is the context of communication which may high and low. (E. T. Hall & M. R. Hall 1990), the difference between them is degree of importance attached to the context of any message, for instance in Equipos, US based parent organisation may reflect the low context whereas that of Mexican subsidiary which were the reflection of her national culture, are high context. This difference was overcome by translating every program coming from headquarters into ‘Spanish’ and also ensures its viability within Mexican culture (Gomez 2004)

While examine Equipos with cross cultural aspect, from Trompenaars’ seven dimension theory. The organisational culture can be taken as particularism because there circumstances and relationships (especially, relations with family and extended family ) were more important than that of absolutes (Trompenaars 1996), also outer directed which means very sensitive towards environment, such as organisational environment in that power distance culture (French 2010; Geert Hofstede & Bond 1984; Child & Markoczy 1993) is highly authoritative and employees assume to act strictly on the given direction which was truly the outcome of top level decisions making. In context of relationship with people as it is consider an important dimension of Trompenaars (1996), Schein (1990), and Kluckholn & Strodtbeck (1961), Mexican are typically not having close relations with their supervisors because of historically hierarchal type of organisations (Gomez 2004). However, this may not take as sophisticated stereotyping that these employees are no more willing to participate in learning, rather different overcoming managerial practices such ownership practice, quality program, and interpersonal skills training were initiated in the Equipos which brought the fruitful results at the end of each practice this emerged to a true self-managed work teams (P. Senge 1994) which is essential for cultivating in any learning culture.

3.3 MOTIVATIONAL THEORIES AND EQUIPOS

Another factor which contributes to the high level of employee involvement and learning in Equipos is employees’ self-efficacy (Porter et al. 2003). Self-efficacy believes that one can executes certain task or set of tasks in to achieve the goal. As self-efficacy is the integral part of social cognitive theory which acknowledges that employees action depend on both( intrinsic and extrinsic) motivation, therefore employees act on their self-efficacy believe that how well they can execute the specific behaviour for a successful attempt towards goals. In case of Equipos, manager used employees’ self-efficacy content to align their culture specific HR practices which contributed in overall organisational culture as well as employee behaviours as proposed in the integrated model proposed by Gomez. This can also supported by literature , (DeVoe & Lyengar 2004) concluded that “ Latin American managers supposed their employees as being more intrinsically than extrinsically motivated, and accordingly, only their perceptions of intrinsic motivation proved to be significantly correlated with performance appraisal and involvement in organisational processes”.

The third motivational theory which can equally applicable in the case of Equipos is Handy’s motivational calculus which have three factors to be audit for checking the necessary motivation in person such as needs, desired results, Expenditure , where needs may be defined as with same criteria as that of Maslow or other need theory contributor, desired results are expected result by accomplishing the task and finally expenditure may use as effort ( as used in different goal setting theories) and/or energy and excitement (Handy 1976). For Equipos, as from national culture, Mexican’s are willing to show their work to their peers who encourage them to make expenditure of effort and energy for their desired result of appreciation in terms of non-monetary rewards or bonuses as monetary rewards which urge them to actively participate in organisational context. Also utilising Handy’s motivation calculus, barriers of least cooperativeness was overcome by managers. Nevertheless, the deviation towards family member and extended family member which was cultural aspect of Mexican acted remains as hurdle unless controlled by another motivational technique.

Furthermore, this can be elaborate in context of expectancy theory of motivation. Victor Vroom (1964), who firstly put forward an expectancy model, indicated the expectancy is the factor of force or extent of motivation which individual may perceived in organisation setup along with valence or anticipated satisfaction. In Accordance to his theory, Equipos managers also worked in similar way to enhance the employees involvement in organisation learning and overall performance, Firstly they created the relation of every employees with colleagues ( as part of extended family , which is cultural aspect of Mexican culture), this act as first level of valence ( motivator ) which probe the overall cooperation in highly task oriented culture resulting the successful self-managed work teams.

As being Mexican based subsidiary, Equipos initially was familiar with highly authoritative style of management which supported with truly top level decisions making as their cultural trait. For learning organisation, it is necessary to become accustomed with every level of decision making by every employee. To deal with this latent incongruence between the organisation and national culture, employee empowerment was initiated in step by step fashion. Each step outcome (tangible for example productivity and intangible for example performance and increased involvement) used as input to next stage. This can be view as motivating factor for encouraging the overall learning. (Porter & Lawler 1967) motivation model for management is the extended and more complete version of Vroom(1964) works which suggested that the amount of effort generated may depends upon: reward’s value, required amount of effort, and probability of receiving the reward. In the light of this model, above efforts of achieving self-managed teams were organised is such a way that each steps outcome is associated with tangible and intangible set of rewards which motivate employees to put all their efforts, skills, ability and personality for achieving the higher level of performance. For example, in 1992, a program to take ownership of the maintenance of equipment were introduced, after its successful implementation( the performance outcome according to Porter & Lawler) next quality program were inducted by using the success outcome of previous program. In this way, they gradually implemented the self-managed work teams which may considered at highest output level of motivation for those employees of Equipos i.e. self-esteemed level according to Maslow’s need theory.

4. CONCLUSION:

Hayes and Allinson (1988) argue that the country’s culture may act as powerful socialisation agent which might have greater impact on the development of organisational learning style working with in that culture bound scenario. It can be delineated that mangers of Equipos use the intrinsic motivation adopted from national Mexican culture and extrinsic motivation which is prevail is usual organisational management practice to increase the employees participation manifold in organisational context

Managers of Equipos, use the cultural mismatch in positive sense by turning employees workplace colleagues into their extended family members, this was done by using team camaraderie

Strategy which acted as motivator, where events were organised between the different groups of employees, also inviting their family members to know how about each other. This tactic served as resort to think colleagues as extended family members, which is key cultural aspect of Mexican i.e. highly collectivism towards family member and extended family member. (Holden 2002) recognised that cultural values remain important but within culture shared meanings, individual knowledge and their capability to share also of vital nature for organisation learning and their decision making.

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