Solution:

Find a way to get your messages across in a way that everyone will fully understand. You can incorporate multilingual translators onto your teams. In addition, make use of functional translation software an apps. You can also offer ongoing language classes in the company’s primary language. The objective is to ensure every single team member feels included and valued.

2. Cultural differences

Similar to the language barrier, people from Eastern cultures will have varying cultural norms from those in a Western culture. For instance, a Western manager may seem too assertive, loud or direct for a team member from Japan or other Asian countries where requests are made more politely and indirectly.

On the other hand, an employee from a Western background may be more inclined to speak up when something feels wrong as opposed to someone from an Eastern culture who might have been taught to never question the boss, even when they are wrong.

These cultural barriers can lead to confusion among team members and a lack of cohesion. In another example, Americans may come across as more informal and casual with the employee and manager relationship where someone from a place like Japan would prefer or is used to more formal constructs.

Solution:

Take the time to learn about the different cultural norms of your team members, understand how they perceive assertiveness and communicate appropriately. Furthermore, encourage your employees to learn about their colleague’s cultures, as well.

3. The decision-making process

Cultures have different styles of making decisions. In America, managers are expected to make decisions quickly where in other cultures managers take their time for due diligence, gathering more information and often consult team members to make sure that the decision is arrived at unanimously.

Solution:

Diverse employees will have different expectations. What you can do is to ensure every member of your multicultural teams understands your process when making decisions.

Learn about the differences of each of your team members, and then determine how decisions will be executed. Next, make it a priority to talk to each employee individually to ask how they feel about your management style and decision making process to see if they can feel comfortable with it.

4. Styles of communication: Aggression and tone

Cultures have different styles of communication. As mentioned earlier, American managers tend to be more aggressive and straightforward than their Easter counterparts. For some team members, this can come across as too direct. This can also relate to cultural norms of each member of your multicultural teams.

Solution:

You can’t change your style overnight. What you can do is to ensure every member of your multicultural teams understands your process when making decisions. Then, make it a priority to talk to each employee individually to ask how they feel about your management style and if they can feel comfortable with it.

5. Challenge of motivating a culturally diverse team

The perception of motivation may vary from one culture to another. What can be motivating for you may be regarded as de-motivating for people from another culture.

Solution:

Speak with people from different cultures individually to discover what motivates them and what extent of manager intervention is acceptable to them. Come to common grounds with them on the expected results if their suggestions are implemented and observe the impact.

5. You are a corporate culture specialist. Talk about career development opportunities available at the company you work for.

I'm a corporate culture specialist. My goal is to aid newcomers and explain them about career development in our company.

From the interview you probably remember that in our company we have a well-developed system of perks and bonuses.

Your major goal should be the next one - to perform well and do your best while doing your work. You will be able to benefit from these perks very soon, but remember that all depends on you and your performance.

The main aim of your colleagues towards you is to try to help you at every moment you need and break any arising barrier.

Our company has created a really dynamic working atmosphere, that’s why you will never feel your day boring.

Good morning to all our new comers! We are glad to welcome you on board. During your interviews you had a chance to ask questions Important for you about working in our company. And you know, the most popular and, of course, logic question was about career development opportunities. What can our company offer you to increase your knowledge and experience? We are really concerned about your growth, it is a priority for us, it is a part of our corporate culture. Our company invests heavily in employee advancement. That is why I would like to highlight this issue one more time. Firstly, We have a lot of training opportunities. Leadership training, collaboration with resident experts, access to information networks and informal mentoring programs are available to help employees develop professionally. Apart from that, employees can always access internal job postings and discuss job advancement, promotion and career pathways with their manager. Internships and overseas assignments are also available. In our company many employees belong to professional organizations related to their jobs so that they can stay on top of industry trends, network with other professionals. We offer extensive internal learning programs. For example, the company provides its employees with intensive language courses with a wide range of foreign languages. Graduate fellowships and unpaid sabbaticals are also available. Finally, we practice what is nowadays called job shadowing. Maybe many of you have already heard this approach, but I’d better explain it one more time. This method involves

working with another employee who might have a different job, might have something to teach, or can help the person shadowing him or her to learn new aspects related to the job, organization or competencies. I suppose those, who had never tried this way of development, will definitely enjoy it. So, I must say, we do not stand still, if our employees have offers or development wishes, we try to fulfill them and help in any situation. We are ready to help you get to the point where you can do your job perfectly well. Teamwork is what we appreciate. If you have any further or more specific questions you can contact me any time during the working day. Thank you for attention and good luck to all of you!

6. You are the department head. Elaborate on the ways of improving staff efficiency. Take account of intercultural aspects.

First of all, it’s necessary to create an inclusive environment. Since the participants of the meeting will probably work in different departments, they may not know each other. So it should start with introducing. Then will be the right time to set the goals, time restrictions, as well as express expectations and intentions. At this point it might be also necessary to establish ground rules and highlight the value of a diversity of perspectives as an essential part of the process, to warn about possible insults on the cultural, social or experiential backgrounds, and then prevent them during the meeting. After that the conversation can start. By giving the words to participants, I’ll treat them with respect and consideration, provide sufficient time and space to gather their thoughts and contributions to discussions. Every person should have a voice, although it’s a good tactic to ask dominant participants to allow others to speak. If it’s unclear about a participant’s intent or question, using inclusive language, I’ll ask for clarification. Discussion should stay constructive and positive. It’s crucial for participants to share personal experiences rather than make general statements about groups of people. So, if one of them challenges others’ ideas, I’ll request them to back it up with evidence, appropriate experiences, or clear logic. But at the same time, to bring out ideas further, it’s important to ask follow-up questions, request for clarification and paraphrase the comments for everyone to ponder. Other participants should be encouraged to add their reactions or thoughts to build on someone’s comment. A combination of initiating and probing questions can be an effective approach. When at some point the group is well functioning itself, it’s the moment to step back. It will help participants become independent learners, take control of their learning. By this, discomfort and silence are ok, but balance with a clearly stated context and purpose. By the end of the meeting, I’ll collect and sum up participants’ comments on the whiteboard to be agreed about and written down for further revisiting and incorporating into subsequent discussions.

As a head of the HR department, I’ll try to chair the meeting, manage the discussion and make sure everyone keeps to the agenda. It’s necessary to start with managing the discussion expressions such as so let’s get started, the purpose of today’s meeting and so on. Then it’s good to introduce the 1st point of the agenda and make my colleagues share their ideas by using involving people expressions. They speak up their thoughts and ideas using different expressions, connected with putting forward an idea, for example we were wondering if/you won’t like this idea but/and so on. Depending on the idea I can agree with it or express my reservation. Having discussed one point, we’ll move to the next item. In general, I’ll try to manage the discussion in the way to reach a decision on each item of the agenda.

7. You are a graduate student. Dwell on career development opportunities alumni face. How can a culture affect your career development plan?

8. You are a space management consultant. Focus on organizational aspects of companies affected by rapidly changing business environment.

. I’ve got acquainted with the layout of the offices of your company, and also looked through your wishes. Today I would like to present you the main issues of re-planning your office. I’ve divided my talk into 3 parts: a new building, the layout of departments, equipping of the departments.

Let me start with the topic of the new building. After studying the current layout of offices and analyzing the main problems, I came to the conclusion that the best option would be to build or rent an office consisting of two buildings connected together. This option allows you not to connect the administrative and research part together, but at the same time, it will establish and facilitate communication between these key divisions.

This brings me to the next point - location of the departments. With the arrangement of departments, I propose to use the grouping method. In the immediate vicinity we will arrange departments that are similar in the direction of their activities or in some way intersect in the process of work. Each department will have its own office, but apart from this, there will be a common space to conduct meetings, negotiations and discussions. Within each department, each employee will have his own workplace. However, these work areas will be mobile and transformable, so that if necessary, employees can work in pairs or small teams.

Let's move to the last item - furniture. All the furniture in the offices will be ergonomic, the staff will be able to adjust it for a certain growth, slope, etc., depending on their preferences. As I said earlier, furniture will be mobile and transformable to ensure maximum activity and mobility of employees. We will also consult with a specialized company and provide all working areas with the necessary equipment and the latest technological developments.

These are all the main issues at the moment. Thank you for your attention! I will be happy to ask any of your questions.

9. You work as a HR-manager for a big multinational company. Dwell upon the underlying causes of resistance to changes by employees from different cultural backgrounds.

• The threat of power on an individual level. It is more likely that managers will resist changes that will decrease their power and transfers it to their subordinates. In such a way, the threat of power is one of the causes of resistance to change;

• Threat of power on an organizational level. With the change process, some groups, departments or sectors of the organization become more powerful. Because of that, some persons will be opposed to such a proposal or processes where they will lose their organizational power;

• Losing control of employees. The change process sometimes can reduce the level of control that managers can conduct. In such a way managers can resist the proposed changes if the change process will require a reduction of their control power;

• Increasing the control of the employees. Organizational changes can increase the managerial control of the employees, and this process can produce employees to become resistant to such proposal proposals of change;

• Economic factors. Organizational changes sometimes can be seen from the employee’s side simply as something that will decrease or increase their salary or other economic privileges that some workplace brings to them at the moment before the implementation of the change process. It is normal to expect that those people who feel that they will lose the portion of their salary will resist the change.

• Image, prestige, and reputation. Each workplace brings adequate image, prestige, and reputation that are important to all employees. Organizational changes can make a drastic shift in these employee’s benefits. If this is the case with the proposed change, then it will produce dissatisfaction. So, image, prestige, and reputation is one of the causes of resistance to change;

• The threat of comfort. Organizational changes in many cases result in personal discomfort and make employee’s life more difficult. They make a transfer from the comfort of the status quo to the discomfort of the new situation. Employees have the skills to do an old job without some special attention to accomplishing the task. Each new task requires forgetting the old methods of doing the job and learning new things that lead to waste of energy, and causes dissatisfaction;

• Job’s security. Organizational change can eliminate some workplaces, can produce technological excess, layoffs and so on. Job’s security simply is one of the causes of resistance to change;

• Reallocation of resources. With organizational changes, some groups, departments or sectors of the organization can receive more resources while others will lose. So, this will bring resistance from the individuals, groups or departments who will lose some of their currently available resources.

• Already gained interests of some organized groups in the company. Organizational change can make new groups more significant for the success of the organization. That’s a big threat for old coalitions that will cause resistance to change in those groups that will become more insignificant with the proposals;

• Implications on personal plans. Organizational change can stop other plans, projects or other personal or family activities. In such a way this become one of the causes of resistance to change for those persons who will be reached by this change;

• Too much dependence on others. In an organization, there are employees who too much depend on other individuals. This dependence is based on the current support that they receive from powerful individuals. If the change process brings the threat of that dependence, it will cause resistance to change of those persons that will be threatened by this change;

• Misunderstanding the process. Organizational individuals usually resist change when they do not understand the real purpose of the proposed changes. When employees don’t understand the process, they usually assume something bad. This will cause resistance to change;

• Mistrust to initiators of change. When employees don’t have trust in the initiators of the process, the process will not be accepted and this will cause resistance to change;

• Different evaluation and perception. Different evaluation and perception can affect organizational changes if there are persons who consider the proposed changes as a bad idea. Because of that, they are resistant to proposed changes.

• Fear of unknown. Organizational change, in many cases, leads to uncertainty and some dose of fear. It is normal people to feel the fear of uncertainty. When employees feel uncertainty in a process of transformation, they think that changes are something dangerous. This uncertainty affects organizational members to resist the proposed change;

• Organizational members’ habits. Employees work in large part is based on habits, and work tasks are performed in a certain way based on those habits. Organizational changes require shifts of those habits and because of that dissatisfaction from these proposals.

• Previous Experience. All employees already have some experience with a previous organizational change process. So, they know that this process is not an easy process. That experience simply will tell them that most of the change processes in the past was a failure. So, this can cause resistance to change;

• The threat to interpersonal relations. Employees are often friends with each other and they have a strong social and interpersonal relationship inside and outside the organization. If an organizational change process can be seen as a threat to these powerful social networks in the organization, the affected employees will resist that change.

• The weakness of the proposed changes. Sometimes proposed change might have a weakness that can be recognized by the employees. So, those employees will resist the implementation of the process until these weaknesses will not be removed or solved.

• Limited resources. A normal problem in every organization is to have limited resources. When resources are limited, and with the proposed organizational changes those resources are threatened, the resistance to change is more likely to occur;

• Bureaucratic inertia. Every organization has its own mechanisms as rules, policies, and procedures. Sometimes, when individuals want to change their behavior, these mechanisms in many cases can resist the proposed changes;

• Selective information processing. Individuals usually have selective information processing or hear only something that they want to hear. They simply ignore information that is opposite of the current situation, and with this, they don’t want to accept important aspects of the proposed changes. Because of that, appear resistance to change;

• Uninformed employees. Often times employees are not provided with adequate information about organizational changes that must be implemented.  And normally, this can cause resistance to change;

• Peer pressure. Often, we utilize some kind of informal punishment for colleagues who supports change which others don’t support. This situation can have a large impact on increasing the level of resistance to change;

• Skepticism about the need for change. If the problem is not a personal thing of employees, they will not see the real need why they must change themselves. Those that can’t see the need for change will have a low readiness level of the change process;

• Increasing workload. In the process of organizational change, except normal working activities, employees usually will implement activities of a new change process. These increases of workloads affect appearing of resistance to change;

• Short time to perform the change process. Because organizational systems are open systems and they are interactive with their environment, the need for change often comes from outside. In such a way the performing time is dictated from the outside of an organization. These situations lead to short time for implementation of the organizational change process and cause resistance to change.

10. Think about what cultural aspects affect people’s resistance to change implementation. Justify your point.

Types of cultural barriers that can create resistance to change:

- Values and beliefs

When looking into values and beliefs, it is important to know that often barriers may be religious in nature but may also be secular, relating to work ethic, competition, and pride. Beliefs and values differ from person to person so it is hard to categorize what is and is not a cultural norm within a group. It is advised that a change agent make him or herself aware of the values and beliefs of the community in which the changes are meant for.

Change agents need to be aware of how they introduce changes so that they are doing it in ways that achieve their goals while minimizing disturbance with the values and beliefs of the change clients.

By making change appear less threatening to established beliefs and values, the change agent can create a change that reduces the risk of resistance.

- Cultural ethnocentrism

Cultural ethnocentrism can be seen from two sides: the side that has the change agent projecting his or her culture as superior though the change efforts, or from the side of the client who views his or her culture as superior in response to the change being implemented. This can lead to an “our way is better than yours” turf war.

Most of the problems that arise from cultural ethnocentrism can be avoided or resolved by involving the clients throughout the change process. A wise change agent should also be aware of the language used in presenting a change so that it may avoid words and phrases that promote a certain identity. Change should be universal and appealing to cultures and, in a sense, would do well to be blind to bias.

- Saving face

The advantages of change can be seen differently between parties due to how the change impacts each party member. Sometimes change is seen as something good replacing something that is bad and that might not necessarily be the case. Replacing something good with something better may be viewed by change client as an attack on themselves and how they perform a duty.  When taken personally, it would be natural for someone to resist the change and defend themselves.

When encountering resistance in the form of saving face, it is advisable to be aware of how you are presenting the change. By presenting the improved benefits of the change and not focusing on how it is a replacement, or making it a comparison between a good and bad system, a change agent may be able to alleviate any doubts or worries that come from the client. In approaching the situation in a non-comparison way, a change agent may create a win-win situation where a change can be implemented in a way that allows those who are skeptical of the change for personal reasons to adopt the change without embarrassment and fear of ridicule.

- Incompatibility of a cultural trait with change

The most common cultural barrier, incompatibility of a cultural trait with change is also one of the hardest to resolve. This barrier involves making a change that goes directly against the established cultural norms of a group or institution, and even if the clients know it is a better choice, it is hard for them to accept it.

Resolving a conflict that results from Incompatibility of a cultural trait with change must be made in a way that makes the offer beyond worthwhile. A large offering or compensation can be the carrot that drives a change initiative through an issue of incompatibility of a cultural trait with the change. In asking a lot, sometimes a change agent has to give a lot.

11. You are onthe staff with a multinational company. Speak about the issue of low morale. The main points to be addressed: the impact of recent technological changes, changing business environment and management styles.

From my point of view, this seems to bе а self-perpetuating cycle of low morale - the figures are down so the supervisors are applying more pressure, which means people feel less valued, and so on. Anyway, I thought I should let you know my findings about this issue.

I have also learned about the possible causes of low morale. First of all, the impact of the latest technological advances. The implementation of an automated work system makes our employees feel discomfort and competition.

Also among the reasons for their dissatisfaction our employees mentioned the working bу output / result, not bу time spent principle. Such a system seems to be unfair, since a different amount of time is needed to fulfill different stages of production.

Moreover, employees are unhappy that after the implementation of an automated work system, the number of bonuses from management has decreased. Heads of departments give a very large amount of work in a short time, but they do not in any way encourage employees to perform these tasks.

In general, I believe that this problem deserves further consideration and discussion with senior management.

12. You are a team leader in charge of change-management project in multinational company. Think about changes you would like to implement at the company you work in.