As the case begins, we find that, Cameron Mechanical & Automation, Inc. (CMA) is a company that has been operating into the Information and Technology sector since 1998. It is providing various products to the computer manufacturers all around the world. The company structure was divided into different product divisions. Each of the divisions was focusing upon various components. However, the adverse impact of the Economy in 2008 affected the company in many ways. The CEO of the organization Jared Smith was facing several issues within the organization, such as related to the work design, structure, conflict, motivation and company culture.
Hence, to solve such issues, the organization decided to eliminate many of the management positions, due to which, the responsibilities now fell onto the employees. The employees of the organization resisted this change in a given organization. However, with the passage of time, the things were getting stable, until 2012, when again there were issues of conflicts, mistrust, low motivation levels amongst the employees and the communication gap within the organization. There were even issues of culture and diversity, due to which, it was becoming difficult for the CEO to handle the entire organization.
In 2012, the organization had four departments, which included marketing, production, research and development (R&D), and finance. During the last employee satisfaction survey, it was found that the mistrust was growing amongst the employees and the Managers and the Vice Presidents of the respective department. In addition, due to different leadership styles adopted by the leaders, it was becoming increasingly difficult for the employees to work in such environment.
Further, some of the top leaders and managers were leaving the organization, and were going to join the organization of the competitors. There were issues regarding lack of communication due to which, it even resulted into the conflicts between the employees as well as between the employees and the mangers of the organization. The managers were not able to provide a dosage of motivation to these employees, due to which, the case got further worsened. Hence, it was important to address the issues of Change Management, conflicts, culture and diversity issues, and finally the communication gap between the top- and the low-level employees of the organization.
Growing need of Globalization
With the increase need of globalization, the organizations all around the world need to recognize the diversity and identify the individual differences so that they can formulate the cross-cultural strategies accordingly. The employees are the greatest asset for any organization, and hence, the organization needs to protect the cultural interests of all the employees of the organization. With the increase in the globalization, the organizations are going abroad.
However, the people of the other nations will be varying in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, political views, culture and other ideologies. In addition, there will be language and communication barriers between the existing employees of the organization and the people of the foreign nations.
Hence, it is the responsibility of the Human Resource Management (HRM) or the Human Resource (HR) Department to respect all the differences of culture and establish a working environment that will integrate the cultural values of all the employees of the organization (Aycan, 2005). The HR Department needs to respect the dimensions of diversity and go beyond it so as to increase the motivation employees of the organization.
Now, let us address the issues faced by CMA and try to find out the causes related to it. We shall address the on-going cultural differences, intercultural differences, and the problems of culture and diversity within the organization. We will then provide recommendations to overcome these issues and establish a positive working environment within the organization, both at the national and international levels.
Issues
Communication Gap
It has been found that, there are many hurdles for the different departments since they are not able to communicate properly with the other departments due to lack of communication. The different departments do not have a formal process of communication, on the basis of which all the employees of that department can communicate in a better way with the employees of other department. As a result, there is a communication gap between the employees, which further results into conflicts and other issues within the organization. It is important to address such issues so as to avoid conflicts and improve communication as quick as possible to restore the normal working within the organization (Budhwar & Debrah, 2008).
Staffing and Absenteeism
Another major issue within the organization is related to increasing staffing and absenteeism of the employees within the organization. It shows lower levels of motivation amongst the employees, since they are not satisfied within a given organization. People are finding new jobs and are not even trying to solve the on-going issues within the organization. Hence, the top-level management needs to think of solutions that will help in addressing such issues within the CMA. Further, due to the inter-cultural differences, the probability of the occurrence of a conflict inside the organization will increase.
Inter-cultural conflicts and differences
The conflicts will arise due to uneven distribution of responsibility or tasks, due to which one group of people will enter into the conflict with another group of people. Consider an example, wherein due to removal of various managerial positions, the work load is now completely shifted on the shoulders of the employees. Thus, with added work and responsibilities they are definitely going to create a resistance since the people that were working on these tasks are no more assigned with such responsibilities.
The HR Manager therefore needs to formulate policies that will first address the issue of staffing and absenteeism. He then needs to focus upon the core issue of conflicts due to inter-cultural differences in a given organization (Chen, Lawler, & Bae, 2005).
Thus, there are several issues that need to be tackle around considering the holistic scenario of culture and diversity. But, due to increased globalization, the organization is forcing the employees to work with the people of different cultures without providing any necessary training and guidance. Hence, the organization is failing to address the culture and diversity issues, since they are not able to understand the core factors or causes of such differences within the organization.
Causes of Cultural differences
Thus, before providing any recommendations or solutions to such given cases, it is important to find out the causes of such cultural differences at the CMA. It could be due to the long-time ongoing organization culture, which has failed to address the change inside the organization. It could be due to the biasing behavior, authoritarian styles of the Middle Level Managers who are creating differences between the employees. It could also be due to failing to address the needs of employees and not working on their motivation levels. And, finally, it could be because, the various departments have failed to bridge the gap of communication, which has further resulted into conflicts between various departments and increase in the rates of absenteeism. Even, the HR Department has not addressed the issue of staffing despite the fact that, people are leaving the organization and joining the competitor’s organization.
Thus, the employees are turning to be clueless while handling such situations. I would now like to provide certain recommendations so as to address the differencing issues of culture and diversity within the organization.
Recommendations
The Adler-Ghadar Model helps to define the stages for the organizational development, in order to get adjusted to the multinational environment. It defines the different expansion practices that a company should implement in order to achieve the desired growth in the given international environment (Deadrick & Gibson, 2009). There are four key phases that helps in defining the practices for such organizations. These include – the domestic, the international, the multinational and the global.
The domestic phase will help CMA to focus upon the home market and export operations. The international phase will focus upon the local responsiveness and the learning perspectives. The multinational phase will focus upon the global strategies, the pricing issues and the cost structure. And, the global phase will be responding to the global integration and responding to the needs at both domestic and international levels.
However, for this model to work in proper manner and get it implemented in the right direction, the Taylor Model helps to provide the necessary resources to the given organization. It focuses upon providing the HR resources and making them work in that direction that will help to grow in an appropriate manner, and at the same time, will help to eliminate the possibility of over-expansion (Ghemawat, 2005).
Further, there are certain cultural attributes that need to be focused upon by all the departments of CMA so as to solve the issues of culture and diversity within the organization. Hofstede’s model helps to identify these cultural dimensions. The first one is the Power distance index (PDI) that helps to determine the power distance between the employees and the management. It is advisable to have low power distance in multi-cultural organizations, so that, relations between the manager and his employees are friendlier in nature.
The next is the concept of individualism versus collectivism. If organizations stresses more upon individualism, it means, it focuses more upon the personal achievements, and if organizations focus more upon collectivism, it means it wants to integrate the employees into different groups. The next is the uncertainty avoidance index (UAI). It reflects how the members of the given organization will cope up with anxiety by minimizing the uncertainty. The people from different cultures working in same organization will work step by step and will follow all the rules and regulations. They will try to avoid the different uncertain incidents in the given organization, so that, they can feel comfortable and can handle the unstructured situations.
The next is the masculinity versus the femininity. The organization will distribute the different emotional roles based upon the genders. The culture of the organization will be determined upon the roles of the different employees, and how the organization distributes the values of its own culture amongst the males and females (Theriou & Chatzoglou, 2008).
And, finally, the last one is the orientation, which can be long term as well as short term in nature. Long term will always focus upon the future values and will adapt to persistence and building capacity. On the other hand, short term will promote the values of past and present, fulfilling the social obligations, and steadiness, which are often found in many organizations. And, the final one is the indulgence versus restraint.
Conclusion
All the departments of CMA in association with the top-level management need to formulate strategies to address the change within the organization. It is important for them to address all the cultural issues and differences so as to achieve the desired objectives at the global level. Further, the HR Department can take the support of the Middle Level Managers so as to address the different issues of staffing, absenteeism and communication gap within the organization. They need to integrate all the working functions so as to achieve desired level of efficiency and effectiveness throughout the organization.
The respective departments also need to increase the motivation levels by organizing training and development sessions. In addition, the HR Department needs to prevent the employees from leaving the organization. They can either promote them or reward them or motivate them so as to increase their job satisfaction levels within the organization. There are several other ways, through which the issues of culture and diversity can be addressed. We have discussed certain models and strategies to overcome the issues within CMA and have tried to provide solutions to the challenges mentioned in a given case scenario.
References
Aycan, Z. (2005). The Interplay between Cultural and Institutional/structural Contingencies in Human Resource Management Practices. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 16, 1083-1119.
Budhwar, P., and Debrah, Y.A. (2008). Future research on Human Resource Management systems in Asia. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 26, 197-218.
Chen, S.J., Lawler, J.J., and Bae, J. (2005). Convergence in Human Resource Systems: A Comparison of Locally Owned and MNC Subsidiaries in Taiwan. Human Resource Management, 44, 237-256.
Deadrick, D.L., and Gibson, P.A. (2009). Revisiting the research-practice gap in HR: A longitudinal analysis. Human Resource Management Review, 19, 144-153.
Ghemawat, P. (2005). Regional Strategies for Global Leadership. Harvard Business Review, 12, 98–108.
Theriou, G., and Chatzoglou, P., (2008). Enhancing performance through best HRM practices, organisational learning and knowledge management. European Business Review, 20(3), 185-207.
