Cultural conflict thesis
First, the core of cross-cultural management Cross-cultural management, also known as cross-cultural management, is an inclusive management method for the culture of the country where the subsidiaries are located with different races, different cultural types and different stages of cultural development. Its purpose is to design feasible organizational structure and management mechanism in different forms of cultural atmosphere, and to find enterprise goals beyond cultural conflicts in the management process, so that employees with different cultural backgrounds can maintain the same code of conduct, so as to control and utilize the enterprise to the maximum extent. 2. Cultural Conflicts and Threats In the process of global development, multinational companies will inevitably cause cultural conflicts because they have joined the concept of another culture. The cross-cultural conflict of multinational corporations is characterized by 1, which is nonlinear. Different cultures are like different waters, and the conflict and blending of several or more waters often presents a complex state, so it has nonlinear characteristics. 2. Indirect cultural conflicts are generally carried out in psychological, emotional, ideological and other spiritual fields. As a result, people have changed unconsciously. But this change will take a long time to show. 3. The inner culture is thought-centered. Therefore, cultural conflicts are often manifested as conflicts of ideas. Step 4 mix. Cultural conflict and cultural integration always go hand in hand. The task of cross-cultural management is to seek things that can embody the essence of various cultures from different cultures, so as to survive in various cultural environments. There is a set of implicit assumptions behind every culture, and people living in this culture are usually unaware of the existence of these assumptions, because these beliefs are almost deeply rooted in the subconscious. Once these beliefs are challenged, people will feel the cultural shock and think it is an invasion from outside. What is really shocking, however, is that they will find that different cultural connotations are usually just two sides of a whole, or even two extremes of a specific scale. They should know and understand the objective existence of differences, overcome parochialism, and attach importance to learning and understanding the languages, cultures, economies and laws of other countries. When managers of multinational companies work in host countries with different cultures, they often encounter many difficulties. Factors such as language, values and thinking forms that reflect unique culture will form obstacles and contradictions in cross-cultural management, thus affecting the implementation of transnational business strategies. Understanding cultural differences is a necessary condition for cultivating transnational cultural management ability. Understanding cultural differences has two meanings: one is to understand how the culture of the host country affects the behavior of local employees; The second is to understand how the culture of the home country affects the behavior of the managers sent by the company. Different types of cultural differences can be overcome by different measures. Conflicts arising from different management styles, methods or skills can be overcome by mutual teaching and learning, but they are easier to change; Conflicts arising from different living habits and ways can be solved through cultural exchanges, but it takes a long time; Differences in people's basic values are often difficult to change. Only by grasping different types of cultural differences can we put forward targeted solutions to cultural conflicts. 3. Cross-cultural management competitive advantage regards cultural differences as an advantage rather than just a disadvantage, and appropriately and fully utilizes the differences expressed by different cultures to create opportunities for enterprise development. There is a proverb in the west: everything has two sides. Culture is also a double-edged sword. Culture brings opportunities for enterprises to carry out international operations, but it is more of a huge challenge. Mr. Hiroshi Menmu, general manager of Guangzhou Honda Motor Company, once said: "There are many contradictions within our enterprise, but this is also the good side of Honda. When we choose partners in China, we always like to choose some partners who have different ideas from ours, which makes us often collide with each other, so that the collision of different ideas will produce new ideas, thus creating a new corporate culture of Honda. " In Guangzhou Honda's view, correctly handling contradictions and conflicts will not only form obstacles, but will be the driving force for enterprise development and the source of enterprise innovation. Gain competitive advantage from cultural differences. The strategy of using cultural differences can produce competitive advantage. Therefore, instead of letting one culture control another culture, or adopting a compromise security solution that does not oppose any party, let us face a challenge-adopt a positive method to solve cultural differences, so that the result of overall interaction is better than the simple sum of the functions of each part. Diversification means bringing people from different backgrounds, different expectations and different stages of life together to work together under the driving force of bringing profitability and competitiveness to the company. The advantages of cultural diversity are: (1) market, which improves the adaptability of the company to the cultural preference of the local market; (2) In terms of resource acquisition, improve the company's ability to hire employees from people with different national backgrounds and enrich the human resources of local companies; (3) In terms of cost, it reduces the company's cost in personnel flow and hiring non-locals as managers; (3) In solving problems, a broader perspective and stricter analysis improve the ability and quality of decision-making; (4) In terms of creativity, the company's creativity can be improved through the diversity of perspectives and reducing the requirements for consistency; (5) In terms of system flexibility, it improves the flexibility of the organization to face various demands and environmental changes. 4. The key to cross-cultural management is human management, which implements cross-cultural management for all employees. This is because: 1, the object of cross-cultural management is people, that is, everyone in the enterprise. The purpose of cross-cultural management is to integrate different cultures and form a new culture, and this new culture can only be realized through the thoughts, values and behaviors of all members of the enterprise, otherwise cross-cultural management will become a mere formality. 2, the implementation of cross-cultural management is also the main body of people, that is, enterprise managers. In multinational companies, the corporate culture of the parent company can be transmitted to foreign branches through the company's products and business models, but more often it is transmitted to foreign branches through managers who are familiar with corporate culture. In the resource transfer of multinational corporations, besides capital, the mobility of managers is the strongest. Because the subject and object of cross-cultural management involve people, it is necessary to emphasize the management of people in cross-cultural management of multinational companies. Not only should managers deeply understand the corporate culture of the parent company, but they should also choose managers with cultural integration ability to undertake the important responsibilities of cross-cultural management of foreign branches. At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the cultural management of all members of the company, so that the new culture can really play its important role in management and promote multinational companies to be in an advantageous position in the competition with foreign enterprises. V. Strategies of cross-cultural management 1, localization strategy. Cross-cultural management should be based on the principle of "globalization of thinking and localization of action". Usually, when multinational companies invest overseas, they must employ a considerable number of local employees. This is mainly because local employees are familiar with local customs, market trends and government regulations, and it is easy to reach an understanding with local consumers. It is undoubtedly convenient for multinational companies to expand their markets and gain a foothold in the local area. "Localization" is beneficial for multinational companies to reduce the high cost of sending overseas personnel and transnational operations, integrate with local social culture, and reduce the crisis sentiment of local society towards foreign investment; It is beneficial for the host country to consider the working ability of employees and the degree of matching with positions when appointing managers, and to choose the most suitable employees for positions. 2. Cultural compatibility strategy. According to the compatibility degree of different cultures, it can be subdivided into the following two levels: (1) parallel compatibility strategy of cultures. This is the highest form of cultural compatibility, which is customarily called "cultural complementarity". That is, in the subsidiaries of multinational companies, the culture of the mother country or the culture of developing countries is not regarded as the main culture of the subsidiaries. Although there are huge cultural differences between the culture of the home country and the culture of the host country, they are not mutually exclusive, but complement each other, and at the same time operate in the company to give full play to cross-cultural advantages. The existence of one culture can completely make up for many shortcomings and monotony of another culture. The great success of KFC in China is a model of successful cross-cultural management by taking advantage of cross-cultural advantages. (2) Hide their main cultures and adopt a peaceful and compatible strategy. That is, although there are huge cultural differences between the mother culture and the host culture in multinational companies, and the huge differences between the two cultures can easily lead to "cultural friction" in the daily operations of subsidiaries, managers deliberately blur this cultural difference in their business activities, hide the main culture that is most likely to lead to conflicts, and keep the relatively dull and irrelevant parts of the two cultures. Because of the loss of the strong influence of the main culture on people of different nationalities, people who don't ask about cultural background can live in harmony in the same company. Even if there are differences, it is easy to compromise and coordinate through the efforts of both sides. 3. Cultural innovation strategy. The strategy of cultural innovation is to effectively integrate the corporate culture of the parent company with the local culture of foreign branches, and promote mutual understanding, adaptation and integration of different cultures through various channels, so as to build a new corporate culture of foreign branches on the basis of the parent company and local culture, and take this new culture as the management basis of foreign branches. This new culture not only retains the strong characteristics of the corporate culture of the parent company, but also adapts to the local cultural environment, which is different from the corporate culture of the parent company and the local corporate culture, and is an organic integration of the two cultures. Because it is impossible to measure the quality of a country or a region's culture from the perspective of the whole world, there is a problem of value standards. Only by organically integrating the two cultures can we not only contain the corporate culture connotation of the parent company, but also adapt to the foreign cultural environment, thus reflecting the competitive advantage of multinational enterprises. 4. Cultural avoidance strategy. This is the time when there are great differences between the culture of the mother country and the culture of the host country. Although the culture of the home country is the main body in the whole operation of the company, the existence of the culture of the host country cannot be ignored or neglected. Managers sent by parent companies to subsidiaries must pay special attention to avoid major differences between the two cultures and avoid causing cultural conflicts between them in these "sensitive areas". Especially in countries with strong religious power, we should pay special attention to respecting local beliefs. 5. Cultural infiltration strategy. Cultural infiltration is a process that needs long-term observation and cultivation. Managers sent by multinational companies to work in the host country do not try to force local employees to obey the human resource management model of the home country in a short time because of the huge differences between the culture of the home country and the host country. Instead, relying on the cultural advantages formed by the strong economic strength of the home country, it gradually infiltrated the local employees of the company, so that the culture of the home country was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people unconsciously, and the employees of the host country gradually adapted to this culture and gradually became the executors and defenders of this culture. 6, with the help of Third culture strategy. When multinational corporations are developing globally in other countries and regions, there are great differences between the culture of the home country and the culture of the host country, and multinational corporations cannot completely adapt to the business environment of the host country completely different from the home country in a short time. At this time, the personnel management strategy adopted by multinational companies usually relies on Third culture, which is relatively neutral and has a certain degree of understanding of the culture of the home country, to control and manage its subsidiaries in the host country. This strategy can avoid the direct conflict between the mother culture and the host culture. For example, if European multinational companies want to set up subsidiaries in the Americas such as Canada, they can first set up their overseas headquarters in the United States, where their thinking and management are more international, and then implement unified management of all subsidiaries in the Americas through the American headquarters. If American multinational companies want to set up subsidiaries in South America, they can first set their overseas headquarters in Brazil, which is a kind of thinking and economic model close to internationalization, and then implement unified management of other subsidiaries in South America through the subsidiary headquarters in Brazil. With the help of the culture of the third country, the management of the subsidiaries of the host country, which is ignorant of the managers of the home country, can avoid unnecessary waste of funds and time and make the subsidiaries achieve rapid and effective results in the business activities of the host country. 7. Occupation strategy. Occupation strategy is an extreme cross-cultural management strategy. When global development-oriented enterprises invest abroad, they directly inject the corporate culture of the parent company into foreign branches to eliminate the local culture of foreign branches, and foreign branches only retain the corporate culture of the parent company. This method is generally suitable for situations where the strong and weak cultures are in great contrast and local consumers can fully accept the parent company culture, but from the actual situation, this model is rarely used. In short, enterprises with global development should fully understand their own corporate culture and foreign culture, choose the cross-cultural management mode that suits them, realize the best combination of different cultures and form their own core competitiveness.