Corporate Culture and National Characteristics

Steve Redwood, a London-based management consultant with Price Waterhouse, tells of a client who had brought together a team from eight different countries to work on a project. 'The national stereotypes applied,' he says. 'The people from Switzerland and Germany were mainly interested in the way the project was organised. The people from Spain took a much more intuitive approach. The British had a high level of scepticism about whether the whole thing really mattered. Language was not the issue. It was more basic than that.'

Behind this lies the most fundamental problem of all: the fact that outside a handful of companies even the biggest corporations are dominated by the culture of the home country.

'Outside that a handful of companies are very German, or very British, or very American. One big difference with American companies is they think globalisation means Americanising the world. Others don't have that arrogance.'

If top management all come from the home country, that makes it much more difficult to attract and keep a global pool of talent. 'People know when they fit in and when they don't,' Mr Bryan says. 'That's true even of national companies: there's a tendency for people to have gone to the same school, or all have trained as engineers. It's even more true when it comes to where you grew up.'

The problem lies not in attracting people - a talented Indian or Korean manager will typically want early experience with a multinational - but in keeping them. 'People will join the company to learn,' Mr Bryan says,'but unless they feel they're part of the company, they're going to leave, and exploit the brand status of the company in their next job.'

Given the importance of local cultures within the global company, an obvious question is how to appraise and identify talent around the world on a consistent basis. Richard Greenhalgh, head of management development and training at Unilever, says that the company has been working on this for the past four years, “We've been developing a set of 11 management competencies we can use worldwide,” he says. “The aim is to have a clear objective measure of potential. We measure such things as entrepreneurial drive, the ability to lead and develop others, and so integrity. That makes up a common core of behaviours. We've tested it, and so far it seems to be culturally transferable.”

Task VII. Find information about the countries listed below. Complete the table. Discuss the results with your group.

	France	Germany	Japan	UK	Russia	Belarus
Greeting
Appoint-ments
Business cards
Business correspondence
Working hours
Decision-making
Negotiat-ing
Telepho-ning
Entertai-ning
Meetings

Task VII. Read the following dialogues. Try to guess the meaning of the business idioms given in bold. Give their Russian equivalents.

1. A: How do you like working for that firm?

B: They're marvellous. They've just given me a loan to buy a house: low rate of interest, no strings attached!

2. A: His work's gone off lately. I think he needs a holiday.

B: That's what comes of burning the candle at both ends.

3. A: Done any research yet into possible manufacturers?

B: Well, I've sounded out a number of firms, and the response is

encouraging.

4. A: Hiroshi told me he was thinking of taking up flower arranging — I ask you!

B: If he does, you can bet your bottom dollar he'll work at it till he's number one in Japan!

5. A: Hey, I like your tie: the Hole-in-One-Club, eh?

B: That's right. Actually, I don't care for the tie, but it does put you one up on your opponents.

6. A: My little daughter's a natural ice-skater. She's thirteen, and already she's raining for the next Olympics.

B: I'm not surprised. In ice-skating, you're over the hill at a very early age.

7. A: You look thirsty. How about a can of Blik?

B: Er... Not just now. I'll take a raincheck on that, if I may.

8. A: Some of the locals are getting very worked up about the pollution issue.

B: That's understandable, but they don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. If the factory goes, this place will be a ghost town.

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