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Posted: September 22nd, 2022
In today’s global economy, when any corporation expands abroad it usually brings with it the management practices that are deep-rooted in its national culture and management theory. Studies have indicated that often these management practices do not work well in foreign locations, might even undermine an organization’s effectiveness and productivity at the new sites.
In past few years a lot of Chinese companies have invested in India, likewise, a lot of Indian companies have been operating in China. However, cross-cultural differences between these two countries could be a barrier in efficiently managing the organization in the host country.
The purpose of this research is to understand Sino-Indian culture-related theories as per Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and other measures of culture that lead to work-family conflict in a Sino-Indian cross-cultural work setting. The methodology used for this research was qualitative method, in-depth face to face interviews were conducted and follow-up forms were given to the local Indian employees in a Chinese company in India and to local Chinese employees in an Indian company in China. The number of respondents was fifteen in each company. Respondents belonged to low to mid-level management. Interview responses were qualitatively analyzed using codes and themes.
Findings reveal that the differences between employees’ cultural values and company’s culture do exist which lead to work-family conflict in the lives of their employees. This study proposes that cultural dimensions of a country such as individualism/collectivism, power-distance, humane-orientation, and specificity/diffusion create a difference in the work values of an employee. These basic differences in the work values of an employee and the management of a foreign company lead to the work-family conflict in a cross-cultural setting.
This research supports the fact that instead of following long-established ways of managing local workforces in a foreign country, the organizations can benefit from adjusting to local national culture and work values attached to that country.
Keywords: Cross-cultural settings, Work-family conflict, Sino-Indian cultural dimensions
Table of Contents
2.2.1 Areas of differences in a workplace
2.3 Hofstede’s Culture Dimensions
2.4 Similarities and Differences between India and China
2.7 Outcomes of Work-Family Conflict
3.1 The Role of Culture in Studying WFC
3.2 Culture as the Main Effect Influencing WFC
3.3 Culture, WFC, and Consequences
3.4 Sino-Indian Cultural factors leading to WFC
3.4.1 Individualism/ Collectivism
3.4.3 Specificity versus diffusion
Chapter V Results and Findings
5.1 Existence of Sino-Indian cultural differences in the cross-cultural workplace
5.2 Cross- cultural reasons of WFC in both the societies
5.2.1 Individualism/ Collectivism and WFC
5.2.3 Specificity/Diffusion and WFC
5.2.4 Humane Orientation and WFC
It is a well-known fact that the world is becoming globalized, most of the companies have been investing in almost every part of the world to make their business international and more profitable. Organizations are no longer constrained by national borders. Differences exist among people from different countries in terms of their lifestyle, values, perspectives, preferences etc. (Robbins and Judge 2013, p. 16).
Globalization has its positive as well as negative aspects. It has expanded capacity, and advances in technology have made organizations be prompt and flexible in order for them to survive. The result is that most managers and employees today work in a climate that can be called as “temporary”. Increased foreign assignments mean they will have to manage a workforce which is very different in needs, aspirations, and attitudes as compared to those used in their own country[i] (Robbins and Judge 2013, p. 17).
When working with people from different cultures, even in someone’s own country, people find themselves working with supervisors, peers, and other employees born and raised in different cultures with different values. What motivates one employee may not motivate the others, or someone’s communication style may be straightforward and open, which others may find uncomfortable and threatening. To work effectively with people from different cultures, a person needs to understand how their culture, geography, religion have shaped them and how to adapt their management style to their differences. Management practices need to be modified to reflect the values of the different countries in which an organization operates (Robbins and Judge 2013, p. 20).
Due to social trends, managing the work-family balance has become a challenging task for employees in almost every nation. Working in a multi-national company requires time, energy and commitment that may not let people satisfy their family and life needs (Powell, Francesco and Ling 2009).
In the recent few years, following this trend of going global, a lot of Chinese companies are investing in Indian market due to the high market potential. In the year 2015, Chinese companies invested $870 Million in India, as reported in an interview of the President of India (Mukherjee 2016)
Most of the companies prefer sending their own experienced employees initially to establish the base, to hire and train local people as per the company culture. Even though China and India are Asian countries but significant cultural differences prevail amongst both the countries.
Since the cultural differences exist between Chinese supervisors and Indian employees in a Chinese company functioning in India, it could be assumed that due to various cultural differences some of the employees would not be able to perform efficiently and effectively as per the expectations of Chinese managers which might lead to Work-Family Conflict (WFC) in Indian employees’ lives. There is a probability that cultural differences in the workplace can affect the employees in one way or the other which would, in turn, affect the overall performance of the company. There also have been studies before about work-family conflict leading to negative psychological impact on a person’s life.
There have been theories also on the fact that the societal or culture of a nation, is likely to form individuals’ experiences of the work-family setting, but generally, it is not recognized in theories and researches on work-family literature. Cultural norms, societal values, and relationship between work-family tend to affect the experience of an individual in these domains. The common notion of culture is that it is deep-rooted group difference in cognitive, attitude, and behavior pattern. Cultural differences are considered to have an important role in understanding employee satisfaction and commitment in context to work-life balance practices.
In one of the pre-existing studies related to the work-life conflict in countries like India, Peru, and Spain, it was found that employees from India experienced higher levels of the conflict. WFC is believed to be two-way phenomena: how work affects employees’ personal lives and how their personal lives affect their work performance. The way in which a person chooses to deal with such kind of conflict varies as per the nationality and culture of that person (Hofstede 2001).
Nowadays, employees complain increasingly that the line between work and non-work time has become blurred, creating personal conflicts and stress. At the same time, today’s workplace gives opportunities for workers to create and structure their own roles. The conception of global organizations means that the world never sleeps. At any time on any day, thousands of employees are working somewhere in the world. The necessity to consult with colleagues or customers eight or ten time zones away means many employees of global firms are at work for twenty-four hours a day. Communication technology helps many technical and professional employees to do their work at home, or in their cars but it also means many employees feel like they never really get away from the office and are working even when at home with family.
Organizations now ask employees to work longer hours than usual. The rise of dual-career couples makes it complicated for married employees to find time to fulfill their commitments towards home, spouse, children, parents and friends. Many of the single-parent households and employees with parents dependent on them have even more considerable challenges in balancing work and family responsibilities.
Employees gradually recognize that work infringes more on their personal lives. Recent research also suggested that employees look for jobs that give them more flexibility in their work schedules so they can better manage their work-life balance. In fact, now balancing work and life demands generally surpasses job security as an employee’s priority. The next generation of employees is likely to show similar apprehensions. In the related studies, it has been found out that most of the university students stated attaining a balance between personal life and work is a primary career goal; they want a better personal life as well as a good professional life as compared to the previous generations. Organizations that do not help their employees to achieve work-life balance will find it increasingly difficult to attract and retain the most capable and motivated employees (Robbins and Judge 2013, p. 21)
WFC has been shown to influence the organizational outcomes like job satisfaction, job performance, creativity, organizational commitment, employee turnover etc. It is also among top three reasons for stress in India (Press Trust of India 2014).
Most common practices in culturally intelligent firms in western countries to overcome such a conflict are telecommuting, flexible timings, compressed work week, reduced work hours, job sharing, paid vacations, parental leaves, paid family and medical leaves.
Many scholars have agreed that attitudes of the employees towards work are an important aspect of the workplace and could lead to higher productivity levels on both individuals as well as organizational level. Also, their cultural background may affect their attitudes toward work to a great extent (Noe, Hollenberck and Gerhart 2000). There not many studies about how culture affects work-related activities in a country. Values even lead to the differences in approach towards work in certain national cultures (Peters 2000).
Cultures within organizations are found to differ, to some extent cultures differ within one nation, but they vary even more when it comes to different nations.
Nowadays organizations do not focus on the fact that in order to work effectively and efficiently with people from different cultures, they still need to understand how their culture, geography, religion have shaped them and how to adapt your management style to their differences. A misfit of cultures is often mentioned as a reason for the failure for multi-national organizations (Cartwright 1993, 1996;Olie 1994).
Management practices need to be modified to reflect the values of the different countries in which an organization operates. As proposed by Trompenaars and Hampden-Tumer (1998), good managers strive to learn to work with other cultures and try to resolve the differences resulting from cultural differences. However, it would be better if these cultural differences would first be identified and later analyzed so that they could be understood and addressed.
Chinese companies hiring Indian employees in India at the employee/staff level and likewise in Indian companies operating in China, cultural differences(such as values, norms, and behavior) between employees and managers could be an issue in a workplace which could lead to WFC and negative psychological outcomes for the employees.
Culture affects an employee’s attitudes and behaviors, providing in turn basis for developing culture-sensitive management systems that can actually improve organizational performance.
The aim of this research would be to assess if Sino-Indian cultural factors lead to WFC in the lives of employees working in an organization with values and norms different from their own, and which cultural factors lead to WFC.
Examine cultural diversity in workplace, its advantages and disadvantages.
Examine Sino-Indian cultural differences as per Hofstede’s theory relating to WFC, identify cultural factors leading to WFC in a workplace.
Examine the level and reasons of WFC in Sino-Indian cross-cultural workplace.
This research is divided into a literature review, research model, methodology, findings, and conclusion. The literature review provides the basis for exploration into the aim of this study. There is an outline of the previous studies that speak about cultural diversity, its advantages and disadvantages in a workplace, followed by existing literature on Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and other dimensions of culture. The cultural differences between China and India are considered on the basis of those dimensions. There are major trends which would have been identified from previous models which help in contrast and co-relation of current issues in multi-cultural organizations functioning in another country such as Chinese companies functioning in India with Indian employee and vice versa. The end of the literature figures the factors leading to WFC and its outcomes.
The rest of the research is fragmented into research model which has a general framework of this research, in-depth study of culture related theories of WFC in previous studies. Also, a methodology which has detailed outlined of methods adopted by the researcher to investigate this study, it also speaks about the sampling methods via which the data has been collected. This is followed by findings and discussions which are an analysis of all the data collected during the process and the relevance of the data collected.
Table 1, Selected Definitions of Culture
| Scholar | Definition of Culture |
| Gofdstein (1983) |
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