黑道特种兵1662,亚冠16强对阵,曼联 阿森纳
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It can be seen from Table 1 that, China and America belong to countries with a relatively much masculinity and less uncertainty avoidance.
3.2 Comparison based on Hall’s model
American culture belongs to cultures of low context. Americans tend to be outspoken, frank and forthright in communication, through language to convey clear information and emphasize rationality and logic. Chinese culture is a high-context culture, Chinese people usually do not directly reveal their feelings, they generally do not use aggressive language. In Chinese culture, language receiver’s sensitivity and ability to understand implications becomes particularly critical (Men and Tsai, 2012).
American culture has the unidirectional characteristics of time, Americans appreciate the value of time, they have a strong sense of time and focus on objectives, tasks and results, rather than relationships. Chinese culture has multi-directional characteristics and their sense of time is relatively poor. For Chinese people, the relationships are essential (Hall, 1966).
Both American and Chinese cultures are low-contact culture, people are very sensitive to physical contact, in daily conversation, the two sides will maintain a appropriate distance, they usually try to avoid long time contact with strangers on crowded buses or subways, to squeeze from crowded people is considered to be extremely impolite (Hall, 1966).
3.3 Changes in American and Chinese cultures
With China's economic reform and opening up, as well as joining WTO, Chinese people have also undergone lots of changes in performance of culture. There are some differences between these changes and Hofstede’s conclusions. For example, Wei, Liu and Calabrese (2010) analyzes that the improvement of living standards and the impact by European and American culture make Chinese young people show more and more individualistic characteristics in their daily lives and work (Xu, Hou, Tracey and Zhang, 2016). In addition, with the development of China's Internet and the introduction of Western democratic ideas, Chinese people's sense of power is also increasing, so Chinese people’s degree of enduring concentration of power is reduced (Xu, Hou, Tracey and Zhang, 2016).
Due to the impact of the world economic situation and the financial crisis, Americans also change a lot in terms of uncertainty, short and long-term tendency. Americans used to have low risk uncertainty and advocate the concept of high-risk, high-return, they dare to consume and like enjoyment. However, the outbreak of the financial crisis make more and more Americans increase the degree of uncertainty avoidance, they choose a more secure, long-term investment way. For example, in 2015, US households reduced holdings of a total of $ 249 billion of equity assets and increased $ 187 billion and $ 308 billion on funds and bonds which have lower investment risks (Browne, 2015).
3.4 Cross-cultural management
There is such a Chinese-American joint venture engaged in business of development of mobile APP in China. The company has strong technical strength in APP development, but it still faces a series of problems in business and management in China. Firstly, it should resolve the conflicts and contradictions of arising from cultural differences caused by Chinese-American staff to establish a harmony, cooperation team atmosphere. Secondly, it faces the problem of how to improve and take advantages of Chinese-American employees to design outstanding products to improve the company's competitiveness. Finally, how to establish a corporate culture and values mutually accepted and recognized by Chinese and American employees to ensure the development of long-term sustainability of the enterprise. To solve these problems require the management to take appropriate cross-cultural management strategies and models.
Cultural integration and innovation strategies take advantage of bilateral cultures of a multinational company as orientation, it combines with the characteristics of the company's development to create its unique corporate culture, if employees take this culture as a criterion, they will consciously regulate their own behavior, which will be development power of the company. This mode is more suitable for cross-cultural management between China and America. Specific implementation processes can refer to 3-step model and be shown as follows (Aggarwal and Goodell, 2014; Lee, Kim and Park, 2015).
3.4.1 Map
It should invite experts to lecture members about culture work to improve employees' awareness and understanding of another culture. In international business activities, managers and staff of cross-cultural companies should learn to use a neutral term to describe culture-related things to try to avoid or eliminate cultural bias. There is no good or bad culture, only the suitable and the unsuitable (Georgieva, Jandik and Lee, 2012). In addition, for managers, to learn about other cultures and have an inclusive consciousness and respectful attitude is not enough, they also needs to learn more details of other cultures, because how to deal with details can reflect professional levels of cross- cultural managers (Georgieva, Jandik and Lee, 2012). For example: Chinese culture has the characteristics of multiple-direction of time and they have a poor sense of time, therefore when management assign tasks to Chinese employees, they should pay attention to the development of a clear timetable and plan to ensure that Chinese employees can complete their work on time. American culture belongs to cultures of one-way of time and they have a strong sense of time, but they are not good at dealing with interpersonal relationships, therefore, management should help American staff to maintain good relationships with Chinese employees.
3.4.2 Bridge
Cross-cultural management should be through the establishment of communication mechanisms to carry out sensitivity training and formal training to recognize cultural differences to form cultural identity (Lee, Kim and Park, 2015). First, it should establish culture communication mechanisms to encourage staff to exchange more to enhance understanding. Again, management and staff of both sides should be arranged to carry out cultural training, such as short lectures, role-play, situational dialogues, case studies, group discussions, visits and so on. Finally, through training and learning, it can cultivate pillars talents who understand both Chinese and American cultures and management. For example, as Chinese culture is a high-context culture, in communicating with Chinese employees, it usually does not need to criticize them directly, otherwise they will feel insulted. American culture is a low-context culture, when communicating with American staff, it should be straightforward, or they will feel confused and do not know what to do.
3.4.3 Integrate
It should encourage the presence of different values, the vigor of seeking for flexible management of enterprises lies in innovation. Management under the circumstance of a single culture is difficult to innovate because of fixed thinking modes. In the environment of cross-cultural management, comparing with each other, learn from each other may be the opportunity for innovation. On the premise of understanding the strengths and blind spots of both cultures, looking for cultural differences can carry out innovation understood and accepted by each other (Lee, Kim and Park, 2015). Thus, multinationals between China and the US can encourage existence of different values and seeking diversified management methods, these attempts may bring new inspiration to the management of multinational companies. For example, management of Chinese people focuses on the overall interests and long-term interests, while management of the US has emphasis on efficiency and individual ability. In Sino-US multinationals, to adopt a Chinese style of management towards management personnel and use an American style of management towards staff will be an appropriate method.
Lee, Kim and Park (2015) point out that when there are two or more cultures coexist a company, considering management, it should pay attention to respecting and understanding each other's culture, communicating with equal manner. On this basis to find the combination point of two cultures, to take the advantages of the two cultures can establish unified values to gradually form a common management philosophy and corporate culture. New corporate culture has both inclusive enough, but also innovative, plasticity. New corporate culture should be comprehensive, innovative, figurable. The new corporate culture and values should include characteristics of both American culture and Chinese culture, such a management philosophy and corporate culture is easier for employees of both sides to accepted to reduce cultural friction, so that each employee can take the initiative to make their thoughts and conduct consistent or at least compatible with the company's main business purpose (Lee, Kim and Park, 2015). For example, both Chinese and American cultures have masculine characteristics, they are aggressive and persistent for seeking for money. Therefore, in management, it should spay attention to material incentives, through salary increase, promotion and other incentives to encourage Chinese and American employees to contribute to the enterprise.
4.0 Conclusion
In this study, it is based on cross-cultural management theories and Hofstede’s model, Hall’s model, taking Chinese and American cultures as research objects to discuss how to carry out cross-cultural management in international business activities. The author believes that in international business activities, it should mainly deal with cross-cultural management work in three areas, first is to allow employees to understand and respect cultural differences, followed by a good communication between employees from different cultural backgrounds. Finally, unified values should be established gradually within the enterprise to form a common management philosophy and corporate culture. |
