From my perspective, it is worth noticing that the cultural difference between western and eastern countries. Western countries like Canada and USA often have an individualistic culture where firms emphasize on the uniqueness of individuals, and their creative ideas are highly valued. However, Eastern countries like China and India often have a collective culture where firms value the harmony within the corporation, and individuals often need to comprise in order to accomplish the main chosen goal as a whole.
But how do these different cultures affect behavior within organizations?
For individualistic culture companies, the culture often encourages employees to be creative and generate new ideas. Managers and leaders often have democratic or laissez-faire leadership style. Democratic leadership style encourages both managers and employees are involved in business decision making, and laissez-faire leadership style encourages managers to give workers necessary information and employees are left to make their own decisions. Both leadership styles will highly motivate workers since they feel they are part of the corporation. The royalty of employees rises along with the decrease in labor turnover. Nevertheless, one of the disadvantages is that individuals might bias themselves of their abilities, and they are less likely to compromise. This comes with the consequence of slow decision-making process and conflicts between employees.
For collective culture companies, the culture often encourages employees to create the harmony within the organization. Leaders often maintain a supreme power over the decision-making process. Having collective culture does not necessarily mean that the firms discourage new ideas and employee participations. The key is that at the point of decision-making, although individuals might have completely different ideas, and they cannot agree even a bit of the decision that the leader made, but they have to consider the overall company as their priority and their personal ideas can be sacrificed in order to achieve the common goal. Individuals are more likely to “fit in” instead of “stand out”. This may discourage some employees since they might feel less belongingness and there is a huge “ gap” between management level and them. However, this often comes with a quick decision-making process which is crucial for situations like if the firm is in crisis and decisions need to be made quickly.
It is not fair to judge which culture is better for organizations. It is important to consider that nature of the company. For example, if it is an advertising company, the individualistic culture is preferred to enable employees’ creativity. If it is a mining company, the collective culture is encouraged since employees need to do exactly what they are told to do.
Picture: Kristin Hohenadel/ OCT. 1 2015 12:24 PM/The cultural between east and west, as told in pictograms/