Global Mindset Flashcards
Civil law
Legal system based on written codes (laws, rules, or
regulations).
Common law
Legal system in which each case is considered in terms
of how it relates to legal decisions that have already been
made; evolves through judicial decisions over time.
Cultural intelligence
Capacity to recognize, interpret, and behaviorally adapt
to multicultural situations and contexts.
Culture
Basic beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviors, and customs
shared and followed by members of a group, which give
rise to the group’s sense of identity.
Due process
Concept that laws are enforced only through accepted,
codified procedures.
Global mindset
Ability to take an international perspective, inclusive of
other cultures’ views.
High-context cultures
Societies or groups characterized by complex, usually
long-standing networks of relationships; members share
a rich history of common experience, so the way they
interact and interpret events is often not apparent to
outsiders.
Jurisdiction
Right of a legal body to exert authority over a given
geographical territory, subject matter, or persons or
institutions.
Low-context cultures
Societies in which relationships have less history;
individuals know each other less well and don’t share
a common database of experience, so communication
must be very explicit.
Rule of law
Concept that stipulates that no individual is beyond the
reach of the law and that authority is exercised only in
accordance with written and publicly disclosed laws.
What does having a global mindset require?
- being able to see the world from a perspective inside another person’s culture and using that awareness to create solutions and bridges
- Self-awareness - understanding ones’ own culture and recognizing it is just one among many
What does a global mindset prepare an HR practitioner for?
To complete necessary due diligence, ask the right questions, and prepare and support the organization and it’s employees
What key operational benefits does having a global mindset bring to an organization
- More effective communication and coordination across the organization between global divisions and partners.
- More efficient and quicker best-practices sharing across the global organization, including with international partners
- More effective cross-cultural trust building and collaboration through compliance programs and diversity and sensitivity policies and practices.
- More likely to identify international opportunities in order to take advantage of the benefits associated with being first to market
- More sophisticated understanding of local and global standards and preferences, which can lead to faster global rollout of new product/service concepts and technologies
What three elements must be in place to develop a global mindset?
- Appropriate knowledge, skills, and understanding
- Desire and motivation on the part of the employee to change
- Support from systems and management
What is the checklist for developing and promoting a global mindset?
- Study and understand your own culture and how it relates to others
*Study and understand global business trends and forces - Promote a global mindset within your organization
What are the 4 T’s?
Travel, Teams, Training, Transfers
What is the Travel aspect of the 4 T’s?
- Can help managers and employees gain experience
- Can help expand awareness and appreciation of different places and cultures
- Can increase managers’ and employees’ visibility within an organization
- Can result in culture shock
- Can be time-consuming
What is the Teams aspect of the 4 T’s
Can be a highly effective way to help employees develop cross-cultural management skills when they work on culturally diverse and/or international teams
What is the Training aspect of the 4 T’s?
- Can broaden employee’s global and cultural awareness
- Can challenge ethnocentric definitions and cultural norms
- Can present challenges
What is the Transfers aspect of the 4 T’s?
Can have a strong and lasting impact on individuals’ relationship development and cross-cultural management skills
Can help develop new, transferrable skills dn competencies through cultural immersion
What are the Skills needed for global HR
- Develop a strategic view of the organization
- Develop a global organization culture
- SEcure and grow a safe and robust talent supply chain
- Use and adapt HR technology
- Develop meaningful metrics
- Develop policies and practices to manage risks
What characteristics will an HR professional with a global mindset have?
- They drive for the bigger, broader picture
- They accept contradictions
- They trust the process to solve problems
- They value multicultural teamwork
*They view change as an opportunity - They are open to new ideas and continual learning
- They are inclusive, not exclusive
Geert Hofestede notes that culture is only part of an individual’s makeup. It shares space with and can be affected by what other aspects of a person’s makeup?
*The individual’s personality, which is a product of inheritance and experience
* Human nature, which is universal- such as feelings of joy or loss
According to Edgar Schein what are the layers of culture from the outside in?
- Artifacts and products
- Norms and Values
- Basic assumptions
What are Artifacts and Products in the layers of culture?
- Explicit Culture
These include a culture’s obvious features, such as its food, dress, architecture, humor, and music
What are the Norms and Values in the layers of culture?
Less immediately obvious re a culture’s shared and stated sens of acceptable behaviors, what is right and wrong. These may be a country’s rules and regulations or a company’s mission statement and code of conduct.
What are the Basic Assumptions in Schein’s layers of culture?
- Implicit Culture
These are the culture’s core beliefs about how the wor is and out to be. They may be unspoken, and members may not even be consciously aware of them
Culture vs. Climate
- The explicit or observable aspects of an organization are not the totality of its culture. These features are more accurately referred to as the organization’s climate.
- Climate is distinct from culture
- Culture is the results of shared beliefs
- Climate may result from the actions of a few individuals or external forces
Accoridng to Nancy J. Adler, what are the three aspects of cultural intelligence:
- Cognitive - including thinking, learning and strategizing
- Motivational - including effectiveness, confidence, persistence, value congruence, and the level of attraction toward a new culture
- Behavioral - including an individual’s range of possible actions and responses to intercultural encounters.
Edward Hall’s theory of High and Low Context Cultures
Context level affects communication and relationships:
* High-context culture - a statement’s meaning includes the verbal message and the nonverbals and social and historical content attached to the statement
* Low-context cultures - A statement’s meaning is enclosed in the words only.
Geert Hofstede’s six dimensions of culture
- Power distance
- Individualism/collectivism
- Uncertainty avoidance
- Masculine/feminine
- Long-term/short term
- Indulgence/restraint
Define Hofstede’s Power Distance
Extent to which less-powerful members of organizations and institutions accept unequal distribution of power
High: Malaysia, Latin America, Middle East, China, Indonesia, India
Low: Austria, Israel, Scandinavian countries, UK, US
Define Hofstede’s Individualism/collectivism
Degree to which individuals are integrated into groups.
Individualism: Ties are loos, self-reliance valued
Collectivisim: Strong, Cohesive groups; protection is exchanged for loyalty to groups
Individual: US, Australia, UK, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium
Collective: Latin America, Pakistan, Indonesia, South Korea, China
What are Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner’s cultural dilemmas?
*Universal/particular - flexibility versus rules
* Individual/communitarian - the good that drives decisions
* Neutral/affective - expression of emotion
* Specific/diffuse - public and private boundaries
* Achieved/ascribed - Source of merit (personal accomplishment or connection
* Sequential/synchronic - Sense of time
*Internal/external - Individual control over one’s destiny
Define Hofstede’s Uncertainty Avoidance
Level of tolerance of uncertainy and ambiguity; extent to which individuals feel comfortable in unstructured, new, or unexpected situations
High: Greece, Portugal, Latin America, Belgium, Japan, France
Low: Singapore, Denmark, Sweden, UK
Define Hofstede’s Masculin/Feminine
Masculine Traits: Ambitious, tendency to polarize, oriented toward work and achievement.
Feminine traits: Nurturing, empathetic, oriented toward quality of life, striving for consensus, favoring small size and slow pace
Note: In masculine societies, gender roles are distinct; in feminine societies, roles may overlap
Masculin: Japan, Hungary, Austria, Venezuela, Italy
Feminine: Scandinavian countries, Netherlands, Chile, Thailand
Define Hofstede’s long-term/short-term
Long-term orientation: Uses traditional norms and customs to guide action. VAlues thrift, perseverance; orders relationships by status and values
Short-term orientation: Makes decisions based on likely results. Values pragmatism
Long-term: China, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, India
Short-term: West Africa, Philippines, Norway, UK, US
Define Hofstede’s Indulgence/restraint
Indulgence: Enjoyment of life and freedom in gratifying desires
Restraint: Suppression of desires in order to meet social norms
Indulgence: Most North and South American Countries
Restraint: Russia and Baltic countries, Italy, India, China
Define Trompenaar’s and H-T’s Universal/Particular Dilemma.
A universal culture emphasizes consistency, clarity, and impartiality. Rules for each case ensure fairness.
A particular culture is flexible, pragmatic, and comfortable with ambiguity. It considers the case and its context first and will make exceptions; fairness is achieved by considering many factors and relationships.
Define T and HT’s Individual/Communitarian Dilemma.
To an individualist, a good society is one in which there is freedom and opportunity to advance oneself.
To a communitarian, a good society is achieved when we all take care of each other, even if this means loss of personal freedom or opportunity.
Define T and HT’s neutral/affective dilemma.
A neutral society disapproves of public expressions of emotion
In affective cultures individual express emotions freely
Define T and HT’s’ Specific/Diffuse dilemma.
People in specific culures have open public lives but a strong boundary between public and private lives
People in diffuse cultures allow access to their public lives only through introduction by a trusted associate, but when access is granted, it includes access to the person’s personal life.
Define T and HT’s Achieved/ascribed dilemma.
In an achieved culture, individuals are valued according to their own accomplishments (what they do)
In an ascribed culture, value may be derived from social factors like position, wealth, family or gender (who they are)
Define T and HT’s Sequential/synchronic dilemma
Sequential cultures see time as linear and an important part of life. Planning, keeping appointments, and making productive use of time are important. The future is more important than the past
Synchronic cultures see time as large enough to accommodate multiple activities at the same time. They can also accommodate delays if a change is necessary to support a relationship. The past and the present are just as important or more important than the future.
Define T and HT’s Internal/External dilemma.
In an internal world, individuals can decide and follow their own paths. One can dominate nature.
In an external world, human begins are part of a larger scheme that directs the course of events. Individuals can only adapt, not create. They must submit to nature.
What are the four obstalces that HR may face in trying to achieve understanding in multicultural organizations?
Ethnocentrism and parochialism - the viewer perceives and judges other cultures according to the norms of the viewer’s own culture and rigidly maintains that narrow mindset.
Cultural stereotypes - Perceptions of a culture are applied to all of the culture’s members, often in a negative manner
Cultural determinism - Culture defines behavior and therefore excuses some actions and makes changes impossible.
Cultural relativism - There are no absolutes. Norms and values vary by situation and cultural perspective
According to Nancy Adler, what are the different strategies for negotiating cultural differences?
Cultural domination and cultural accommodation are essentially about assimilation. I assimilate your beliefs, or you assimilate mine.
cultural compromise involves both sides giving up some value sin order to meet in the middle
Cultural synergy involves creating a third way-finding what works well in each culture and removing barriers to communication nd collaboration, including language and policies
What are the four steps to Trompenaars and Hampden’s dilemma reconciliation process?
Recognize - create awareness of cultural differences
Respect - appreciate the value of difference
Reconcile - resolve differences by finding a common path
Realize - implement solutions and institutionalize them in the organization
What is the first step to achieving cultural literacy?
Internalize the importance of mutual understanding, learning, and training.
Reverse Mentorship
Reverse mentorship redefines the mentor-mentee relationship into one that goes both ways. Each individual can teach the other about their own cultures, acting in the role of cultural intermediary or coach. These relationships build trust and enhance effective collaboration and can help instill a global mindset as employees are exposed to more diverse viewpoints.
Conflict of Laws
Conflict of laws is a situation in which the laws of two or more jurisdictions differ and may exert a different result on a legal case depending on which system is deemed to have jurisdiction.
Forum or jurisdiction shopping
Jurisdiction shopping is the practice of taking complaints to jurisdictions sympathetic to complainants’ case.
It is rarely effective where employment contracts are concerned, since residency laws favoring the jurisdiction in which the work is actually done tend to prevail.
Levels of law
Laws can be described by their areas of control:
National - federal laws applicable across the nation
Subnational/regional - laws that apply to states, provinces, municipalities, or regions.
Extraterritorial - laws that extend beyond a nation’s borders and protect or apply to the nation’s citizens traveling or working aborad
Supranational - binding agreements between nations; may supersede national laws
International - laws between nations that also apply to individuals within national borders; usually ratified by participating countries but can also be accepted without ratification
With the recent addition of a traditional Japanese tea garden, a well-funded art museum wants to invest in educating staff who have little understanding of Japanese tea rituals. Which activity should HR recommend to develop cultural awareness and appreciation for the tea garden experience?
Have the team divide assignments to research the tea garden experience by topic and cross-train each other.
Travel to Tokyo to experience tea culture and tour tea gardens.
Conduct internal training on tea culture experience that includes proper behavior.
Transfer a tea ceremony master from Tokyo to train the event planning staff.
Travel to Tokyo to experience tea culture and tour tea gardens
For the event planning staff to develop cultural awareness and appreciation for the tea garden experience, they should travel to Tokyo, if possible. The other options may aid staff understanding but will not offer the cultural immersion to allow them to return and relay the experience that clients will expect.
What is a global mindset?
The ability to learn other languages and understand various cultural holidays
The ability to take an international, multidimensional perspective that is inclusive of other cultures, perspectives, and views
The ability to encourage others with diverse backgrounds to see one’s own perspective as the correct one
The belief that all other cultures and identity groups are really no different from one’s own
The ability to take an international, multidimensional perspective that is inclusive of other cultures, perspectives, and views
People with a global mindset have acquired knowledge and experience of other cultures and, based on this, are able to see cultures different from their own as neither better nor worse but simply different in some ways and similar in many key ways. They use this mindset to interpret individuals and events from multiple cultural perspectives. It is more than just seeing cultures as equivalent; it involves understanding differences and their effects. A global mindset requires more than knowing a language.
Training activities that require participants to debate employment practices may be difficult for employees from what type of culture?
power distance culture
High power distance culture
Low-context culture
High-context culture
High power distance culture
In high power distance organizations, less powerful employees accept autocratic and paternalistic structures and may be unwilling to debate or question decisions of leadership.
An expatriate, recently transferred to a new country for a temporary assignment, assumes that colleagues in the host country will value timeliness just as much as colleagues in the home country do. The expatriate experiences frustration with slow response to e-mails and requests, inhibiting collaboration and the development of relationships among the new team. This example indicates a lack of understanding and exploration of what type of culture?
National culture
Organizational culture
Professional culture
Subculture
National Culture
Differences in assumptions, outlooks, and rules can challenge communication and comprehension. This challenge is remedied by remaining aware of and curious about the varied rules (written and unwritten) that each nation’s business culture has, combined with respecting and adapting to those rules while working in the environment.
What describes a culture that prefers training activities that spell out details and use direct and logical communication?
High-context
Large power distance
Low-context
Small power distance
Low-context
In low-context cultures, people reach to what is explicitly communicated so tat those coming into the environment know how to behave.
Where is a plaintiff more likely to file a legal suit when jurisdiction shopping?
Region where the company headquarters resides
Country where the plaintiff is employed
Locale that historically provides the desired results
District that allows for jury trials
Locale that historically provides the desired results
Jurisdiction or forum shopping is the practice of litigants taking their legal cases to the most likely location that will provide a favorable judgment. Some jurisdictions have become known as “plaintiff-friendly” and so have attracted litigation even when there is little or no connection between the legal issues and the jurisdiction in which they are to be litigated.
An HR Director is responsible for evaluating employee benefit requirements for various municipalities in regions across the country. What legal concept does this situation represent?
Conflict of laws
Difference between civil and common law
Rule of law
Extraterritoriality
Conflict of Laws
Conflict of laws is created when two or more jurisdictions (in this case, the municipality and any higher level of government in the country or in other countries) each have different legal requirements for the entities operating in their borders. The HR director, probably with legal counsel, must clarify which jurisdiction has control over a particular issue and adjust policies accordingly.
