Overseas Chinese as expatriate managers in China: is their recruitment a solution to cross-cultural management problems for multinationals operating in China?

This paper examines the issue of diversity in Chinese identity and how it impacts on the operations of multinationals in China who recruit Overseas Chinese to handle cross-cultural issues. China’s rapid economic development and entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 made her a formidable player in the global economy and direct foreign investment surged. Yet it is acknowledged that for the foreign investor in China, cross-cultural issues create difficulty at every level, from the interpersonal level relating to communication and negotiation, to the organizational level relating to decision making, human resource management practices, corporate legal institutions and liaison with government institutions. Western multinationals have considered the advantages of posting Overseas Chinese from Southeast Asian countries, Taiwan and Hong Kong to their China operations as a solution to cross-cultural management issues. But has this policy been successful? In terms of language expertise this would seem to be a good strategy, yet organizational case material contradicts this in reality. Overseas Chinese, while sharing some elements of Chinese culture with mainland Chinese, the Confucian heritage and other aspects such as language and diet, nevertheless have different world views and values and behave differently from mainland Chinese in areas critical to business management. As a survival strategy, Overseas Chinese have often developed dual identities which operate simultaneously. For political and historical reasons, many of them have had to adapt to the local culture of their country of citizenship or even hide their own ethnicity in order to survive. On the other hand, the mainland Chinese are different in that their behaviour has only had to be Chinese, but overlaid with this has been the experience of participating in a communist political environment for decades, which has left its mark on mainland Chinese culture. On the basis of their different historical experiences, in the current business environment in China, cultural confusion, difficulty and conflict may occur for the Overseas Chinese.

This paper focuses attention on the subtle cultural differences between the Overseas Chinese and mainland Chinese in an organizational context. This problem has yet to be researched in depth within international business and international management studies. It provides evidence that Overseas Chinese are not often favoured by the local Chinese. It gives insights on how to manage the local Chinese for foreign multinationals operating in China.

Issues in the implementation of cross-cultural management in Australia-evidence from a study of selected public and private sector organisations

This study examines the current status of cross-cultural management (CCM) in Australia.

The study is based on Reyes' (2004) Ph.D research of a qualitative nature in five organisations in the public and private sectors selected from a sample of organisations which appear to lead the field in Australia in respect of CCM. Literature is also surveyed to present a picture of the current legal and institutional setting of CCM in Australia and provide a context for the study.

Analysis of the findings highlights the gap between cross-cultural rhetoric and action in workplace situations. Problems are identified leading to incomplete and inadequate implementation of CCM in the respondent organisations. The study argues for the need for management to take a systems approach to the formulation and implementation of CCM. Some suggestions are made for improvements in the future.

The dual technique model within case study approaches to cross-cultural management research in China

This paper advocates the effectiveness of a dual technique model of interviewing, which combines narrative and depth interview techniques, within the case study method in a cross-cultural management research setting, an Australian MNC operating in China. The case study is acknowledged to be a highly appropriate method for gaining insight into the complicated area of cross-cultural management enquiry in order to generate new theories. In this context, we propose a model which combines the narrative and the depth interview techniques in the interview process, and have illustrated its usefulness with material drawn from the China-Australia cross-cultural research interface.

After establishing the rationale for the model, the discussion focuses on the practicalities of applying it in interviews, in relation to the preparation, warm-up and trust building phases, and in the exercise of personal interviewing skills in cross-cultural research, in this case, the advantage of the interviewer being bilingual.

Overseas Chinese as expatriate managers in China : is their recruitment a solution to cross-cultural management problems for multinationals operating in China?

The rapid economic development has gravitated businesses into the Chinese market. It’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 made her an even more formidable player in the global economy and direct foreign investment surged. Yet it is acknowledged that for the foreign investor in China, cross-cultural issues create difficulty at every level, from the intercultural level relating to communication and negotiation, to the organizational level relating to decision making, human resource management practices, corporate legal institutions and dealing with governments. Western multinationals have considered the advantages of posting overseas Chinese, from Southeast Asian countries, Taiwan Hong Kong and etc. But has this policy been successful? In terms of language expertise and cultural literacy this would seem to be a good strategy, yet organizational case material contradicts this in reality. Overseas Chinese, while sharing some elements of Chinese culture with mainland Chinese, the Confucian heritage and other aspects such as language, diet, etc, nevertheless have different world views and values and behave differently from mainland Chinese in areas critical to business management. As a survival strategy, overseas Chinese often developed dual identities operating simultaneously. For many of them, for political and historical reasons, they have had to adapt to the local culture or even hide their own ethnicity in order to survive. On the other hand, the mainland Chinese are different in the sense that their behaviour has only had to be Chinese, but overlaid with this has been the experience of participating in a communist political environment for decades, which has left its mark on mainland Chinese culture. On the basis of this, in the current business environment in China confusion, difficulties and conflict may occur for the overseas Chinese. This paper aims to provide insights of the cultural differences between the overseas Chinese and mainland Chinese. It provides evidence that overseas Chinese are not often favoured by the local Chinese. This problem has yet to be researched in depth within international business and international management studies. It draws the attention to issues on how to manage the local Chinese.

The global village: online cross-cultural communication and HRM

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine relational and task dimension of online communication and the associated emotional experience.

Design/methodology/approach – This paper examines four categories of work outcomes: emotional experiences of work, work attitudes, work dynamics and work behaviours; and links each to the cross-cultural online communication context.

Findings – It was found that diversity-oriented HRM can reduce the cultural fault-lines betweenindividualist and collectivist (IC) cultures, and thereby positively moderate the relationship between cross-cultural online communication and affective, cognitive and behavioural outcomes.

Practical implications – Diversity-oriented HRM can capitalize on an organisation’s cultural diversity and avoid cross-cultural misunderstandings. In a more practical sense, the research purports that combined use of IC HRM practices can produce greater efficiency and effectiveness in
online communications worldwide.

Originality/value – The paper provides an insight into the potential implications of increased use of information technology on cross-cultural communication, and human resource management. The significance of diversity-oriented human resource management in managing these implications is also highlighted.

A self-representation analysis of the effects of individualist-collectivist interactions within organizations in individualistic cultures

Purpose – Increasingly, organizations in the Asia-Pacific region are recognizing the importance of cross-cultural management to the sustainability of their competitive edge. Although the literature is replete with cross-cultural studies of individualism and collectivism, little information is available on the factors that foster effective individualist–collectivist interaction (ICI) within organizations. This paper attempts to provide a theoretical description of individualists and collectivists at the individual
level of analysis, which offers specific testable hypotheses about the effect of self-representation on prejudice between individualists and collectivists (ICs).

Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, a theoretical model is presented in which intergroup prejudices and interpersonal prejudices mediate the effects of ICI and bicultural orientation toward cross-cultural experiences and, in which, the dissimilarity openness of the climate
moderates the level and outcome of prejudices flowing from ICI.

Findings – The model depicts that the outcomes of ICI are mediated by the intergroup prejudices of collectivists and the interpersonal prejudices of individualists, which are moderated by the extent of diversity-oriented HRM policies and practices and individuals’ orientation to cross-cultural experiences. When workforces become culturally diverse, organizations should modify HRM practices to enable the full use of the range of skills and talents available from the diversity, and to ensure affective and behavioral costs are minimized. As globalization and international competition will continue to increase, organizations including those in the Asia-Pacific region, should seriously reevaluate their HRM policies to adapt and take advantage of an increasingly culturally diverse workforce.

Originality/value – The model provides a useful basis upon which organization researchers and practitioners can base their respective agendas.

Building audiences for Indigenous theatre : a case study of Kooemba Jdarra

This paper uses audience research data to examine the positioning of Indigenous theatre in the Australian theatre environment. Kooemba Jdarra is an Aboriginal theatre company in Brisbane, Australia, with a distinguished history of developing Aboriginal artists, writers and directors. However, it has struggled to maintain its positioning because of the perceived risks of participation by audiences who prefer to see Indigenous theatre within the program of the mainstream state theatre company. The paper concludes with strategies for decreasing risk for audiences and for greater advocacy by the company in positioning itself in the mainstream Australia theatre environment.

Guest editorial

An examination of Australian media reports over the last twelve months on the subject of Indigenous arts suggests a number of significant contradictions. Indigenous affairs Minister Amanda Vanstone called Aboriginal arts ‘Australia’s greatest cultural gift to the world’ (Australian, 24 January 2006), while the always-controversial expatriate Germaine Greer argued that much Indigenous art was in fact poor quality and ‘a big con’ (West Australian, 13 December 2005). Curators at France’s Musee du Quai Branly dedicated a wing of the new gallery to Aboriginal art. Yet many Indigenous leaders – including David Ross from the Central Land Council and Hetti Perkins, curator of Indigenous Arts at the Art Gallery of NSW – continue to publicise the widespread exploitation of Aboriginal artists in Central Australia by unscrupulous art dealers (Northern Territory News, 22 December 2005). Former head of the Northern Land Council and former Australian of the Year, Galarrwuy Yunupingu, who twenty years ago presented Bob Hawke with the painting Barunga Statement in celebration of the government’s commitment to a treaty, recently threatened to take the painting back from Parliament House in protest against ‘successive governments’’ neglect of Indigenous policy (Sydney Morning Herald, 21 January 2006). And in the performing arts, Richard Walley drew attention to the lack of professional recognition of Indigenous performing artists (Australian, 24 January 2006).

Such contradictions within the management and marketing of Indigenous arts have persisted for several years, and it was in response that this special issue of the Asia Pacific Journal of Arts and Cultural Management was initiated. As guest editors, we sought to present research that examines, more deeply and constructively, the marketing of Indigenous arts in Australia both historically and in the present. What emerges from this collection of five papers is a familiar scholarly theme: a tension between the ‘periphery’ and the ‘centre’, between outback and city, between larger and smaller Australian states and between Australia and other nations.

Jonathan Sweet’s ‘UNESCO and cultural heritage practice in Australia in the 1950s’ looks at the evolving relationship between Australia and the United Nations through an analysis of a significant touring exhibition: Australian Aboriginal Culture. Sweet pinpoints the 1950s as a period in which Australian museology’s approach to Indigenous cultures gradually changed, and in which Australian participation in UNESCO through the exhibition helped shape the ideological position UNESCO advocated. His article provides a useful historical contrast against which the following four articles may be read.

Chapman, Cardamone, Manahan and Rentschler look at local and contemporary issues in Indigenous arts marketing. Katrina Chapman’s ‘Positioning urban Aboriginal art in the Australian Indigenous art market’ investigates perceptions about contemporary urban Aboriginal art, concluding that the estrangement – and indeed stereotyping – of urban and traditional art creates a false set of values that urban artists are challenging. Similarly, Megan Cardamone, Esmai Manahan and Ruth Rentschler contrast perceptions of Aboriginal arts from the northern and south-eastern states, identifying crucial misconceptions that contribute to the value system applied to these arts. As Ruth Rentschler is a joint editor of this issue, the review process for this article has been managed by Katya Johanson as co-editor.

Two case studies of marketing the arts – which look at different artforms and in opposite sides of the country – then follow. Jennifer Radbourne, Janet Campbell and Vera Ding’s ‘Building audiences for Indigenous theatre’ analyses research on audiences and potential audiences for Kooemba Jdarra – Brisbane’s Indigenous performing arts company – to identify the ways in which audience attendance may be encouraged.

Finally, Jacqui Healy’s ‘Balgo 4-04’ provides a close examination of a unique art exhibition: a major commercial exhibition of the kind usually seen in Sydney and Melbourne, held in an arts centre in the middle of the Tanami Desert and retailing directly to collectors.

The editors are grateful to Warlayirti Artists Art Centre for permission to use the photographs that accompany Jacqui Healy’s article. We would also like to thank the contributors, Jo Caust for the opportunity to present this special issue, and Pearl Field for her assistance in putting it all together.

Organisational and national culture : a study of overlap and interaction in the Literature

Terms such as Globalisation and cross-cultural management are widely used by both organisational managers and academics. While it is the intention of academics and industry analysts to explain the phenomena and discover principles to guide the practitioners, human resource managers are dealing with the workplace changes implicit in these terms on an increasingly frequent basis. These managers are facing increasingly diverse workforces, and must cope with all the challenges and opportunities inherent in such diversity. This article presents a new approach to examining the key literature on organisational and national culture in three main areas. Firstly, areas of convergence between various theories on culture are identified. Secondly, the article illustrates and discusses where these theories diverge from each other. Thirdly, drawing on the principles discussed in the article, a framework of national culture is developed from existing literature that highlights the convergence found in existing models.

Asia-Pacific immigrant managers in Australia : their views about career

Systematic cross-cultural studies of career advancement are fragmented, despite the burgeoning cultural diversity of the global workforce. This study examines diverse groups of managers from the Asia-Pacific region and their stories of career progression to date in Australia. Immigrant managers were interviewed to examine the influence of the new environment on their current career and advancement prospects. In doing so, we demonstrate the experiences of internationally mobile managers when adapting to new boundaries for career advancement. We found that overseas managers have difficulties fitting into the Australian workplace norms. In addition, the study revealed that newcomers had expected to be recognised and promoted for their multiple qualifications; however this did not take place within the Australian workplace context.

A model to enable organisational cultural change using systemic strategic human resource management

Cultural change in organisations is both difficult to implement and hard to achieve. In this paper, theory from strategic human resource management, organisational cultural change, systemic thinking and practice, and punctuated equilibrium, is integrated in order to build a model for organisational culture change. Evidence is provided showing the capacity of the model to enable researchers and organisational change agents to improve the success of organisational cultural change programs.