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Business report on Cross-Cultural differences in leadership

Kishoree Shivraj Mali (2011497)

University Canada West

MGMT 601: Leadership in The Global Context

Professor Ashli Komaryk

March 3, 2021
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Introduction

The relationship of cross-cultural differences with leadership style has become

extremely crucial in recent days as most companies expand their business globally. As mentioned

in the journal of Taras, Vas, Piers Steel, and Bradley L. Kirkman (2010), value dimensions of

cross-cultural value such as the patterns of communication, uncertainty avoidance, and

individualism affect the company's management context. The write-up aims to define the latest

cultural trends and cross-cultural differences within the organizational levels dealing with

international businesses. Most modern-world organizations have various strategies to deal with

their cross-cultural entities and ventures established within multiple regions across the globe

within different socio-cultural seismographic. These forces have elevated the probability that

employees in many organizations with distinct cultural circumstances, religions, and nationalities

have a multicultural workforce working together. Cipla Ltd. is a private multinational

pharmaceutical company that wants to show itself in foreign areas, monopoly initiatives, and

joint ventures. The main impact of cultural differences reflects the communication framework,

organizational hierarchy, performance, and etiquettes. The leaders' primary role in managing

such critical situations within workplaces is a great challenge and requires effort from the

management's end. The leaders' corporate ethics and their behavior towards the local culture

often decide its success and failure. Thus, it becomes essential that modern organizations

interested in expanding worldwide may first research the local trends and behavioral patterns of

people within the region wherever management planned to grow business. Apart from this,

companies shall have to accept cultural differences when moving on from one area to another as

a requirement of effective leadership and ultimately to make a business successful. It must be

entirely part of the global business strategy for organizations such as Cipla Ltd. Pharmaceutical

company.
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Current trends in cross-cultural communication

The pharmaceutical company has made a lot of growth in the past few years. Cipla Ltd. has

implemented artificial intelligence to seek better outcomes, nurturing the drug discovery process

very much. Apart from that, it also helps in the development process of new medicines a lot.

Cipla Ltd. Organization has used this current trend to identify and address any critical challenges

within this industry, including manufacturing processes' optimization and automation.

Communication plays an essential role in pharmaceutical business companies like Cipla

Pharmaceutical Ltd. It helps them exchange knowledge about who their targeted customers are

and helps them maintain and develop good relationships with them (Essner, 2019). The current

trends include culture and leadership. Cipla Ltd. Company has a good culture and leadership

skills that help the company attract their targeted and critical consumers and satisfy their needs

effectively and efficiently. The corporate culture allows the company to share its values and

beliefs with its customers and employees (Dalluay & Jalagat, 2016). The use of social media is

also another current trend in cross-culture communication. It helps the pharmaceutical companies

attract their customers more rapidly, develop good brand awareness, and generate a corporate

socially responsible company. While maintaining high expectations and consistent procedures,

international organizations must develop ethical frameworks for India's policymakers and modify

them to reflect cultural expectations. It is also beneficial for the companies to quickly share their

critical perceptions with the consumers to faster sell their products and services. Values and

needs are also essential and recent trends in cross-cultural communication (Ipl, 2020). This trend

helps the firm's values prioritize the critical demands of the employee and the consumers. The

lousy culture within the workplace can destroy the firm from the inside. Other than that, this also

affects the revenue generation of the company very much. Analytics and data trends help
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organizations improve the production process and increase the market shares of pharmaceutical

firms. This trend allows the companies to keep track of their overall business processes, which

will further help them a lot shorter to create a strong base of loyal customers and capture their

attention.

Relevant Frameworks Dealing with Cross-Cultural Differences.

The culture encompasses assumptions, beliefs, and morals gained at the beginning of life that

differentiate distinct groupings Obal & Kunz (2016). Moreover, as per Abdelahi et al. (2020),

culture is a developed behavioral characteristic unique to individuals' consortium. They are

recognized, passed on, and communicated through particular marks, principles, and ideas

symbols.

 The frameworks which helps to deal with cross-cultural differences are

Hofstede's framework. This framework identifies the outcome of the culture of the

society. It is a tool of cross-cultural relearns (Köles & Vörös, 2011). It helps compare

and analyze various cultures within a firm, further supporting the company in identifying

its behaviors and values. Hence, it can be able to within the overall performance of the

organization very efficiently and effectively. Hofstede (2015) kept his study intensive

principally to the primary values of levels and conventions and related his discoveries on

various countries based on their culture level. This framework has its relevance to the

four issues in society. This framework identifies that cultural differences also matter a lot.
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Figure 1: Hofstede's framework of cultural differences

 The global framework also helps in the deal with cross-cultural differences very quickly.

The globe framework is one of the most influential cultural frameworks. It enables the

firm to understand how to improve the effectiveness in the international environment. It

also helps increase the firms' leadership and culture (R Betancourt et al., 2020). The

globe study helps to examine how leadership can view with the help of culture. It is very

much valuable because it appears from a very well-developed design of qualitative

research. It also helps the companies promote various types of culture in their

workplaces, which further helps them learn new things from each culture. It helps to

encourage the right working environment within the workplace for the staff. According to

a national analysis conducted in the year, 2013, countries high on the cultural dimension

of Hofstede's individuality are more creative (Langton et al., 2016, p. 438).

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Figure 2: Five Dimensions of global culture framework

The Cipla current cultural trends and cross-cultural frameworks

Power Distance

Cross-cultural communication is an operative effect of a global workforce that holds

various reasons along with gestures. Cross-cultural communication is a well-defined subject or

matter that is multifaceted with some issues or genres like anthropology, philosophy, linguistics,

and psychology. Cross-cultural communication is the process in which people interact with

different cultures, regions, and communities. It can be face-to-face as well as from distant

relationships. Some effective cross-cultural communication methods are spoken language,

written language, protocol, body language, etc. India has a high Power-distance culture, and due

to this, bureaucratic leadership has a higher dominance amongst Indians. Unavoidable necessity

is just the main important element of cross-cultural communication (Nagpal Chopra, 2017).

Short vs. Long term Orientation

Global workspaces are required to grow variedly in the workspace and eliminate the

blunt old cross-cultural trends. Cipla Limited has precisely done to reduce its congestion within

the operations and establish intercultural trends to handle their international relations. Likewise,
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within Cipla Ltd., it becomes more common and can also benefit because of increasingly diverse

expertise and introduces new business problem attitudes. The cultural trends at Cipla Ltd. India

have to be different from that of Cipla US (Opentextbc, 2020). The issue with individuals is that

they have varied opinions and trends that may not be common in an international business

environment. The data suggests that the team members' cultural diversity disrupts team

processes, at least in the short term. However, cultural diversity appears to be an advantage for a

variety of tasks. It has more trouble learning to function and challenges overcome by culturally

diverse team members (Langton et al., 2016, p. 231). Thus, three areas of corporate business

affected due to culture are etiquette, organizational hierarchy, and communication.

Understanding these areas may also help the Cipla Ltd. leaders understand the opinions and want

of colleagues, clients, and other stakeholders from the aboard cell.

 Influence of cross-cultural differences on the performance of the Cipla Ltd

Pharmaceutical Company (Problems and Solutions)

1) Problem: Communication Barriers Domestic and International for Field Employees

There is a high risk for Cipla Ltd.'s business for getting their message lost in the transition,

mainly when they do not get accustomed to the native language of the regional community.

Especially within India, with such a high diversity, the field managers and leaders may face

many communication barriers. Thus, they must implement measures that could solve the

problem of miscommunication. Whatever employee follows Cipla Ltd.'s culture might not be

acceptable to the employee belonging from other cultures, such as eye contact for

communication, handshakes, etc. (Reynolds, 2017). It could even become offensive in various

circumstances. Cross-cultural communication can also become a challenge when approaching

cultural differences with sensitivity, openness, curiosity, etc.

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Solution- Coaching/Training: All employees traveling domestically or internationally, in

different parts of the world, for audits at plants or marketing at filed shall be trained to overcome

language barriers, either language training or artificial intelligence.

Implications on Performance: Due to lack of audits lack of understanding of languages,

auditors may misunderstand the local workers' actual feedback and may get manipulated by

seniors by using international language. After implementing the solution, the organization will

strive for precision during audits and achieve more sales targets if marketing representatives

capture the market through clarity in communication and understanding.

2) Problem- Organizational Hierarchy and Attitudes Towards Corporate Management:

Organizational hierarchy and attitudes towards corporate management are also crucial for

organizational performance. People or employees in the organization, specifically in the middle-

management or junior positions, feel much comfortable speaking up informal meetings set-ups

and turn up interactive with their delivery of speeches. These attitudes and messages often reflect

the specific culture of any country, region, or nation. For instance, India has respect for seniors,

cultural beliefs, and religion within the work environment. This particular hierarchy helps top

define the organization's responsibilities and roles (Szkudlarek et al., 2020). Manager or

employees expects a level of formality, and integrity is also an essential part of the organizational

hierarchy. Even this also criticizes the democratic behavior of citizens within India concerning

other work environments.

Solution-Develop a Global Policy: The Human Resource department shall develop an exact,

well-defined protocol to handle power distance throughout the globe and subsidiaries.
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Implications on Performance: The clear policies will keep transparency in communication at

all organizational levels. Ultimately such policies will develop confidence in employees all

around the globe working in the company.

3) Problem-Diverse Work Cultural at Different Workplaces/Associated Companies:

Another critical point to note is the presence of high context culture, i.e.., the information is

based on its contextual form, ranging from gestures, non-verbal messages, body language, etc.

The prevalence of high-context culture causes a communication gap between the speaker and the

listener because it is implicit, unlike in Western countries(USA & Canada). These are some of

the main obstacles or challenges within global cultures (Köles & Vörös, 2011).

Solution- Cross-Cultural Interaction Frequently at Workplace: Cipla ltd. should focus on

some significant aspects that would set their attention for cross interactions. Therefore they need

to focus on employing expatriates along with the typical intensity of the cross-cultural effects.

Implications on Performance: The most fantastic part is that expatriates make some

recommendations based on the local region's environmental and sociological context. Apart from

that, they would also apply various norms and social guidelines that would be acceptable,

especially within a diversified country like India. This solution implementation is ultimately

resulting in improved performance.

4) Problem: Dealing with Employees of Various Origin And Nationalities

Leaders must need to deal with several employees belonging to various origins and nationalities.

There are numerous diverse approaches to professional communication, one of the most

innumerable differences within workplace norms. The formality of providing an address is a

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requirement for Cipla Ltd. at any cost. As compared to other countries, the punctuality of

employees and the status of work also differ in India. For instance, during board meetings, an

Indian employee may not be punctual than an American or European (Szkudlarek et al., 2020).

Even the factor of attitude takes place when it comes to consideration of other workplace

etiquettes.

Solution- Workplace Rule and Regulation Standardisations: Particularly when it comes to

workplace confrontation due to the diversity of culture, rules, and regulations, and a minimum

assumption of work hours, the factor of attitude plays a vital role. Some leaders may consider the

long working hours as a sign of achievement and commitment. In contrast, others believe the

different demonstration lacks reprioritization towards essential family time or efficiency.

Nowadays, many organizations' interest in spirituality has increased, but it has not been easy to

incorporate their values. Several activities, including those that foster job and life balance, will

encourage a spiritual workplace. Leaders can exhibit beliefs, actions, and habits that give rise to

innate inspiration and a sense of vocation. Encouraging workers to understand how their jobs can

fulfill a function by creating a culture can help spiritually work (Langton et al., 2016, p. 452).

Hence standardization of rules and their global implementation is required.

Implications on Performance: Due to the balanced workplace and globally implemented

central rule, it develops punctuality and job satisfaction of working in a multinational company,

ultimately increasing its productivity.

Conclusion and Recommendations

People who have employed within the company feel embarrassed due to the country's highly

diversified culture. Apart from that, people can have the best leadership skills applied to their
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staff members and committee members. Every stakeholder in the regional parts gets assisted with

local employees who belong to the regional communities. Apart from that, Cipla Ltd. Leaders

shall also use democratic leadership to make new adjustments and make unique advantages

challenged people to need due to cross-cultural differences. The management shall also recruit

new innovative measures within the company's R&D department to create more productivity and

gain maximum profit from their pharmaceutical products range. Specifically, for removing

barriers within information communication, Cipla Ltd. may use useful IT devices and knowledge

information management systems.

Moreover, the CIPLA also needs to train its workforce to deal with complicated

circumstances in cross-cultural environments. Coping with cultural conflicts and rational topics

that may affect a society's morale is influenced mainly by cross-cultural differences. Apart from

that dealing with etiquette tactics shall better the new employees to cultures in international

zones. Cipla Ltd employees should also commit themselves to protect their self-respect and deal

with other individuals by respecting the different cultural attitudes and traditions.

Hence, to create a solid profile of cross-cultural effects, the Cipla Ltd. leaders must be

creative and sound enough to accept the different regional traditions they need to work.

Educators, organizers, and professionals must be in a great deal to assist the employees in

achieving great goals. Cipla Ltd should use the idea of Cultural Intelligence (CQ), i.e., the innate

capacity to perceive foreign and ambiguous gestures as compatriots and colleagues may

represent them (Langton et al., 2016, p. 107). Further, evidence states that CQ can help inducing

expatriates' leadership effectiveness in a foreign country. Thus, it also hints that the higher

management of Cipla Ltd. can deal with cross-cultural anomalies with the help of CQ and then

eventually strengthen its presence overseas. The organization should educate its leaders and
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employees to manage the regional bases' cross-cultural effect. Driving cross-cultural factors such

as communication and organizational hierarchy may negatively and positively influence

employees' performance factors. Hence Cipla Ltd. has managed to set up various implications

attached to the characteristics of cultural differences across the organization. Even the person

appointed as expatriates has to work and adopt the local atmosphere's culture outside India has to

be different from the local Indian traditions. Thus, they have to be emotionally intense and

composed before making crucial steps for the organizational objective. For Cipla's management,

the following leadership tactics can be a game-changer for influential leaders-

 Employee Involvement and empowerment- The emphasis on empowering employees

and its implications on different cultures varies accordingly. According to research,

Indian managers who did try to empower their employees were often rated low by their

employees due to the prevalence of high power-distance culture (Langton et al., 2016, pp.

192-193)-. Thus, the Indian employees would mostly accept & expect a difference in

authority due to high power-distance culture.

 Transformational Leadership- This is also considered amongst the Indian masses since

this leadership style is considered somewhat similar in Canada and India (Langton et al.,

2016, p. 403). Cipla Ltd. should perhaps try educating their higher management in

transformational leadership to establish a strong organization's strong work culture.

 Shape the environment and Heightened Emotional Levels of Indian society- The

importance of setting and emotions plays a vital role in Cipla's job market. Indian

employees experience 43% of emotions daily at their workplace and are often skewed or

drifted towards most emotionless societies (Langton et al., 2016, pp. 68-69). The coercive

leadership style is linked to negative emotions, and this is also the most preferred
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leadership style used in Indian workplaces. However, this also leads to a higher turnover

rate and low job satisfaction, leading to dysfunctional conflicts. Thus, Cipla Ltd. has to

minimize dysfunctional conflicts and turnovers for their betterment and prosperity.

 Maintain a balance between Mechanistic and Organic organizational model- Cipla has

to design a well-maintained organizational structure and adapt from both the

organizational models. For example, Cipla Leaders can adopt a higher specialization and

higher formalization from the mechanistic model. However, on the other hand, some

Cipla leaders should adopt cross-functional & Cross-hierarchical teams' ideas, wide spans

of control, and free flow of information from the organic model (Langton et al., 2016, pp.

472-480).

 Train in conflict management strategies- As discussed earlier-indirectly causes a

communication gap/absence amongst employees and the manager due to India's high-

context cultures. Thus, Cipla managers should always prefer adopting a Problem-solving

conflict-handling strategy; if not, then Compromising, for the least. It would support the

idea of charismatic leadership for Cipla employees. Forcing conflict strategies should

only be used in emergencies where the options are limited to/or non.


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