Cross Cultural Management
Zain Telecommunication Company
“A Colorful World”
Cross Cultural Management
“Culture is like gravity: you do not experience it until you jump six feet into the air.”
- Trompenaars and Hampen-Turner, Riding the Waves of Culture.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Organizations are no longer constrained by national borders. Due to globalization, the traditional teamwork has undergone transformation through entry of people from diverse cultures. This development has a marked effect upon corporations and their operations. Besides managing diversity with regard to demographics and functional background, the added task of cultural diversity or multiculturalism in corporations will also have to be addressed. Teams based upon multiculturalism have their associated advantages and disadvantages.
Trompenaars et al stated that “culture is a shared system of meanings; it dictates what we pay attention to, how we act and what we value. Culture organizes such values into what Geert Hofstede calls “mental programmes”. The behavior of people within organizations is an enactment of such programmes. Culture is the way in which a group of people solves problems and reconciles dilemmas. Culture also presents itself on different levels. At the highest level is the culture of a national or regional society, e.g. the Netherlands versus the Arab/Bahrain. The way in which attitudes are expressed within a specific organization is described as a corporate or organizational culture.” Elaborating about (corporate) culture, we arrive at the subject matter of this paper; the telecommunication company Zain. Zain started operating 27 years ago as the first mobile operator in the Middle East. Zain has grown from a modest, single operator in Kuwait to a conglomerate with a commercial presence in 24 countries across the Europe, Middle East and North Africa, with a 5,000 dedicated workforce serving over 35.3 million active customers. With the recent sale of 15 African
mobile
“A Colorful World”
Cross Cultural Management
“Culture is like gravity: you do not experience it until you jump six feet into the air.”
- Trompenaars and Hampen-Turner, Riding the Waves of Culture.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Organizations are no longer constrained by national borders. Due to globalization, the traditional teamwork has undergone transformation through entry of people from diverse cultures. This development has a marked effect upon corporations and their operations. Besides managing diversity with regard to demographics and functional background, the added task of cultural diversity or multiculturalism in corporations will also have to be addressed. Teams based upon multiculturalism have their associated advantages and disadvantages.
Trompenaars et al stated that “culture is a shared system of meanings; it dictates what we pay attention to, how we act and what we value. Culture organizes such values into what Geert Hofstede calls “mental programmes”. The behavior of people within organizations is an enactment of such programmes. Culture is the way in which a group of people solves problems and reconciles dilemmas. Culture also presents itself on different levels. At the highest level is the culture of a national or regional society, e.g. the Netherlands versus the Arab/Bahrain. The way in which attitudes are expressed within a specific organization is described as a corporate or organizational culture.” Elaborating about (corporate) culture, we arrive at the subject matter of this paper; the telecommunication company Zain. Zain started operating 27 years ago as the first mobile operator in the Middle East. Zain has grown from a modest, single operator in Kuwait to a conglomerate with a commercial presence in 24 countries across the Europe, Middle East and North Africa, with a 5,000 dedicated workforce serving over 35.3 million active customers. With the recent sale of 15 African
mobile
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