Practical differences of culture - a Norwegian perspective

A particularly interesting subject for further studies are the question regarding how different organisations creates links between their own organisation and the network surrounding them, such as suppliers, clients, resources and information, and stakeholders and supporters.

Normally, one will find that these connections are rather close and that the organisations cannot exist as something that differs from the norms and the normal possibilities that exists in the environment. An important task for the management will be to find these codes for transaction between the environment and organisation, and negotiate and administrate relations.

Picture 3.4.2: King Olav takes a ride on the tram in 1972 (NRK, 2005).

Compared to other countries and cultures, like France, Germany, Spain and England, this is quite abnormal, and they use in their language a polite speech form, which has a clear language of expression, such as ”Sir” or ”Madame”. This could create some problems in cultures where one emphasize for such polite name calling, especially when it is virtually absent in modern Norwegian. In France it is normal to use the polite speech form ”vous” for people who one wishes to show a minimum of respect. The personally form ”tu” is only used by very young people and within the family. It is important to keep the formal distance sufficiently big, and especially in France, face-to-face contact is seen as not very desirable.

Problems may occur when Norwegians in the face of foreigners do not select the authority they should have had by virtue of their position or power. If for instance a Norwegian with a leader position tells a Pakistanian employee to do a certain thing whenever he has got the time for it, one may experience that the task will not be executed, due to a misunderstanding between the different cultures. The Pakistanian may perceive the weak endorsement as a kind of conversation, and implicit as an expression of weakness, and not as a binding order. The author also confirms that this could be the case for interaction with certain African students, whereas friendly guidance and minimising the rank difference between the professor and the student may be seen as an opportunity to bargain – the students see this as a possibility to

achieve benefits, while the professor thinks he have paved the way for improvement and logical solution of the task. A Norwegian leader may face problems if his communication about duties and tasks are unclear towards Norwegians as well as foreigners. Norwegian will think that a clear voice, rank signs and expression of privileges are inappropriate selection of differences in rights, duties and rank, while this is something that the foreigners are used to and expect. In this way the power of distance dimension would create problems, both at home and away from home (Ibid.).

If one take a look at individualism and collectivism, one can see that there is a major difference between Norway and for example USA, whereas being outgoing and the person of the situation is considered as positive in USA, while in Norway it is more important to be considered, not taking a chance to insult someone or make a fool out of one self. Earlier in the oil industry when Norwegian oil workers worked under American leaders, their methods were seen as direct and though, which in a way could insult the Norwegians. This can be understood and explained by the American values of culture, individualism and a higher degree of masculinity in the way they work. However, in Eastern cultures one can see examples of the opposite, whereas Norwegians are more individualistic oriented and have difficulties with understanding the collective orientations. In collectivistic cultures age is honoured and is being used as characteristic as the most honourable form for membership and must not be defended – this applies for most of the non-Western cultures. To change profession or leave a company, we see as a normal thing to do, but in Eastern cultures, with family oriented work structures, this is seen as abnormal and in many cases reprehensible. In Japan, lifelong loyalty to the company is also seen as honourable and obvious, although young Japanese seem to move away from this tendency and more towards individualistic orientation. Likewise, the basis for social inclusion – a collective attitude, in some cultures may be expressed by rarely given off on either request. In the East it is normal to smile and express consent, even in cases where the answer would be ”no” in the West. In Arabian societies and in the East Scandinavia one may experience very long preambles before doing business. They talk about family, literature and seemingly irrelevant topics, forever. While the Scandinavians wants to get down to business, the counterpart wants to provide security to create trust between the two parties, and to make sure that the two parties make the business relationship as fruitful as possible. This is done by committing like friends commit to each other, and in this way if one can create close and personal relationship, it is possible to do business. One has then developed its own group and included new members, and a majority

of people all over the world lives under these circumstances, where this is a natural approach to doing business (Ibid.).

Further, one will talk about uncertainty avoidance in a Norwegian perspective, but indeed compared to other cultures and countries. This is a dimension where Norway separates from other countries, also the other Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands, which are generally more influenced by the continental forms of rank expressions. Japan is a country which has a high degree of uncertainty avoidance, and when they buy Norwegian fish, they send their own inspectors for quality assurance. They have a big need for documentation and confirmation. In Austria one needs to be prepared to document ones status and competency, and also show that one acknowledges others` status. This is also the case in Germany and France. In United Kingdom one may experience that there are other ways to reduce the uncertainty, whereas they look at how people dress, their language and signs on social affiliation. This is the basis for trust and advancement in many circles. Sometimes it is more important which University one has gone to, than your grades and which courses and subject you have taken (Ibid.).

At last we want to discuss masculinity versus femininity orientation and take a closer look at some examples of features in the different cultures. In some Arabian countries it is very difficult to have female representatives in business and / or scientific delegations. Women needs to be protected or controlled and cannot think as individuals, in the same way as men.

As an example of this one can mention when a conference in Saudi Arabia were moved to Dubai, because the authorities found out that there were women participating without their father, brother and husband present. Another example is when highly educated women from Pakistan came to Norway on an introduction of a Norwegian University, and the Norwegian professor wanted to shake their hands, but they backed off and did not want to touch the strange man despite their high education and status. They had not adapted to the Western culture, where men and women mingle freely and even touch each other. The Norwegian gender equality policy where fathers may have granted leave in connection with childbirth, is unique in the world context. The normal is that house, children and cooking are the women’s domain and this is extreme in the advanced industrial nation Japan, where the proportion of married women employed is low for the industrial nations and where the man lives out his role as family provider and protector of hard work while requiring that he show his manly strength by participating in the company's competitive behaviour and parties. Japan is, not

surprisingly, on top of Hofstede’s masculinity index (Ibid.).

Our next question is how to meet other cultures and does this have any affects on organisation development and implementation of change?

The short and few examples mentioned above shows some of the difficulties and challenges one has to face when people from different cultures meet. The basis for communication is not necessarily present. What seems correct and fruitful behaviour in one situation, seems strange and repulsive in another. To try to make meetings between individuals and organisations from different cultures fruitful, and make it possible to communicate, it is nearby to recommend language skills and tolerance. Language skills do not only give the technical ability to communicate, but also an opportunity to a deeper understanding of terms and ways of thinking, and thus knowledge of the other parties world. The experience with learning and understand another language, normally makes you humble, and this is a good basis for a tolerant and experimental approach. Surveys and interpretations about what is mentioned above, may give you the assumption that one could learn a strange culture by reading books and studying statistics. General insights might be to some help, but may also lead to hasty conclusions, which could result in barren behaviour. A survey of managers, who were characterized as little / much international oriented, by themselves and other observers, shows some interesting differences between the two groups (Ibid.). An important difference was that the international oriented group had described, impression-based and almost private perceptions of other people. They did not base their answers on general theories or widely recognized stereotypes. They were careful with generalizations and draw experiences from one situation to another. They put emphasis on observing and listening, experiment and make trials, and above all, active involvement with their contact parties. The other group had more of a tendency to explain their procedures and their experiences, based on analytic categories, both theoretical and even distant. The international oriented group used stereotypes, but only as tentative and fluid categories, and they were highly aware of their own use of them. The non-national oriented group perceived the other group as extremely adaptable, even as chameleons. Another feature with the international oriented group is that they acknowledged their own stress and possible culture shock when confronted with other people. They used their experience and were taking in to account the differences among the employees and realized that it may process the experiences. They may also withdraw to more stabile areas, such as think brakes, diaries and other forums for reflection of experiences. The main

differences seems to be what we may call learning style: the ones that succeed the most in the international environment may have general assumptions about other cultures and groups, but fails to let it have a direct impact on the behaviour (Ibid.).

In this section I have tried to explain some of the different aspects of the term culture, and what it contains. We want to take a closer look at the fundamental set of perceptions, which in great terms are common for a nation or a group of people. Culture is the common understandings and presumptions that exist within a unit, and further one tries to give some characteristics of some of the different cultures and behaviours that may occur in an organisational setting. Aspects like individuals, the relationship to others and the nature, activities, space and time are only some dimensions, which can contribute to explain or characterize certain cultures or cultural features. Culture can exist at different levels, from a national level to an organisational level. Geert Hofstede is a well-known author within this field, and he has managed to find some national differences, and with the help from factor analysis he could identify four fundamental dimensions, which can contribute to separate the different national cultures. These four are: Uncertainty avoidance, distance of power, individualism versus collectivism, and masculinity versus femininity. He groups the 53 different cultures in to clusters – groups that are alike in relation to some factors, and different compared to other factors. It is likely that cultures give some fundamentals on how one should organize and structure a company, and also how management and authority are being executed in the different organisations or even countries. France is a country that has a large distance of power, while Germany has a more need for order and structure. The Nordic countries are more feminine, and have a bigger tolerance for women as leaders and partners, while in the US one can see a strong tendency to an individualistic culture. It is important to understand that in a situation where people do business with each other, either within an organisation or between different organisations, culture can be the basis for communication.

This could be the breaking point to which one cooperates well with one another, and also to get a potential client to trust and have faith in the negotiations and business deals that you are planning to do. We have tried to look at the different features and aspects of culture in a Norwegian perspective, because this is a natural base to execute comparisons with. I also assume that the Nordic countries like Denmark and Sweden are countries with almost the same similarities. These cultures are typical feminine, has a low degree of distance to power and uncertainty avoidance, while Norway also seem to be a collective culture compared to USA, but a more individualistic culture compared to Eastern countries. Further one will try to

look at the challenges and differences that one have to face when working with people from other countries, and also one wants to try to relate this to the process of change, which is something that happens in many organisations and countries all over the world, today.