CompanyWhere Did Mark Go Wrong?
Each country has its own culture. This culture affects the way in which people communicate with each other or build relationships with each other. A place where Mark was wrong was that he used the same way of communication or way of interaction that he used with his employees back in America. This was one of the major problems because of which he was facing all those communication and trust issues with his employees in India. This can be explained with the help of Anthropologist Edward Hall's Intercultural communication theory. According to Hall's Intercultural communication theory Lewis, (2017), India is a high-context cultural country where people mainly rely on implicit and non-verbal communication.
Other than this people of India rely more on the background information of an activity in order to complete the task or activity in an appropriate manner. So, according to this theory, Mark does not focus on providing complete background information to their employees and does not focus on non-verbal communication because of this he was not able to able to build trust within his employees and he had to explain each and everything in detail and was required to provide every minute detail to his Indian employees. He did not focus on building relationships with his employees first instead, he directly started to work with them because of this he was not able to gain his employee's trust.
Ways in Which Mark Can Understand Cross-Cultural Problems in a Better Manner
This cross-cultural problem can be explained to Mark using Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory and comparing the cultures of America and India. This comparison will help Mark to understand the difference between the culture of America and the culture of India in many different ways. According to Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory as explained by Huang and Crotts, (2019). Hofstede's theory will help in explaining the difference between cultures of both India and America.
From the above graph, it can be clearly explained that there is a lot of difference between the cultural dimensions of India and the US. All the dimensions of Hofstede's of India and the US are different from each other. According to the above graph power distance index of India is much higher whereas the US has a low power distance Index compared to India which explains that in India power and inequality differences are easily accepted whereas in the US organizational structures are mostly flat. As per the above graph, the individualism score of the US is quite high which means people focus on their personal goals more whereas India has a low individualism index where people focus more on achieving the well-being and goals of the group. According to the graph, India has a more long-term orientation whereas the US has a lower long-term orientation i.e. Indian focuses more on future or long-term growth rather than focusing on short-term success.
This differentiation between the cultural dimensions of the U.S. and India will help Mark understand cross-cultural problems in a much better manner.
Use Intercultural Theories to Explain It and Support Your Discussion
In order to support the above discussion another Trompenaars Cultural Dimensions theory can be used. According to Trompenaar's Cultural Dimensions theory as explained by McSweeney, (2016) in order to work more efficiently and effectively with different culture people it is important to understand the 7 dimensions of culture. Understanding these dimensions can help Mark to work with employees of India as they follow completely different cultures. For example, India follows Particularism where people focus more on building relationships rather than rules whereas the US has Universalism which focuses more on rules rather than building relationships. This helps in explaining the difference between the cultures of the US and India and justifies the discussion done above.
Advice to Mark
Advice that can help Mark in resolving this cross-cultural problem is as follows: Instead of directly assigning work to his employees Mark should focus on building relationships with his employees so that he can win their trust and they can open up with him in a better manner. Mark should continuously check their employees and provide them with the required information and should allow them to work individually rather than forcing them to share their thoughts or emotions with others. This will help him to improve his relationship with his Indian employees. Mark should understand the difference between his designation and his employee's designation. This will help him to work more smoothly with his employees in India and will help him to make their employees trust more in his decision-making.
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