Topic 6: East Asia

Summary

The Japanese management style is characterized by:
• Not all the companies are alike.
• They are based on a market share-growth strategy.
• They have an aggressive price strategy in order to achieve economies of scale which lead them to a price war to reach more consumers.
• They are value maximization tended.
• Their relationship with the suppliers are seen as an inter-organizational perspective, where suppliers are seen as part of the organization in order to adapt better and easier to the changes because of a good coordination.

The best example of a successful Japanese management style is Zaibatsu, which began as diversified family enterprises that rose to prominence in the Meiji Era; they gained a privileged position in the Japanese economy by receiving subsidies from the State and favorable tax policies, additionally the government granted them a privileged position in the economic development of Japan. An example of their influence was that on the decade of the 30’s they controlled one third of the bank accounts and one third of the foreign trade of the country and, since they had their own banks, they had autonomy on who they would finance and safe financial taxes.

The Korean management style is characterized by:
• Being a Japanese colony from 1910 to 1945, so their managerial practices are influenced by Japan.
• In the 70’s and 80’s they still sought Japan as an economic development model.
• They had government intervention in aspects such as credits, foreign exchange rationing and benefits for exports growth.
• As a result the favored firms grew at a faster rate and diversified their economies better, but the gap between big and small firms widened.

A successful Korean management model is the Chaebol, which is a large conglomerate of family-controlled firms characterized by having strong ties with the government and is modeled on the Zaibatsu model. However, there are some differences of the Chaebol regarding the Zaibatsu: on Korea there is prohibited to own banks, since they are nationalized, they had special privileges from the government which lead them in some cases to grow because they borrowed vast funds instead of production growth.

The convergence occurs when as countries develop, management styles will converge to a model found in developed countries. Differentiation is a wider set of cultural norms in each society that acts as a powerful force that differentiates the culture and practices across borders.

On the convergence model there are two main pressures that determine if a management style tends to be homogeneous or not:
• Domestic pressure to retain culturally determined forms of management.
• International pressure to confront to conventional norms in the international marketplace.

Explain the phenomenon of convergence in terms of management styles. What are the forces or factors pushing for convergence?

Convergence in terms of management style refers to acquiring similarities in order to emulate a management practice from another country. Additionally, as countries develop, management styles will converge to a model fund in developed countries in order to copy the trends that are considered as the best managerial practices in order to reach a homogeneous practice. The forces or factors that push for convergence are mainly the international pressure to reach some standards that are established by the market in order to survive in a competitive environment (or isomorphism).

Explain the phenomenon of differentiation in terms of management styles. What are the forces of factors pushing for differentiation?

Differentiation in terms of management style is a set of forces which try to avoid homogeneity in the managerial practices of a certain country or culture in order to be differentiated and have identity and a proper style. The forces that push for differentiation are mainly the national culture and the national identity that try to keep an identity from a dominant culture.

Topic 4: Communication + Virtual Teams

Summary

Communication is how the ideas are transmitted between people through different means. The most common and known communication way is the interpersonal communication, which is the base for building and maintaining relationships. There are four main elements for this type of communication: the communicator, the receiver, the perceptual screens and the message. In order to have a good communication, the listener must be reflective, and the characteristics of this type of listener are: pay attention to the sender of the information, giving an appropriate feedback and try to correct any mistake that occurs during this process.

The effective managers must communicate in a proper way to make them clear, that’s why they must be: expressive speakers and express openly in order to show what they want to achieve, empathetic listeners and being willing to listen, persuasive leaders and motivate other people to achieve goals and not just giving orders, sensitive to feelings and improve the self-esteem of the employees, and finally informative and provide the necessary information to the employees.

The main principles of an effective communication are:
• Clarity: to give an idea clearly.
• Objective: don’t take any side when giving the information.
• Understanding: to give the information completely and avoid missing any important detail.
• Consistency: to have the same position during the communication.
• Completeness: to include all the relevant information.
• Feedback: to return the message given in order to be sure that the information was well received.
• Time: giving the information in the time required.

The concept of Team Work was established mainly in the decade of the 90’s, when the empowerment was the top managerial practice in order to avoid bureaucracy, reduce the time of the decision making and to improve service. Now, in the new millennium, there is a new practice called Virtual Teams in which members work in more than one physical location and is supported mainly by the use of technology as a communication mediator.

There are some characteristics of the virtual teams that are relevant: they are geographically dispersed, are driven by a common purpose, are enabled by communication technologies, normally they are not big and requires workers with different and complementary knowledge. The use of virtual teams might be a solution to enhance the performance and competitiveness and can represent also opportunities for intellectual growth and the transfer of information.

There are some advantages of using the virtual teams, such as:
• Relocation of time and costs.
• Time to market to be present where the market changes occur and improve coordination.
• Linking experts that could be difficult to communicate in a face to face situation and to increase the chances to communicate them.
• Productivity due to the short time to develop new products.
• Flexibility because changes are implemented easier.

However, there are some disadvantages of using virtual teams, such as:

• Lack of face-to-face conversations that difficult the understanding of the situation.
• The members of the team must be very responsible and honest when doing a self-monitoring.
• Possible mistrust, conflicts and power struggles.
• Cultural distance.

In this chart are shown the differences between Virtual and Traditional Teams
Virtual Teams Traditional Teams
Different locations and time zones Same workplace
Structured responsibilities Task coordination is given at the beginning
Communication through technological devices Face-to-face communication

Source: Class presentations Communication and Virtual Teams from Cristina Robledo.

Communication is a process that allows organizations to send/receive messages within their own boundaries but also to interact with outside entities (customers, suppliers, the media, etc.). Messages are send/received not only through oral and written statements, there are many channels and ways that need to be considered when discussing effective organizational communication. In that sense, the use of sounds has become increasingly important.

Based on the article “If Intercontinental were a sound…what would it be?”*, Please discuss the implications (potential advantages, disadvantages, challenges, etc.) of using sounds to send strategic messages. You need to integrate the use of key concepts relating to the topic of communication to support your answer.

Now days, the use of jingles or short musical themes are very common for a brand to have a position in the market and to be recognized, so it’s a very common practice to improve the recognition. As stated by the case “If InterContinental were a sound… what would it be?”:

"In reality artistic procedures are highly disciplined and can be effective catalysts in building and reinforcing better business practices. They can also provoke valuable insights well beyond the territories of the initial belief” [1]

Some of those sounds help the brand to be recognized by the customers since they are simple messages that don’t require the receiver to decode very complex information and might have an easier and faster response to the company. Sometimes, when the correct jingle is presented to the people when making some advertisement or presenting the company (such as a relaxing music, a rhythmic sound or other different) might increases the chances that the receivers of the message requires less time to response and give a feedback (that in this case could be to increase the chances to use more the InterContinental services).

Another advantage of using sounds as a strategic message is that there is no need to speak, and it implies that the message will be received equally to all type of languages and the codification of that information will be the same, so there will be no need to adapt the jingle to different languages and avoid one of the stronger communication barriers which is the Different Language. Additionally, since there is no singing on that sound, there wouldn’t be a semantic confusion that would lead to a misunderstanding of the information sent.

Possible disadvantages come when realizing that today’s world has a huge sound contamination, especially on the cities, and another sound to the environment could be perceived as negatively. Additionally the sound might be perceived differently due to the difference of the people regarding cultural tradition, age, gender, education and so on, because certain group of people might be pleased with certain sound but other group might perceive it as disgusting, so having a sound that pleases all the potential customers must be very adequate.

However, a great challenge to take into account is the fact that it is difficult to find which is the right sound that can express what the company wants to have in order to represent them correctly. As stated by the case, “it was necessary to learn how to explain logically the musical requirements for the brand” ². To choose the correct jingle is vital to show the right purpose of the company, which is their focus, to which people they want to reach, because it’s not the same to have classical music than a salsa rhythm when promoting a hotel that their main focus is the exclusivity to their customers. That’s why the sound (or could be called as well “the message”) must be clear and consistent in order to avoid ambiguity, have the adequate timing and being objective.

[1] Spencer, Michael. If Intercontinental were a sound… what would it be? P. 39.
² Spencer, Michael. If Intercontinental were a sound… what would it be? P. 41.

Sources:
Robledo Ardila, Cristina. Class presentation: Topic 7: Communication.
Spencer, Michael. If InterContinental were a sound... what would it be?