Management and Communication Strategies for the Fluffy disc Company
This paper takes a look on the main barriers that are likely to be encountered by the US management following their expansion in the Middle East. It discusses the barriers that arise mainly from cultural differences and how such can be addressed through proper communication and management.
Introduction
As part of its expansion efforts, the Fluffy disc is planning to establish branches in the Middle East particularly in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. It is expected that these Islamic countries have their own concept of organizational management. As such, it is necessary for the US management team that will be relocated for the initial implementation to understand the business environment they will work on. More so, anticipating the barriers in terms of communicating and managing will provide useful insights in managing conflicts. With this, managers will be much capable of dealing with the cultural constructs of their environment.
In the Middle East, hierarchy remains very important. As such, American executives that are posted in this region must understand the need to operate in a hierarchy to be a good leader. If not, this will become troublesome on the part of the manager. For Americans such style is viewed as passé. However, understanding the culture difference in terms of management will significantly help in the operation of the US Firm.
Literature Review
Islamic Management
Management is the act by which the elements that are necessary in the performance of a job are administered, directed and shaped. As a manager, one must see to it that the work is accomplished with the proper utilization of the available resources and the labor of other people. In Islam, management is a derivative of leadership which must be based on the Islamic principles. Fundamental of these principles are truth and justice.
Islam endures with the relationship with God, man, society and the divine love. As such, the workings of the various elements of the organization must be directly affected by this relationship. Recognizing this relationship is necessary to grasp an understanding on the organization of management in the Islamic system (Kaposi, 2000, p. 55).
Fundamentally, Muslims are distinguished by their faithfulness to terms of contracts. They also regard labor highly considering it as an indispensable part of their faith. Idleness and spending time in unproductive work to them is a manifestation of lack of faith. All persons are expected to work to earn their own living and no one is allowed to become a liability to their family unless mentally or physically incapacitated. They also hold a concept of positive reinforcement through reward system (Kaposi, 2000, p. 56). This means motivating them by providing rewards as soon as the job is accomplished.
Moreover, Islamic management requires a mutual reinforcement relationship. Individuals are motivated by the need to be part of a group and therefore do whatever is necessary to maintain such membership in the group. As a result, the organization may lack the need to create external control mechanisms to ensure that the employees do what he is tasked. The employee then may control his own behavior to satisfy the need for contextualize. Hence, if the organization tried to impose external control mechanisms, the workers will feel alienated and that they are viewed to be suspicious and outsider to the group. Such feelings may lead to product sabotage, poor performance, low productivity and increase in absenteeism (Kaposi, 2000, p.60).
Today, Muslims look forward to a future that hold Islamic promises and remains steadfast to Islamic solutions in solving their problems. In Saudi Arabia, Islamic values shape the managerial attitudes and practices. These values have a strong emphasis on the employees’ obedience to their leaders. The manager’s authority is rightly accepted and subordinates are expected to render respect to their superiors. Attica (1999) asserted that the Islamic values emphasize on harmony, cooperation and brotherly relationships (as cited in Bud war & Deborah, 2001, p. 144).The manager and employees interaction are also influenced by Islamic practices. As an example, Muslim managers and workers meet and pray together regardless of their positions. Such interactions are argued to lessen the physical and psychological distance between management and their employees (2001, p. 144).
Furthermore, the consultative styles that prevail in Arab countries are different from Western consultative style. It has been argued by Mona (1980) that the Arab culture expects the consultation from the subordinates. However, they do not expect to participate in the process of decision making. The authoritarian management style is manifested in organizations in which the work is done based on the social leadership skills of the paternalistic authoritarian mangers (2001, p. 145).
Communicating across Cultures
For communication to become successful, one must be able to get what he wants from the other person whilst maintaining the relationship on terms that is both acceptable to them. Communicating cross culturally though poses a great challenge. First, one must be able to send the appropriate signals and interpret the signal received. When one is in another culture, it is likely that he is unaware of how the message he is sending is received by the people around him. Successful communication cannot be ensured by knowing the words in another culture since language is embedded in the cultural context (Nolan, 1999, p. 35).
Non verbal cues constitute the majority of the individual’s communication process. However, the meanings attach to these forms of communication vary from culture to culture. As in the Arab cultures, continued eye contacts are strongly emphasized. Americans on the other hand, consider such gesture as a sign of aggression (Nolan, 1999, p. 53).
Culture plays a pivotal role in intercultural communication. It is the shared meaning as communication and the system of knowledge. For example, in Arab and Muslim countries, women are not allowed in social gatherings for men because of the separation of the sexes. While for Western culture, it is normal for male and female colleagues to mingle outside the work environment.
By understanding the cultural uniqueness of a country, one will be able to use the most effective message, format and channel of communication to deliver that specific message. Moreover, it must be understood that communication may flow within a range of low- to – high context cultures. In low context cultures such as the American and the Northern European, it is important to use the precise verbal messages. In such cultures, the communication is more explicit and direct. On the other hand, a high context culture such that of Arab countries is one in which the messages are ambiguous because the environment, setting and the relationship bestow meaning to the messages. According to Samovar and Porter (1995), people who are in a high context culture perceive messages from low context cultures as less credible mainly because they require more and precise verbal messages in communicating as cited in George, 2003).
Additionally, conflict is communicated differently among these cultures. Low context culture prefers an open confrontation while the high context culture deals with conflict in a subtle and discreet manner. People in the high context cultures are also more attentive to subliminal messages that are attached to nonverbal behavior as compared to those in the low context culture. Hence, communicating with people from the Arab countries with a high context culture must consider both form of communication and the perception of the word or the language that is used to convey the message (George, 2003).
Communicating with people of differing cultures entails a deeper understanding of them. It must be recognized that people associate meaning to verbal and non verbal cues depending on their shared knowledge. Thus, messages may be offensive to people belonging in other culture whilst other may think it is fine. Western culture for one is more explicit than the Arab and Muslim culture. With this, it is necessary that business managers working in Muslim countries to be more prudent in their choice of messages and language usage.
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