Using Trompenaar's Cultural Value Dimensions to Manage the Shift from the South African Management Environment to the Canadian Management Environment
Using Trompenaar’s Cultural Value Dimensions to manage the shift from the South African management environment to the Canadian management environment
By
Keith Robson
In my experience, one of the most difficult tasks facing the Internationally Educated Manager in Canada is making the necessary, and often surprising, adjustments to the culture in the Canadian workplace. This paper will take the form of a personal reflection on how Trompenaar’s Cultural Value Dimensions1 can be applied to the South African management environment, and how a knowledge of Trompenaars’ theory can help the South African- Educated professional manage the shift from the South African management environment to the Canadian management environment.
In terms of Trompenaars’ first cultural value dimension, South Africa is a particularistic society, where societal rules are not strictly adhered to by individuals, but where people generally shape their conduct with others depending on the type of relationship that they have with those people. In other words, people in South Africa tend to “bend” the rules a lot when they aren’t interacting with close friends and family. The roots of this phenomenon probably rest in South African history – where dictatorial and untrustworthy regimes governed the people for many decades. This led to whole generations lacking respect for, and not abiding by, the rules and regulations issued by authority figures. To exacerbate the problem, South Africa’s recent history has borne witness to extremely high levels of official corruption. These behaviours result in a highly stressful working environment, because it is very difficult to manage people when they have an inherent distrust of authority, and when they often attempt to bypass authority by resorting to bribery and other corrupt practices. Of course, the flip side to all of this is that South African business managers generally operate in a highly unregulated environment – they can “bend the rules” in order to
By
Keith Robson
In my experience, one of the most difficult tasks facing the Internationally Educated Manager in Canada is making the necessary, and often surprising, adjustments to the culture in the Canadian workplace. This paper will take the form of a personal reflection on how Trompenaar’s Cultural Value Dimensions1 can be applied to the South African management environment, and how a knowledge of Trompenaars’ theory can help the South African- Educated professional manage the shift from the South African management environment to the Canadian management environment.
In terms of Trompenaars’ first cultural value dimension, South Africa is a particularistic society, where societal rules are not strictly adhered to by individuals, but where people generally shape their conduct with others depending on the type of relationship that they have with those people. In other words, people in South Africa tend to “bend” the rules a lot when they aren’t interacting with close friends and family. The roots of this phenomenon probably rest in South African history – where dictatorial and untrustworthy regimes governed the people for many decades. This led to whole generations lacking respect for, and not abiding by, the rules and regulations issued by authority figures. To exacerbate the problem, South Africa’s recent history has borne witness to extremely high levels of official corruption. These behaviours result in a highly stressful working environment, because it is very difficult to manage people when they have an inherent distrust of authority, and when they often attempt to bypass authority by resorting to bribery and other corrupt practices. Of course, the flip side to all of this is that South African business managers generally operate in a highly unregulated environment – they can “bend the rules” in order to
References: 1Trompenaars, F., and C. Hampden-Turner. (1987). Riding the waves of culture: Understanding cultural diversity in business. In D.A. Whetten and K.S. Cameron (Eds.), Developing Management Skills (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.