Human resource issues in trans cultural organisation
Final_Summer_Project_presenatation
1. Expository factors of the successful Knowledge Transfers Across Borders:
The case of Avatar Solar; Inc. in India – Part II
• ENM 397P Fall 2016
• Presenter : Nehal Dixit ( nsd463)
• Supervisor : Prof. Caroline Bartel
• Corporate Advisor : Falgun Dave | Hemal Doshi
2. Purpose of Research
• Stage 1: ( Summer 2016 ) – Theoretical Concept Evaluation
“ By evaluating Avatar Solar.Inc’s Indian expansion, the study will examine the phenomenon of cross-border organizational
practice transfer and investigate the existing literature on knowledge transfer and adaptation in general, the theoretical
foundation of knowledge and technology transfer with a look at the theory of institutional distance and Introduction to Country’s
Institutional Profile in this case It is in between the United States and India”
• Stage 2: ( Fall 2016) - Applied Research
Conduct interviews with various entities involved in the Avatar’s core team.
Country analysis of India with its growth potential in power sector using cultural models.
Simulation of reverse transfer from India to the United States to fill gap in existing literature.
Analysis of Avatar’s approach with a recommendation and exploring limitations in the research.
• Central purpose of the paper revolves around these two questions
What constitutes a successful technology/knowledge transfer?
What are the critical success factors of cross-border knowledge transfer?
4. CIP India: Why so crucial???
• Economic environment
– The 2011 Index of Economic Freedom shows that India, - with its overall score of 54.6 - was the 124th freest economy in the world
– The 2011-12 World Economic Forum’s Centre for Global Competitiveness and Performance - India earned an overall 56th place after Brazil.
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• Political and legal environment
– Starting a new business is difficult in India as compared to the United States.
– CPI ranks India at 95 ( scored 31 ) and the USA at 24 ( Scored 71 ) out of 185 nations and 100 points – corruption is indeed a big issue in India.
– As a summary, it is obvious that the institutional distance between India and the United States based on political and legal frameworks was
large, which could potentially increase the chance of difficulties in transferring best practices between these countries.
• Culture of India – Cognitive and Normative institutions
– The analysis will compare the United States and India based on different cultural models that are widely used in literature: the GLOBE study,
Hofstede’s Five Dimensions, Lewis’ communication model, Hall’s dimensions and Trompenaar’s seven dimensions model.
5. Models of comparisons
• Geert Hofstede’s Cultural Model
– Caste system affects many components for Indian society.
– Collectivist Indians Vs Individualist Americans
– Karma believers Indians Vs. Tit for tat Americans
– Restraint Indians Vs Indulgent Americans
6. Models of Comparison
• The Lewis model of culture
• Trompenaar’s 7D Model
• Edward T. Hall’s cultural contexts
– The US is low context; India is high and low context
India is in the middle between Multi-active and Reactive, while
the United States is clearly a data-oriented linear-active culture.
7. Reverse Osmosis: Technology Transfer from India to United States
“ KT can be mutual and symbiotic despite prominent cultural gap – Nehal “
• 5.1 Indian cultural values: A blend of East and West?
The Indian culture has been shaped by Hindu philosophy, British colonialism, Islamic influences and the realpolitik of the Cold War era.
Why west thinks Indians don’t appreciate time or priorities?
• 5.2 Cultural values and the negotiating style
Sometimes Indians’ way of hard negotiation is beneficial.
Indians are little different compared to other Asian nations such as Japanese and Chinese.
Indians aims to be treated equivalents not a subsidiary partner – renegotiation of T&C might be possible.
• 5.3 Counterintuitive steps: Coping skills for North Americans my recommendation
Negotiations can be frustrating for North Americans but believe me that’s how things roll in India.
Things might start bumpy initially but with added trust – process becomes smoother.
Don’t show your contracts every time there is some issue – It will be taken care of easily with some flexibility.
Incentives works and if Europe can do it why can’t Americans.
Negotiated agreements might not work in timely way.
Role of Global Manager is crucial – a key position that knows both sides and slashes cultural gaps.
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8. Discussion and finding
“ This section is Resultant of Interviews with Falgun Dave and Hemal Doshi and previous paper I propositions “
• Institutional distance
US – IND ID is huge | Transfer will be difficult and with low odds of success | Cultural models
India has growth potential but corruption, infrastructure issues, and weak legal system are red flags.
Mr. Dave’s dilemma of American way Vs Indian way of doing business
Crucial role of bridge person – facilitates transfer in the right direction
it can be concluded that the transfer of practices is more successful when the two countries’ institutional profiles are similar and the institutional distance is
smaller, - so the first proposition is supported. Furthermore, if the institutional distance is smaller, then the people in the recipient country are also more
supportive towards the practice and the transfer is more likely to bring positive results. Prop 1 and II are supported.
• Compatibility of the practice
In case of Avatar, there was no local subsidiary, so no predefined org. culture.
Maiden project led avatar to come up with several alliances, thus flexibility was offered.
Collaborating with vendors whose practices were more or less compatible with the ones Avatar Solar was planning to bring to India proved to
be a good decision.
Similar approached failed at grass root while working with workers mainly because of primitive education, lack of awareness and diminishing
trust; Possible solution here was to hire a trained workforce to align organizational goals eventually project got delayed by several months.
9. Discussion & Findings ( contd.. )
• Commitment, identification and trust
Negative attitude towards the transferred practices are unlikely to develop when considerable time and effort is invested into the process to
increase employee motivation - That’s what Avatar did to overcome this challenge.
Mr. Dave invested a lot of time into training these workers to develop commitment, identification and trust but still results were not
promising.
It is believed here showing commitment and trust was a cultural requirement; workers were just pretending.
To fix that on top of the pre-project training, weekly sessions with the management and the workers were established to make sure that they
understand every aspect of the project and they can identify with the goals and values of the company they are working for.
• Power and dependence
This mutual dependence resulted in higher trust and collaboration from both side and had great impact on the final outcome of the project.
In case of Plant workers – implementation of transfer was successful but not internalization; global managers play a vital role
Furthermore the more the recipient unit trusts in the parent or identifies with its values, the less the power distance and perceived
dependence
10. Conclusion
• Two different CIPs, do not mean, that the transfer is designed to failure. As the case of Avatar Solar, Inc. showed a so-called
“bridge-person” can decrease the distance between the two countries and serve as a mediator, especially regarding beliefs,
values and norms of the target country in the Avatar’s case this person was Mr. Nehal Dixit - these are recommendations
from Mr. Dave and Mr. Doshi.
• The intelligence and education level recipient unit is also a crucial determinant of transfer success, which further supports
the need for preparation and training time before implementing and internalizing the given practices are to be part of
project charter.
11. Summary
• What constitutes a successful technology/knowledge transfer?
– The transfer will be successful if the parent invests considerable time and effort to make the practices compatible for
the recipient unit and applies organizational socialization methods to ensure collaboration, establish trust and
identity, engage people and decrease the perception of dependence. Furthermore, mutual dependence can serve as a
motivator to achieve all of the above factors considered critical for a successful transfer.
• What are the critical success factors of cross-border knowledge transfer?
– knowledge transfer across national borders is considered successful if the two countries institutional profiles are
similar, or there are one or more people in the parent companies ‘core-team’ who are familiar with the recipient
country’s cognitive and normative profiles and can reduce the possible transfer difficulties resulting from institutional
distance.
12. Limitation for Future research
• Litigation challenges faced by the company in India forbid me from including details of recent discovery
that can be useful for future international endeavors.
• The legal dispute can be taken as the one of the unforeseen drawbacks associated with Cross-Continental
knowledge transfer is subject matter of the legal frame-work, which is also different in case of these two
countries.
• It was not possible to visit the plant in India and conduct interviews with the current workers or vendor
partners involved post installation for the project. Thus, only one side of story is shared from the
developers however, Indian counterpart is left out.
Pr 1:I propose that the success of transfer of a strategic
organizational practice to the recipient country will be negatively correlated with the
institutional distance between the home and host country. Additionally, the more
favorable the country«s institutional profile (regulatory, cognitive and normative
framework) is, the more likely the implementation and adoption of an organizational
practice will bring positive results.
Pr 2 As a conclusion, I propose that the higher the compatibility of the practice is with the
recipient organization«s values, the more likely that the practice transfer will lead to a
positive outcome. Furthermore, if the recipient organization«s culture supports learning
and change, the transfer of a strategic organizational practice from the parent to the
recipient unit will be more successful.
Pr 3 I assume that the success of a cross-border practice transfer will depend
on the degree how much the foreign subsidiary is committed to, identifies with and
trusts in its parent company.
Pr 4 I propose, that the process of cross-border practice transfer
is affected by the perceived dependence of the foreign subsidiary on the parent company.
Power and dependence are however positively related to implementation and negatively
to the internalization of the given practice.
United States is a low-context culture, preferring explicit and direct communication, short interpersonal relationships with dependence on what is actually said or written. Because of the cultural diversity within the country, India is in between being a low and high context culture. Normally their communication reflects high context features - being respectful to elderly people and using communication to maintain harmony and relationships -, but it tends to move towards a low context culture, especially in communication style. It is more diffuse and dialogue oriented than the Japanese or Chinese culture.
That time is not wasted but it goes to convince our own people to lenient their differences - work for bigger picture.
Though Hard negotiation costed us dearly for paying delay penalities but hard negotiinasaved 2.75 million dollars in equipment – rapid decsion making won’t be tha fruitful –
Foreign ciunterparts donot treat us equally - right from t=weird time zones to failing to understand secularistic traditions.