Page 56 - Crossing Cultural Boundaries - Cees den Teuling

Bennett and Bennett (2004), there is a gap in communications styles between cultures with “collective” or “individual” orientation. The readiness and willingness to share knowledge with fellow workers inside or outside the own community is an example where the “communication gap” is manifested (Szulanski, 1995). “To answer the question on the readiness of sharing knowledge with co-workers, we may do best to focus not on convergences between East-Asian moderation and collectivism but on the communication styles that prevail in the rather more collectivistic nations scoring at the extremity pole of the present analysis. Although, there is no relevant empirical data, the nations scoring on extremity are among those often considered to be “honour cultures” (Smith, 2011, p. 230).
National pride, traditionalism and chauvinism also support an atmosphere of pre-occupation with resistance to threats from outside, while nations, more involved in modernisation are more directed in maintaining the in-group harmony.
To conclude and to adopt a single approach for researching the attitudes, values and behaviours in the process of KT, it will not be satisfactory to acclaim a full scope on all decisive elements in the organisation’s KT processes. It is purposeful to develop an individual, “customised” and adjusted “research framework” for the underlying study and mainly constructed out of the selected approaches of the authors, mentioned before.
Within the present study, an attempt is made to identify the “manifest” and “latent” behaviour, attitudes and beliefs of the studied population, by considering among others the Hofstede’s (1994 b); Hofstede, Hofstede, Minkov and Vinken’s (2008) Value Service Module (VSM) and the Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner’s (2005) Seven dimensions of Culture, as instruments for explanation. Despite the well- founded critical remarks on Hofstede’s six dimensions’ model, his approach will be partly and selectively applied in the research of the influence of NC on the OC. Supporting arguments are that Index Scores Estimates for Russia from Hofstede are available for comparison and the fact that this study is aimed at understanding the KT process and the level of obtained SVC, therefore, its object is not on the NC level but on the external and internal level of OC’s.
Additional models and directions (Action Research and the “Competing Values Framework”) will be included in the following parts of the thesis, to reach more rich and diverse oriented research question(s), dedicated to the level of OC. As explained by Smith, Dugan and Trompenaars (1996), an initial survey in Russia using the Trompenaars Culture Values Questionnaire (CVQ) was conducted in the framework of the research project among a sample of organisational employees originated from 43
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