Organizational structures, translation and practice transfer

the content of a COC. While local adaptations of cultural norms improve the overall effectiveness of a COC, these adaptations should only be introduced to a small extent.

themselves e. g. more Swedish and categorize the received COC as e. g. too American, thus rejecting the guidelines, since they are not part of their own national culture.

Furthermore, employees feel less attached to the company as their nationality is emotionally placed on a higher level than the corporate culture (Helin & Sandström, 2008).

With regard to the organizational structure and the hierarchy of a company, emphasis should be put on managers, in particular their leadership style. In relationship-oriented cultures, such as India, it is important to build a relationship to subordinates and create trust. People from such cultures prefer to work for a person instead of only focusing on achieving good results. Notably, subordinates need to consider the manager as a good leader in order to follow instructions. Consequently, subordinates will accept the code more easily if it is introduced by their managers, since some cultures place more emphasis on interpersonal values. Lacking a personal relationship between managers and subordinates can lead to negative consequences, such as the rejection of the COC (Gertsen & Zølner, 2012). Therefore, emphasis should be placed on the leadership style whereby the leadership style also depends on the organizational structure and hierarchy level of the organization. Managers need the skills to adapt to various leadership styles within a cultural context (Gertsen & Zølner, 2012). Additionally, the process of transferring knowledge should be considered. Managers can be appointed expatriates and facilitate the practice transfer. Thus, these managers are confronted with balancing headquarters values with local needs (Barmeyer & Davoine, 2006). Expatriates are key figures with a certain degree of power influence, which should not be underestimated. All in all, headquarters should involve the opinions of expatriates as they can contribute valuable insights on behalf of the subsidiary. If this is the case, the subsidiary enjoys a higher level of power resources. Nevertheless, the role of these managers is often underrated, which results in an imbalance of corporate strategies and national needs (Geppert & Williams, 2006).

It is not only the organizational structure including the power-distribution within a corporation that play a crucial role. The history between headquarters and subsidiaries overseas can influence the acceptance/resistance of a COC within a subsidiary as well (Barmeyer & Davoine, 2011a). It is crucial to consider whether the subsidiary has been newly developed or acquired/merged with the company. In the two latter cases, the subsidiary reveals its own history and already contains individual values and norms.

subsidiary’s culture. Additionally, the general relationship of headquarters and subsidiary comes into play. The way headquarters perceives the subsidiary can affect the transfer of values. Thus, the main reason of the subsidiary should be considered, whether it takes an active part in the change process or if it is rather seen as a unit to increase profit (Barmeyer

& Davoine, 2006).

One might assume that working in an international environment guarantees a specific level of cultural awareness (Helin & Sandström, 2008). The knowledge of dealing with people with various cultural backgrounds is part of one’s attitude and defined as cultural intelligence. Cultural intelligence can be trained and developed. It is developed out of the three metaphors body, heart and head. Head refers to the knowledge of a culture.

Basically, anyone can study different cultures. Heart stands for the personal will and interest in adapting to cultures, whereas body represents the body language of cultures and the talent of adapting body moves (Earley & Mosakovski, 2004). Not everyone is aware of cultural differences, and working in an international environment does not guarantee that people will consider distinct cultural aspects and thus, they will not reflect on these cultural differences (Helin & Sandström, 2008). This fact complicates the transfer process.

The cross-cultural transfer of practices is complex. Research has shown that non-adaptations lead to undesirable results. Even if best practices are transferred to other subsidiaries, it requires small adaptations in order to remain best practices (Geppert

& Williams, 2006, p. 52). This results value-infused COCs that are not neutral within a cultural context. COCs contain cultural aspects of the sending institution (typically the headquarters) (Barmeyer & Davoine, 2011a) such as the language, behavior, traditions and customs. These factors are deeply rooted within the national cultural system and are constantly further developed. Additionally, these factors are influenced by the corporate culture that typically evolves at headquarters (Blazejewski, 2006). Furthermore, these values “are continuously reconfirmed by the local social environment” (Blazejewski, 2006, p. 66). This does not only complicate the transfer of such COCs but increases the level of conflict. Consequently, such value-infused practices cannot simply be transferred, as they have to be adapted to the new environment’s cultural values (Blazejewski, 2006; Helin

& Sandström, 2008). Otherwise, the receiving institution will doubt or even resists the transferred practices (Blazejewski, 2006; Ciuk & James, 2014). Aiming at controlling

ethics centrally and disregarding cultural adaptations will result in rejection of these guidelines as it hinders ethics to evolve naturally (Clegg, Kornberger, & Rhodes, 2007).

Language plays a crucial role. It is part of a culture and influences the way actors perceive and respond to a situation. Language affects the practice transfer within a MNE.

Unfortunately, language is often disregarded within the transfer process, as the following example of a French company presents (Tréguer-Felten, 2017). A French world leader in building materials developed a COC in English which was used as the lingua franca. More than hundred managers with various national backgrounds were part of this development process. A committee that consisted of native-Anglo-American and half-internationally-experienced-managers faced various cultural differences within the formation process and formulation of the company’s COC. Once it was established, it was translated into French, noting that only 10% of the employees were native French (Tréguer-Felten, 2010).

In the following, two examples will be used to demonstrate the challenges of translation.

The first principle is “Expecting people to give their best” (Tréguer-Felten, 2017, p. 140) which is translated to “Donner le meilleur de soi-même” (Tréguer-Felten, 2017, p. 140) and basically means “Giving one’s best” (Tréguer-Felten, 2017, p. 140). The original message demonstrates a requirement on behalf of the organization to its employees, while the translated version only presents a general, impersonal statement. The second principle is “All of our employees are expected to perform at their full potential” (Tréguer-Felten, 2017, p. 140) and is translated to “Nous attendons de nos collaborateurs qu’ils donnent le meilleur d’eux-mêmes” (Tréguer-Felten, 2017, p. 140), which actually means

“We expect all our collaborators to give their best” (Tréguer-Felten, 2017, p. 140). Similar to the previous example, this translation again presents a mitigated form of the original message. Furthermore, these two examples strengthen the importance of adequate translations that not only focus on a word-by-word translation but include contextual factors, such as meaning, culture etc.

Table 2 Challenges of translating principles

Original principle Translated principle Meaning of translated principle

Expecting people to give their best

Donner le meilleur de soi-même

Giving one’s best

All of our employees are expected to perform at their full potential

Nous attendons de nos collaborateurs qu’ils donnent le meilleur d’eux-mêmes

We expect all our collaborators to give their best

Summarized from (Tréguer-Felten, 2017, p. 140)

Although the translated principles contain the same idea, different contexts of the documents will lead to differences within the practical application (Tréguer-Felten, 2017).

These confusions strengthen the importance of translation. Considering behavioral guidelines such as a COC, it is not sufficient to simply transfer them to subsidiaries, as this will not assure the right interpretation of every single employee. Therefore, the local language has to be involved, since people tend to understand better when they communicate in their mother-tongue (Helin & Sandström, 2008; Tietze, 2008). As a mistake, managers only focus on the language aspect when translating documents and disregard content and cultural patterns of the translated document. To be more precise, managers assume that values can be easily transferred to other subsidiaries and thus will be understood equally. It is not guaranteed, however, that the values of a COC are lived by employees only if they sign it. Consequently the stated values should be meaningful to the employees of the respective subsidiaries (Tréguer-Felten, 2017; Helin & Sandström, 2008).

Part of the translation process is the writing style. This was already partly discussed in Chapter 3.3, which underlines the use of indirect-language. This might differ based on the cultures involved. Direct language, i. e. direct instructions of behavior, can result in rejection on behalf of the subsidiary. Furthermore, it can negatively influence the headquarters-subsidiary relationship (Helin & Sandström, 2008).

Existing literature suggests the importance of translators when transferring practices within MNEs. International experience facilitates the transfer process, especially when immaterial assets are concerned (Gertsen & Zølner, 2012). Top and middle managers

can act as translators and support the adaptation process of local subsidiaries. This means that it is not simply the written text that should be translated but also the behavior and practices (Ciuk & James, 2014). Expatriates most often act as mediators balancing cultural differences of headquarters and subsidiaries or even between headquarters and suppliers. The role of a mediator is strengthened when he/she can speak the languages of the conflicting parties (Helin & Babri, 2015), especially when countries of low and high context communication patterns are affected. A low context language, which is used e. g.

in Germany and the US, is direct and the message itself is very important. On the contrary, a high context language, which is used e. g. in China and Japan, uses an indirect communication and emphasizes the surrounding, not the message itself (Hall, 1959, 1981;

Hall & Hall, 1990). These differences can lead to misunderstandings and create potential conflicts. Therefore, a mediator who is fluent in both languages is needed (Helin & Babri, 2015). Thus, written and oral translation, plays a crucial role in the transfer process and can strengthen the embeddedness of the code within the subsidiary and within the organization in general. It also affects the effectiveness of a COC, and the integration of a sophisticated translation process can result in a positive outcome regarding the code’s implementation (Tréguer-Felten, 2017).

Culture plays a crucial role in transferring knowledge and practices within MNEs. While it is mostly discussed on a national level, the emphasis should go beyond the local culture.

Additionally, it should involve a wider spectrum of culture, namely the company’s corporate culture in order to profoundly analyze the total process of knowledge and practice transfer within a MNE (Gertsen & Zølner, 2012).

Although organizational structures and translation of the COC can become main challenges within the transfer process, such challenges can partly be related to the content of a COC.