Leading change management projects in international cross-cultural settings

Abstract

In an increasingly complex world for Multinational Companies, it is difficult for managers to keep a firm grasp over the global projects they are tasked to implement. Many of them lead teams operating across country borders, creating a need to increasingly take diverse national cultures into account in their operations. This extra dimension of International culture adds a layer of complexity that has been well studied in the past, though never in the context of Change Projects. This paper aims to look at how national cultural considerations should factor in when implementing discreet change projects in an organization. The paper first lays out the historic work that has been carried out in cross-cultural organization research, to create a foundation for the definitions related to national culture. Then, using Kotter's widely used framework for "Leading Change", it examines how assumptions were initially built into the theory, and how cultural considerations can help to rectify implementation of this framework. Finally, the paper takes a look at how two comparable alliances - between Nissan and Renault and between Mitsubishi Motors Company and Daimler Chrysler - used distinct approaches to cultural understanding in the context of the Kotter framework. This paper reveals that in the case of the Renault-Nissan alliance, executives were sensitive to the Japanese culture and were successful at leveraging certain of its aspects to turn the company around. In the contrasting case, executives imposed Daimler Chrysler's management principles to lead the turnaround. They disregarded many aspects such as the need for teamwork and reverence of hierarchy in the Japanese culture, and failed to generate buy-in from their counterparts. Thanks to this analysis this paper concludes that National culture is a key element to take into account when implementing Change Projects across borders. In addition, this case comparison does show that it is not only possible to manage National cultural differences, but it is far more exciting and rewarding to leverage them. Although this is not a radical