Exploring the Effect of a Cultural Gap on the Process of Absorbing Business Knowledge
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55121/card.v3i1.59Keywords:
Cultural difference, Japanese culture, Knowledge transfer, Absorptive capacity, Dialogue abilityAbstract
This study explores the implications of the difference between Japanese and Anglo-American cultures when Japanese organizations try to absorb business knowledge generated in Anglo-American culture. It relies on Todorova & Durisin’s model of Absorptive Capacity (2007) which allows for multi-level, individual, group, and organizational levels of absorption in the process of incorporating external knowledge. It compares four cases of Japanese organizations, who sought to absorb business knowledge that could change conventional Japanese management style by introducing one of two alternative Anglo-American developmental learning methods. The study identifies some specific cultural impediments and enablers for Japanese people trying to absorbing Anglo-American business knowledge, and suggests how the impediments can be overcome, by making structural and leadership changes during the introduction of the learning activities. The research explores whether and how 43 participants who experienced one or the other learning method transformed from a mind-set dominated by Japanese cultural norms and values to one that can both recognise the benefits of Anglo-American management thinking and translate it into changed practice. Whilst Todorova and Durisin’s model does not capture the way cultural difference affects the absorbing process, the results show that the differences between Japanese and Anglo-American cultural values, in terms of collectivism vs individualism, high-context vs low-context cultures, and power relationships affect progress through the phases of absorption. Thus, the study discusses the gradual process how Japanese individuals and organizations absorbed the Anglo-American knowledge by overcoming cultural differences.
References
[1] Isaacs, W., 1999. Dialogue and the art of thinking together. Currency Doubleday. New York.
[2] Hyde, B., Bineham, J.L., 2000. From debate to dialogue: Toward a pedagogy of nonpolarized public discourse. Southern Communication Journal. 65(2-3), 208-223.
[3] Marquardt, M.J., Banks, S., Cauwelier, P., et al., 2018. Optimizing the Power of Action Learning. 3rd Edition: Real-Time Strategies for Developing Leaders, Building Teams and Transforming Organizations. Nicholas Breale.
[4] Mintzberg, H., 2019. Bedtime Stories for Managers: Farewell, Lofty Leadership. Welcome, Engaging Management. Berett-Koehler Publishers Inc. San Francisco.
[5] Tateish, K., 2008. Dekimasen to Iuna. Diamond. (Japanese)
[6] Yutani, S., 2008. Kazuma Tateishi: The Biography of the Founder of Omron. Diamond Harvard Review.
[7] Marquardt, M.J., 2000. Action Learning and Leadership. The Learning Organization. 7(5), 233-240.
[8] Cohen, W.M., Levinthal, D.A., 1994. Fortune Favors the Prepared Firms. Management Science. 40, 227-251.
[9] Todorova, G., Durisin, B., 2007. Absorptive Capacity: Valuing a Reconceptualization. Academy of Management Review. 32, 774-786.
[10] Zahra, S.A., George, G., 2002. Absorptive Capacity: A Review, Reconceptualization, and Extension. Academy of Management Review. 27(2), 185-203.
[11] Minbaeva, D.B., Rabbiosi, L., Makela, K., 2007. Absorptive Capacity and Knowledge Transfer: Individual Level. Unpublished paper, Copenhagen Business school.
[12] Carlile, P.R., 2004. Transferring, Translating, and Transforming: An Integrative Framework for Managing Knowledge Across Boundaries. Organization Science. 15(5), 555-568.
[13] Cohen, R., 1997. Negotiating Across Cultures: International Communication in an Interdependent World. United States Inst of Peace Revised.
[14] De Long, D.W., Fahey, L., 2000. Diagnosing cultural barriers to knowledge management. The Academy of Management Executive. 14(4), 113-127.
[15] Dorfman, P.W., House, R.J., 2004. Cultural Influences on Organizational Leadership. House, R.J., Hanges, P.J., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P.W., Gupta, V. (ed). Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The Globe Study of 62 Societies. Sage Publications Ltd.
[16] Schen, E.H., 1984. Coming to a New Awareness of Organizational Culture. Sloan Management Review. 25(2), 3-16.
[17] Sveiby, K., 2001. A Knowledge-based Theory of the Firm To guide Strategy Formulation. Journal of Intellectual Capital. 2(4).
[18] Calhoun, W.H., Starbuck, M.A., 2005. Barrier to Creating Knowledge. Mark Easterby-Smith, M., Lyles, M.A (ed.). Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management. Blackwell Editors. 473-492.
[19] Brunsson, N., 1982. The irrationality of action and action rationality: Decisions, ideologies and organizational actions. Journal of Management Studies. 19(1), 29-44.
[20] Polanyi, M., 1967. Tacit Dimension. Routledge & Kegan Paul PLC.
[21] Baumard, P., 1999. Tacit knowledge in organizations, London: Sage.
[22] Sobel, D., 2005. Longitude. The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, Harper Perennial.
[23] Inkpen, A.C., Tsang, E.W.K., 2005. Social Capital, Networks, and Knowledge Transfer. The Academy of Management Review. 30(1), 146-165.
[24] Leonard, D., Swap, D., 2004. Deep Smarts. Harvard Business Review.
[25] Nonaka, I., 1994. A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation. Organization Science. 5(1), 14-37.
[26] Reid, D., Bussiere, D., Greenway, K., 2001. Alliance formation issues for knowledge-based enterprises. International Journal of Management Reviews. 3(1), 79-100.
[27] Kumar, R., Nti, K.O., 1998. Differential learning and interactions in alliance dynamics: a process and outcome discrepancy model. Organizational Science. 9, 356-367.
[28] Bhagat, R.S., Harveston, P.D., Triandis, H.C., 2002. Cultural variations in the cross-border transfer of organizational knowledge: an integrative framework. Academy of Management Review. 27(2), 204-221.
[29] Gelfand, M.J., Bhawuk, D.P.S., Nishii, L.H., et al., 2004. Individualism and Collectivism. House, R.J., Hanges, P.J., Javidan, M. Dorfman, P.W., Gupta, V. (ed.). Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 countries SAGE Publications. 437-512.
[30] Ouchi, W., 1981. Theory Z: How American business can meet the Japanese challenge. Addison-Wesley Pub.
[31] Cohen, A.B., Shengtao, M., Miller, J., 2016. Religion and Culture: Individualism and Collectivism in the East and West. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. 47(9), 1236-1249.
[32] Inamori, K., 2009. A Compass to Fulfillment: Passion and Spirituality in Life and Business McGraw-Hill.
[33] Hall, E.T., 1976. Beyond Culture. Anchor Books.
[34] Samovar, L.A., Porter, R.E., 1995. Communication between Cultures. Wadsworth series in speech communication.
[35] Kim, D., Pan, Y., Part, H., 1998. High- versus low-context culture: a comparison of Chinese, Korean, and American cultures. Psychology and Marketing. 15, 507-521.
[36] Petkova, D.P., 2015. Beyond Silence. A Cross-Cultural Comparison between Finnish “Quietude” and Japanese “Tranquility”. Eastern Academic Journal. (4), 1-14.
[37] Davis, R., Ikeno, O., 2011. Japanese Mind: Understanding Contemporary Japanese Culture, Tuttle Publishing.
[38] Davis, R.J., 2016. Japanese Culture: The Religious and Philosophical Foundations, Tuttle Publishing.
[39] Ishii, S., Bruneau, T., 1994. Silence and silences in cross-cultural perspective: Japan and the United States. L. Samovar, R. Porter (Eds.). Intercultural Communication Belmont: Wadsworth. 246-251.
[40] Nishimura, S., Nevgi, A., Tella, S., 2008. Communication style and cultural features in high/low context communication cultures: A case study of Finland, Japan and India. Proceedings of a subject-didactic symposium in Helsinki on Feb. 2, 2008. Part 2, 783-796.
[41] House, R.J., Hanges, P.J., Ruiz-Quintanilla, S.A., et al., 1999, Cultural influences on leadership and organizations: Project GLOBE. Mobley, W. F., Gessner, M. J., Arnold, V. (ed.). Advances in Global Leadership. (1). 171-233.
[42] Hartog, D.N.D., 2004, Assertiveness. House, R.J., Hanges, P.J., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P.W., and Gupta, V. (ed.). Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 countries, SAGE Publications. 395-436.
[43] House, R.J., Javidan, M., 2004. Overview of Globe. House, R.J., Hanges, P.J., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P.W., Gupta, V. (Eds.). Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 countries, SAGE Publications.
[44] Hofstede, G., 2010. Cultures and Organizations. Software of the Mind. Harper Collins Publishers. London.
[45] Hasnah, H., Ishak, I., Sobei, O., 2015. Ethics, corporate social responsibility and the use of advisory services provided by SMEs: Lessons learnt from Japan Asian Academy of Management Journal. 20(1), 71-100.
[46] Huselid, M.A., 1995. The impact of human resource management practices on turnover, productivity and corporate financial performance. Academy of Management Journal. 38(3), 635-672.
[47] Nadler, D.A., 1989. Organizational architectures for the corporation of the future. Benchmark. 12-13.
[48] Carl, D., Gupta, V., Javidan, M., 2004. Power distance. House, R.J., Hanges, P.J., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P.W., Gupta, V. (ed.). Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 countries, SAGE Publications. 513-563.
[49] Marquardt, M.J., 2005. Leading with Questions. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
[50] McGrath, V., 2009. Reviewing the Evidence on How Adult Students Learn: An Examination of Knowles’ Model of Andragogy. The Irish Journal of Adult and Community Education. 99-110.
[51] Saxenian, A., 1996. Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128, With a New Preface, Harvard University Press.
[52] Cohen, W.M., Levinthal, D.A., 1990. Absorptive capacity: a new perspective on learning and innovation. Administrative Science Quarterly. 35, 126-152.
[53] Cohen, W.M., Levinthal, D.A., 1994. Fortune Favors the Prepared Firms Management Science. 40, 227-251.
[54] Marton, F., SLljG, R., 1984. Approaches to learning. Marton, F., Hounsell, D., Entwistle, N. (ed.). The Experience of Learning. Edinburgh: Scottish University Press. 36-58.
[55] Muller-Seitz, G., Guttel, W., 2014. Toward a choreography of congregating: A practice-based perspective on organizational absorptive capacity in a semiconductor industry consortium. Management Learning. 45, 477-497.
[56] Reagans, R., Zuckerman, E., McEvily, B., 2003. How to make the team? Social networks vs. demography as criteria for designing effective projects. Working paper, Columbia University Graduate School of Business.
[57] Sun, P., 2010. Five critical knowledge management organizational themes. Journal of Knowledge Management. 14(4), 507-523.
[58] Jones, O., 2006. Developing absorptive capacity in mature organizations: The change agent’s role. Management Learning. 37(3), 355-376.
[59] Khoja, F., Maranville, S., 2010. How Do Firms Nurture Absorptive Capacity? Journal of Managerial Issues. 22(2).
[60] Easterby-Smith, M., Graça, M., Antonacopoulou, E., 2008. Absorptive capacity: A process perspective. Management Learning. 39(5), 483-501.
[61] Aribi, A., Dupouët, O., 2016. Absorptive capacity: A non-linear process. Knowledge Management Research & Practice. 14(1), 15-26.
[62] Vasudeva, G., Anand, J., 2011. Unpacking absorptive capacity: A study of knowledge utilization from alliance portfolios. Academy of Management Journal. 54(3), 611-623.
[63] Harrington, S.J., Guimaraes, T., 2005. Corporate culture, absorptive capacity and IT success. Information and Organization. 15(1), 39-63.
[64] Kor, Y.Y., Mesko, A., 2013. Dynamic managerial capabilities: Configuration and orchestration of top executives’ capabilities and the firm’s dominant logic. Strategic Management Journal. 34(2), 233-244.
[65] Tsai, W., 2001. Knowledge transfers in Intra-Organizational Networks. Academy of Management Journal. 44(5), 996-1004.
[66] Boynton, A.C., Zmud, R.W., Jacobs, G.C., 1994. The Influence of IT management practice in IT use in large organizations. MIS Quarterly. 18(3), 299-318.
[67] Cockburn, I.M., Henderson, R.M., 1998. Absorptive capacity, Coauthoring behavior, and the organization of research in drug discovery. The Journal of Industrial Economics. 46(2), 157-183.
[68] Kim, L., 1998. Crisis construction and organizational learning: Capability building in catching-up at Hyundai Motor, Organization Science. 9, 506-521.
[69] Mowery, D.C., Oxley, J.E., 1995. Inward technology transfer and competitiveness: The role of national innovation systems. Cambridge Journal of Economics. 19, 67-93.
[70] Crossan, M.M., Lane, H.W., White, R.E., 1999. An organizational learning framework: from intuition to institution. Academy of Management of Review. 24(3), 522-537.
[71] Tushman, M.L., Anderson, P., 1986. Technological discontinuities and organizational environments. Administrative Science Quarterly. 31(3), 439-465.
[72] Bettis, R.A., Prahalad, C.K., 1995. The dominant logic: Retrospective and extension. Strategic Management Journal. 16(1), 5-14.
[73] Prahalad, C.K., 2004. The blinders of dominant logic. Long Range Planning. 37(2), 171-179.
[74] Remenyi, D., Williams, B., Money, A., et al., 1998. Doing Research in Business and Management: An Introduction to Process and Method, SAGE publications.
[75] Lincoln, Y.S., Guba, E.G., 1985. Naturalistic Inquiry. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
[76] Brymer, A.L.B., Wulfhorst, J.D., Brunson, M.W., 2018. Analyzing stakeholders’ workshop dialogue for evidence of social learning. Ecology and Society. 23(1).
[77] Ferraro, F., Beunza, D., 2018. Creating Common Ground: A Communicative Action Model of Dialogue in Shareholder Engagement. Organization Science. 29(6), 989-1236.
[78] Peters, M.A., Besley, T., 2021. Models of Dialogue. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 53(7), 669-676.
[79] Walton, D., 1989. Dialogue Theory for Critical Thinking. Argumentation. 3(2), 169-184.
[80] Remenyi, D., Griffiths, P.D., 2009. The Socratic Dialogue in the Work Place: Theory and Practice. Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management. 7(1), 155-164.
[81] Honna, N., Hoffer, H., 1986. English Dictionary of Japanese Culture, Yuhikaku.
[82] King, N., 2004. Using Templates in the Thematic Analysis of Text. Cassel, C., Symon G., Essential Guide to Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research. SAGE Publications.
[83] Fukuzawa, R.I., 1998. The path to adulthood according to Japanese middle schools. Rohlen, T., Le Tendre,G.K. (ed.). Teaching and Learning in Japan, Cambridge University Press. 275-294.
[84] Le Tendre, G.K., 1998. Shido: the concept of guidance. Rohlen, T., Le Tendre, G.K. (ed.). Teaching and Learning in Japan, Cambridge University Press. 295-320.
[85] Turpin, D., 1993. Strategic alliances with Japanese firms: Myths and realities. Long Range Planning. 26(4), 11-15.
Downloads
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Yayoi Hirose
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Make a Submission