MAR038-6 Intercultural Business Competencies Sample
Introduction
Culture plays an important role in the organisation as the globalisation of the company leads to an increase in the challenges related to the intercultural aspects of the company. It has been identified that the culture of the organisation is influenced by the external environment of the company (Protsyk, 2021). This report is based on KFC which is a multinational organisation engaged in food production and fast food serving services. The company is operating in over 145 countries and has more than 25000 restaurants globally (KFC, 2022). There are various cultural aspects that affect the growth of the organization and lead to the increase in the challenges in the effective performance of the organization. Furthermore, this report will discuss the intercultural challenges that have been faced by KFC and future challenges that might impact the performance of the organization. Moreover, the report will also provide a recommendation to eliminate or reduce the challenges of intercultural impact on the company.
Intercultural Challenges
According to Martins et. al. (2022), Intercultural challenges refer to the increase in conflicts among the employees of the organisation because of the different cultures. It has been identified that different organisation faces intercultural challenges which impact the effective growth of the organisation outside of the domestic area of the organisation. Furthermore, it has been identified that organisations which provide serving service at a location such as KFC face more intercultural challenges because of the direct communication and impact of culture on the organisation. Culture plays a major role in the growth of the organisation as it has been identified that culture determines the existence and purpose of people. The intercultural organisation creates an effective understanding relate to the different cultures and increases opportunities for better and effective development of the organisation. However, the change in the cultural background of the organisation also increases the issues and challenges related to the effective management and performance of the company.
It has been identified that the organisation faces different issues in the effective identification of the culture of the organisation still there is a major barrier in the hiring of employees and communicating with people of different cultures. KFC has been impacted by various cultural aspects as it has impacted the advertising of the organisation and other language barriers led to the increase in the challenges for KFC. However, KFC has adopted the Hofstede cultural dimensions to reduce the negative impact of the different cultures in the globalisation of the organisation.
According to Nurfarida et. al. (2022), Hofstede’s cultural dimension helps the organisation to make an effective approach with the help of better and effective identification of the human behaviour and cultural understanding of the country.
Figure 1: Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions
Source: (B2U, 2017)
This theory creates an effective understanding related to the behaviour of the people and the impact of culture on different countries. It has helped KFC to make an effective entry into the new country and lead to an increase in the growth of the organisation. However, it has been identified that KFC had faced various issues and challenges due to the difference in the culture of the country. Following are some intercultural issues which have been faced by the KFC.
Communication Barriers
It has been identified as the most common intercultural barrier in the organisation is communication. It refers to the transfer of information from one end to another. It helps the organisation to make a transaction and to provide service to the customer (Diamataris, 2022). Different culture has their own language which creates a major barrier to communication. It has been identified that the managers of KFC face major communication barriers in hiring employees and training them to create effective operational activities. Communication plays an important role in the organisation and helps in the effective transfer of information. The different culture leads to the increase in confusion as somewhere people say hot to mention spicy food and somewhere people use the same word to express the warmth of the food product. Such communication barriers increase major barriers to the effective serving of the chicken. The communication barriers also affect the marketing of the organisation as the company cannot advertise the product in different languages because of the different meanings of the same word in the organisation. It creates a communication barrier in the effective marketing of the product and leads to an increase in intercultural barriers (Hart et. al. 2019). The intercultural barriers also create an environment of conflict within the workplace of the organisation as people from different culture works in the same environment and it leads to an increase in cultural conflicts. Such conflicts increase intercultural barriers within the workplace environment of the organisation.
According to Walsh and Winsor (2019), Communication plays an important role in the organisation and the impact of different cultures creates a major barrier in communication and leads to an increase in the communication barriers. It has been identified that KFC has been impacted by the decrease in communication efficacy as the employees from different cultures create misunderstanding and lead to the increase in barriers and impact the global growth of the organisation. The change in the cultural background also increases the communication barriers between the organisations as the input from the headquarter of KFC can be misunderstood by the managers of the branch in the different cultural area. Such misunderstanding also creates a major challenge in the decision-making process of the organisation.
Cultural Beliefs
It refers to the beliefs and cultural awareness of the organisation as it has been identified that KFC had to face different issues related to cultural change as the organisation is engaged in the serving of Chicken which hurt the sentiments of some religions and cultures as they do not support the killing of an animal. The major issues faced by KFC can be identified from the different cultures of India. A protest against the organisation was held and the organisation also faced various issues in opening a new branch in India. Furthermore, it has been identified that the organisation had to operate just one store to ensure stability in the country from 1999 to 2004 in Bangalore (Tien, 2019). The increased challenges in KFC have affected the growth of the organisation and the organisation also faced financial loss over the years in order to globalise the organisation in different countries. Bringing western culture to other countries is easier. However, the different cultural beliefs create a major issue in the organisation. The service of the organisation also creates a major challenge for the organisation as KFC is engaged in serving chicken products as the culture of the different countries does not encourage the consumption of animal-based products.
Marketing Challenges
It has been identified that the different culture of the organisation also affects the marketing of the organisation as various methods are adopted by the organisations in order to promote the product. However, some countries are not influenced by the methods because of the culture of the country (Panteleev and Pavlov, 2019). It leads to an increase in marketing issues and leads to a decrease in the growth of the company. It has been identified that the promotion strategy of KFC has been affected by the cultural differences as a source of advertisement in many countries is different which forces the organisation to adopt different models in order to promote the product of the organisation. Countries like China and Russia have banned the consumption of Social Media which lead to an increase in the difficulties in the marketing strategy of KFC as the company use social media marketing to influence a large number of people with different cultural identities. The increased barriers in the promotion of the product also lead to an increase in the cost of the organisation.
Cultural challenges in the organisation lead to an increase in the different challenges as it decreases the overall performance of the organisation and impacts the internal activities of the organisation. Furthermore, cross-culture is a major issue in the globalisation of the organisation and affects the different aspects of the organisation such as marketing and effective administration of the organisation in the new market (Lott and Abendroth, 2020). The increasing awareness about the culture and adoption of the domestic product is also creating a major issue for KFC as it is decreasing the growth of the organisation. Furthermore, it has been identified that the utilisation of the resources and supply chain of the organisation is majorly impacted by the different cultures. It can be justified as some countries do not allow the companies to consume a large amount of beef and other resources which leads to an increase in the cultural barriers for an organisation such as KFC.
Employment Challenges
It also has been evaluated that the organisation gets difficulties in hiring employees as people from different cultures as it has become a major challenge for the organisation. It has been identified that the expectations of the employees have increased and created a major increase in the cost of the company. The cultural impact on employment can be seen in organisations like KFC. People from different cultures have their ethics and understanding towards animal-based products or beef. It leads to an increase in the difficulties related to the hiring of employees in different countries. Vegetarians are not willing to work at the restaurants like KFC where all the products are non-vegetarian. It led to an increase in the major issue for employees in the organisation. Furthermore, it also increases the expectation of the people who are willing to work at KFC. Cultural change also influences the demand of the employees which leads to an increase in the challenges of the organisation. it has been identified that people from different cultures demand different salaries which increases the cost and price of the product within the same country. It also impacts the performance of the company and increases the intercultural challenges related to the hiring of employees.
Future Intercultural Challenges
According to Singh and Giacosa (2018), cultural challenges are more likely to decrease in the future. However, it may impact the growth of the organisation as KFC is a popular brand and provides services to different corners of the world. It has been identified that the organisation can be impacted by cultural differences as the increase in the awareness towards the cultural aspects in the various countries it might be possible that the organisation can be impacted by future challenges. It has been identified that different countries are trying to be independent and focusing on consuming domestic products. It may decrease the growth of the organisation and lead to an increase in barriers. Furthermore, it has been identified that the cultural aspect is also pressurising KFC to decrease the utilisation of beef in the food products as it creates a major impact on the sentiments of the Indian and other different cultures.
Impact on the organisation
It has been identified that intercultural challenges create a major impact on the growth of the organisation as they reduce the effective communication from the headquarter of the organisation in global development (Jelani and Nordin, 2019).
Figure 2: Impact of Intercultural Challenges
Source: (InTechOpen, 2022)
The increased communication barriers due to the cross-cultural impact lead to a decrease in the overall performance of the organisation. It has been identified that the supply chain of KFC has been impacted by cultural differences. Furthermore, it has been identified that the organisation has to bear the loss in order to understand the culture of the different countries. The intercultural barriers lead to a decrease in the effectiveness of the leadership as employees from different cultures encourage cultural conflict and lead to a decrease in the quality of operational activity (Iskandar et. al. 2022). It also has been identified that the cultural difference also created a financial loss to the organisation as the protest and other harms have been faced by KFC because of the cultural differences. The input from the domestic organisation is also affected by the cultural differences in the process of globalisation.
It has been identified that Human resource management is also affected by cultural challenges and created a situation of cultural shock. It refers to the state of confusion, and anxiety due to the increase in cultural barriers. The decision-making process is also affected and leads to the increase in the barriers related to decision-making as the impact of culture affects the decision making of the organisation as it increases the risk of failure. The overall performance is decreased because of the cultural barriers and also affects the quality of the product as different culture has different development of the resources which lead to changes in the product outcome, especially in restaurant franchise such as KFC.
Conclusion
From the discussion in the report, it has been concluded that culture plays an essential role in the globalisation of the organisation as the company is influenced by the cultural background of the new market which leads to an increase in the challenges. KFC is a multinational franchise of chicken products and is known as the second-largest restaurant chain after Domino. Different approaches were applied by KFC in order to reduce the negative impact of Culture. However, the performance of the organisation was impacted by the different cultures and led to an increase in the various challenges in the workplace environment of the organisation. The cultural barriers have increased issues in the effective marketing of the company and selling of the product. The organisation also faced protest and employment issues due to the impact of intercultural in globalisation. It has been concluded that the impact of cultural barriers also created a major issue in the effective communication from one branch to the branch within the different cultural areas. It also created decision-making challenges and affected the growth of the organisation in the global market.
Recommendations
From the above analysis, various intercultural challenges were realized. These issues have creates various conflicts among people and the organization, which impacts the growth and performance of the company overall. It is crucial for the organization to resolve these issues to survive. Therefore, the organizations have to adopt various measures. There are various ways which can be used to address these issues. Some of those issues can be resolved with the help of various recommendations. Some of those recommendations have been explained as follows:
It was analyzed that there are various employees in KFC who are from different backgrounds, ages, and gender. It becomes difficult for them to perform their everyday duties and responsibilities as they face certain communication barriers. When employees are unable to communicate it becomes difficult to understand each other and attain the common goal. Therefore, organizations have to resolve this issue as soon as possible. Therefore, it is recommended that the company needs to adopt certain measure to adopt these. The first step for the company is to introduce a training program (Nyunt, 2018). The training program will teach the employees a common language so that they can communicate and interact with each other. As a result, it will enable the teams to attain their common goals and objectives. Also, it will lead to the creation of harmony among employees as well. Another method to remove communication barriers is to introduce employees to certain body language methods. This will enable the employees to understand each other without actually understanding each other’s language. Apart from these, the company has to create certain rules in the workplace. This will need the employees to develop a habit of active listening. Active listening is a crucial element of communication. If the employees are listening carefully, it will ensure the employees actually have an interest in others’ voices and try their best to understand them.
There are a number of employees who work in KGF from different backgrounds and cultures. All the employees have certain beliefs which differ from each other. There are many chances for employees that the difference in these beliefs can lead to conflicts and fights among employees. As a result, the company needs to discard these challenges before their emergence. Therefore, the organization is recommended to offer a program in which employees can share their beliefs with others. This is the best way to preserve cultural heritage and share it with others. In this program, the employees will share their cultural heritage and the natural history of the nation in which live in. this will encourage them as well as help them to understand their culture with others. This will improve the cultural awareness of the employees with each other. Another way to do this is to respect each other’s culture. This can be done with the help of stating certain rules in the company (Repke and Benet-Martínez, 2018).
This will enable them to understand the cultures of other employees and respect the as well. The program will teach the employees about their behaviors, customers, perspective, and beliefs. As a result, the employees will understand the value of respecting cultural beliefs to attain accuracy in their everyday activities. The company is also recommended to ensure that there is clear and polite communication among employees as it will enable them to respect each other. Apart from these, the company can also employ a diversity program. In this training, the employees will be trained for shared cultures and distinct cultural beliefs as well. Sharing knowledge and working towards accommodating cultural differences can also help in resolving these cultural barriers in organizations.
It was also analyzed that the company is facing various Marketing challenges. There are differences in cultures that lead to different marketing methods in the organization. Sometimes these differences can reflect in their marketing campaign. Organizations need to understand these issues as they can lead to huge controversy. Therefore, the company is recommended to find the right tools which can enable them to understand the cultures in which they live in. for example, in the initial years when KFC launched in India, it introduced beef in its menu. It did not do good research on the culture of the background. In India, cows are worshiped and they do not eat them. As a result, the company faced huge losses and controversies from the people of the country. This is why is crucial for the company to understand this issue so that further issues can be avoided (Rebek and LORA, 2021). Therefore, the company is recommended to do extensive research before launching anything new in its menu or models. It needs to understand the culture in depth before launching anything. This will enable them to gain a good reputation among employees and the region in which they live in. the company is also recommended to produce high-quality content that is competent with a diverse population. Creating content that is specific to a single community can harm the sentiments of others. Therefore, creating shared continues that respects all cultures can help a company to gain a good reputation among the whole population.
Employment challenge is one of the challenges that KFC is facing right now. People are rooted deep in their cultures and it reflects in all parts of life. The company has been facing difficulty in hiring as the candidates are from different cultures and theories and hesitate to work in such diverse cultured organizations. Therefore, various options which a company can take to resolve its employment challenges. The company is recommended to offer slightly higher wages to the employees as compared to other organizations which are having similar businesses. This will attract candidates from other organizations as most of the employees are motivated by money. This will help the company to gain a pool of candidates who are talented as well as experienced. The company is also recommended to offer other benefits apart from salaries. It can include paid holidays, paying for extra hours, and tour packages.
These are some benefits which a number f employees seek. This will attract candidates who are already working for other companies. The company is also recommended to publicize its diverse training programs. It will spread the word that the company respects all cultures and will promote cultural diversity in the organization as well (Ditta, 2020). As a result, candidates from different cultural backgrounds will not hesitate and will apply for the same as well. Also, this will create a good image of the company in the region which will further help in resolving all the employment issues. When a company has a good reputation, it automatically attracts people from different cultures and backgrounds as they will appreciate the company for its work and not judge it.
All the issues have various solutions which the chosen company can undertake. These recommendations can be applied in the company to resolve the issues and create a culture that is harmonious and respects all cultures. There are various other solutions that the company can implement in its practices such as providing diversity training in the orientation program and creating an essential program attendance for employees that is focused on the importance of diverse culture.
References
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