Exploring Organizational Culture Amidst Cultural Conflict and "Reverse Culture Shock": A Japanese NGO's Experience in Cambodia

• In Event: Leadership

Abstract

This paper aims to examine what kinds of conflicts arise from national cultural differences between expatriates and local staff within international NGOs (INGOs). Build a hypothesis for cross-cultural management in INGOs. The case study was implemented with the Japanese NGO in Cambodia which provides charity medical services. Traditional national cultural studies such as Hofstede’s research (Hofstede 2001; Hofstede et al. 2010) and the GLOBE project (House et al. 2004; Javin and House 2001) provided cultural dimensions to measure differences in national cultures (Robbins 2004). Though cultural studies for organizations to enhance expatriates and local relationships have developed in the research field of international business, research on NPOs remains scarce (Jackson 2009; Ritchie et al. 2015; Patel and Wilson 2004). In INGO management, national culture is a crucial aspect. INGOs working in developing countries need to understand power relations and cross-cultural human interaction through an anthropological approach (Jackson 2004; Lewin 2001). Regarding leadership, expatriates’ alignment with organizational mission and value directly affects their local cultural adjustment (Ritchie et al. 2015). Managers’ higher cross-cultural sensitivity facilitates knowledge transfer and sustainable capacity building (Jackson 2009). Therefore, national cultural aspects are a crucial viewpoint in investigating expatriate and local staff relationships within INGOs. Although theories emphasize the importance of cultural understanding of managers and most empirical studies evaluated significant cultural factors from traditional frameworks with a quantitative approach, there is little evidence to explain the process of how expatriates and local staff relationship is developed and a dynamism of cultural factors. This research questions how the occurrence of cultural conflict, or prevention of cultural conflict, between expatriates and local staff within INGOs can illustrate the dynamics of different leadership styles and national culture dimensions.
Data was collected using participant observation and semi-structured interviews with expatriates and local staff in important positions. Interview data was analyzed with directed content analysis (Hsieh and Shannon 2005) to observe how cultural factors and features of INGO management affect employees’ values and practices. Surveys with cultural dimensions from prior research were used to understand Khmer culture in the organization since traditional studies do not provide any data on Cambodia. The result shows that both Japanese and Khmer (Cambodian) leaders struggle with practices from their own respective cultures rather than their counterpart culture. The working style and underlying philosophy of Japanese expatriates affected the Khmer staff’s attitudes and vice versa. As a result, Khmer leaders faced difficulties accepting the individualistic practices of other Khmer staff. Japanese expatriates struggled with adopting Japanese practices in lack of communication. In particular, Khmer INGO staff found it hard to adjust themselves to the values and practices of other local hospital staff. Implications of this case bring about a hypothesis for a process of forming organizational culture in cultural hybridization by overcoming cultural conflicts in two directions, toward the counterparts' culture and their own culture. This proposition explains the complexity of cross-cultural management in INGO. Moreover, it highlights the necessity for cross-cultural sensitivity within INGOs to tackle sustainability challenges in human resource management and activity.

References

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Author

• Haruka Minemura, Tohoku University