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Consultancy Report

Sun Microsystems Inc.

Presented by
Aleksandr Grigoryan

Table of Contents
Executive Summary_______________________________________________________ 3
National culture___________________________________________________________3
Organizational culture______________________________________________________5
Leading Teams___________________________________________________________ 7
Recommendations_________________________________________________________9
Reference List____________________________________________________________10
Appendix I______________________________________________________________ 11
Appendix II______________________________________________________________12

Executive Summary
Nowadays it is important for organizations working in a global economic environment to understand deeply what is national culture, and what is the
difference between national culture and organizational culture. The global environment creates challenges, failures, but also creates opportunities for
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business enhancement and future development of the organization. Greg James's global team in Sun Microsystems faced big challenges caused by
cultural differences among the team workers. His 45-member team works in US, France, India and UAE with completely different mindsets, diverse
cultural values, specific approaches to work and different levels of engagement. The lack of communication and clarity of instructions brings the team
having low sociability and solidarity. Operating in four different countries with diverse cultures urges Greg to consider the situation in each country's
team, taking into account the national, cultural, religious and other values. The strategy of leading multicultural teams depends on the particular
circumstances in each country. And Greg has to review different approaches of leadership to choose an appropriate one for his team. To move forward
he should make changes in the way of management and improve the team environment to have a good impact on organizations performance realizing
the significance of national and organizational culture and not underestimating it.

National Culture
National culture is defined as a set of shared values that are learned early, held deeply and changed slowly over the course of generations. Mr. Greg
James global team at Sun Microsystems Inc. works in different countries with diverse cultures United States, France, India and United Arab
Emirates. Following the Hofstedes dimensions in discussing culture, we will get a good overview of the above-mentioned countries culture with deep
driving factors in relation to other countries of the world.

Picture 1. Hofstedes Dimensions, The Hofstede Center, 2015

The low score on Power Distance (40) in combination with very high Individualism (91) in US shows that within American organizations, hierarchy is
for convenience, superiors are easily accessed and the communication is informal and direct. Also Americans feel comfortable enough to interact with
people they dont know well. Accordingly, Americans are easy to approach their counterparts in order to get information.
A high score Masculinity (62) illustrate that the society is driven by competition, achievement and success.
The US scores below average on the Uncertainty Avoidance dimension (46) which shows there is a high degree of acceptance for new ideas, innovative
projects and a desire to try something new. Americans seem to be more tolerant about ideas or opinions from anyone and allow the freedom of
expression.
The fifth dimension, Long term orientation, with a low score of 26 shows that Americans measure their performance on a short-term basis, with profit
and loss statements being issued on a quarterly basis. This also drives individuals to strive for quick results within the work place.
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With a score of 68, France scores fairly high on Power Distance. Many studies show that French companies have normally one or two hierarchical
levels more than comparable companies in other European countries. Superiors have privileges and are often inaccessible.
But also with a score of 71, it is shown to be an individualist society.
Masculinity scores at 43 and shows that France has a somewhat Feminine culture. This may be indicated by its famous welfare system, the 35-hour
working week, five weeks of holidays per year and its focus on the quality of life.
At 86, French culture scores high on Uncertainty Avoidance. This clearly shows that the French dont like surprises. Structure and planning are
required.
France scores high (63) in Long Term Orientation, making it pragmatic. They seem to be able to adapt traditions easily to changed conditions.
India also scores high on Power Distance (77), indicating an appreciation for hierarchy. Power is centralized and managers count on the obedience of
their employees. Employees in their turn expect to be directed clearly and realize what is expected of them.
India, with a score of 48, is a society with both Collectivistic and Individualist traits. They prefer to belong to a larger social framework. In such
situations, the actions of the individual are influenced by various concepts such as the opinion of ones family, relatives, neighbours, work group and
other social networks. Decisions for hiring and promotion are often made based on relationships which are the key to everything in a Collectivist
society.
The Individualist aspect of Indian society is seen as a result of its religion/philosophy - Hinduism. The Hindus believe in death and rebirth, with the
manner of each rebirth being dependent on how the individual lived the previous life. Therefore, people are individually responsible for how they live
their lives and the impact it will have on their rebirth.
It scores 56 and is considered a Masculine society. In India as a Masculine country the focus is on success and achievements, validated by material
gains. Work is the center of ones life and success in work is very important.
India scores 40 and has a medium low preference for avoiding uncertainty. In India, there is acceptance of imperfection; nothing is supposed to be
perfect, this is traditionally a patient country where tolerance is high; even welcomed.
The score for Long term orientation is 51, which indicates a preference for a more long-term, pragmatic culture. Its again the concepts of religious and
philosophical thought. There is an acceptance that there are many truths and often depends on the seeker.
The United Arab Emirates scores the highest on Power Distance (90) which means that people accept a hierarchical order in which everybody has a
place. In an organization centralization is popular, subordinates expect to be told what to do and the ideal boss is a benevolent dictator.
The UAE, with a score of 25 is considered a collectivistic society. Loyalty in a collectivist culture is in the first place. The society encourages strong
relationships where everyone takes responsibility for fellow members of the group. In collectivist societies offence leads to shame and loss of face,
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employer/employee relationships are perceived in moral terms.


It scores 50 on this dimension and can be considered to be neither Masculine or Feminine.
Arab Emirates scores 80 on Uncertainty Avoidance and has a high preference for avoiding uncertainty. Such countries are intolerant of untraditional
manners and ideas. In these cultures people have an inner urge to be busy and work hard, punctuality is the norm, innovation may be resisted, security
is an important element in individual motivation.
To analyze the challenges that Greg James faces today it is important to consider that he has working teams in 4 different countries with different
mindset and life style, attitude to management, work, customers, and vacations. Besides, it should be mentioned that Gregs direct reporters should be
treated individually taking into account their work manners, behavior and results of their work. One of the most important challenges for Sun
Microsystems Global team is pursuing clear hierarchy in the organization among all subordinates with allowed amendments in the system under
specific rules adopted by the management. All the above-mentioned dimensions of the national culture have a big impact on the realization of goals in
the work process, therefore Greg James should pay attention to each and not underestimate them.

Organizational Culture
Sun Microsystems Inc. provides information technology solutions with 35,000 employees in 47 countries. One of Suns important strategies was to
spread out over the globe by establishing global teams and being closer to its customers to provide service at any hour of the day. These global teams
differ in size and composition, but most of them had been structured in a way that each manager should have direct supervision over about 11
employees.
Having diverse employees in different countries who worked together across different time zones urged Sun to launch the Open Work Program. This
program allowed employees to work from anywhere, anytime with any technology. This gave employees more flexibility and the company more
savings in real estate holdings.
Greg Jamess team is composed of 45 employees, located in four different countries with different time zones, where work environment is complex. It
is connected with cultural factors, PEST factors, skills, and sometimes even language.
Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones presented a matrix for understanding the organizational culture, and what holds the modern company together in
Harvard Business Review on Managing People (1999).
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Picture 2. Reprinted from Emerald Insight Journal

In Gregs team people work with low sociability and low solidarity. They work in different countries with different cultural perceptions and values,
with different approaches to work. The lack of communication among the employees, distance, time difference make the organization fragmented. The
Open Work Program, which allows the employees work from home, and really gives a lot of advantages, on the other hand reduces the chances for
raising sociability in the organization, as people even in the same country do not meet in the workplace, thus have no interaction or communication.
The time difference with India is the biggest and this brings up different issues and constraints in the Indian team. They usually have very long working
days as they start at 6:30 to get briefed before the US team leaves and sometimes work until 10:00pm as they have conference call with Greg in US.
They also feel unhappy with the fact that they are often left to do customer maintenance work, while they think their focus should be on initial
customer technology customization and innovation. They feel as if they are a second-class people in the large team. Their concerns are always the last
to be reviewed.
The French team expressed dissatisfaction about their compensation and the compensation of their US counterparts. The French team found out
accidentally that their US teammates were making 30% more than they do. The French members work 50 hours a week with unpredictable schedules
and think that this compensation scheme is unfair.
Americans had justified their salaries by the fact that French had a very high job security provided by their labor laws. Also the American team was
displeased that they get additional work load every time when their French colleagues take several weeks of vacation allowed by their law.
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The UAE team also had complaints. Mainly they felt they did not have enough face-to-face contact with Greg and it made them feel isolated from the
big team. They were not pleased about being a subgroup of the Indian office. Also they had fears to be considered incompetent because of missing
some deadlines set by Greg. But their culture required more time, extensive relationship building before contracts could be signed. There was another
issue worth mentioning, that Ahmed from UAE and Rahul from India didnt get along, and possibly it was because Ahmed was from Pakistan.
It is obvious that Greg faces multilateral challenges and has to fix the situation taking into consideration the circumstances in each of his teams. The
issues of time scheduling and overtime work were not solved the best way which caused complaints in different offices. The compensation schemes are
not clearly defined and explained to employees, which ended up with dissatisfaction among the team members and consequently influenced the work
process. Communication and/or face-to-face meetings with the team members were not sufficient and later resulted in misunderstanding and
irresponsible behavior of employees. Although Gregs team is composed of high professionals, their work is influenced by diverse cultural and
religious values, different legal and political situations, and approaches to work and management. As a result their work is not well-organized and has
many shortcomings.

Leading Teams
As a rule problems in the workplace arise from exclusion, distrust, and fear. Organizing work in multicultural teams brings even more challenging
tasks. Employee engagement depends on the right conditions for all members of an organization to give their best every day, committed to the
organizations goals and values, motivated to contribute to success. It is about understanding ones role in the organization, and having a clear
understanding what are the organizations purpose and objectives, and being given a chance to offer ideas and express views that are taken into account
when decisions are made.
In Gregs team the employees seem to feel frustrated and not motivated enough. On the one hand, they are skilled professionals who are working hard,
on the other hand most of them do not clearly realize the responsibilities they have and the purpose of the work they do. Each countrys team was
unhappy for different reasons that required individual approach and quick solution. Unclear time schedules and too much overtime work can cause
inefficiency in the teams engagement, as well as unsatisfactory compensation schemes can make employees feel less valuable for the organization.
There were certainly confusion of roles and miscommunication with the teams and the team engagement suffers as a result.
Stacey Adams' Equity Theory (1963,1965) calls for a fair balance to be struck between an employee's inputs (hard work, skill level, tolerance,
enthusiasm, etc.) and outputs (salary, benefits, recognition, etc.).

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Picture 3 Stacey Adams Equity Theory


Reprinted from Motivating and Rewarding Employees www.epowerpoint.com

Thus Gregs team could feel giving more inputs and getting less output in the work process which had its impact on raising complaints and performing
irresponsible behavior.
What makes a leader successful? It is necessary. You just need to understand various approaches to leadership, so that one could use the right approach
for the specific situation to be an effective leader. There are core leadership theories that provide an understanding of leadership.

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It is clear that how leaders behave affects their performance and influences the teams engagement. Researchers insist, though, that many leadership
behaviors are appropriate in different situations. The best leaders are considered those who use many different behavioral styles, and choose the right
style for each situation.
In his leadership Greg seemed to be using different approaches in different situations but they were not appropriate and structured. He was not showing
integrity and was not necessarily motivating his team. The lack of face-to-face meetings and involvement in the work process resulted in poor
leadership and unsuccessful teamwork. Leading a global team, Greg should not forget about cultural differences either. All four countries are used to
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different ways of leadership and this is reflected in the behavior of team members in each country. Using different approaches of leadership in different
countries may become very effective and develop successful and stronger teams.

Recommendations
1. It is necessary that clear hierarchy is established in the team of Greg James. Every team member should clearly know his/her
responsibilities, to whom he/she reports and who are his/her subordinates if any. This is very important to establish and follow constantly. In
case of vacations, sick leaves or other circumstances, each team member should delegate his/her authorities to somebody else. If these
conditions were followed there will not be the case with Greg, Nick and other employees being not available on the phone, or Nick being the
only person who knew the right contact number for the customer.
2. In the work process Greg should have in mind all the cultural differences that exist in his diverse team. It means that the approaches of
managing the team can vary in different countries taking into account the national peculiarities in each country.
3. As it was already mentioned, in the United States hierarchy is for convenience, which cannot be said about the other three countries.
Thus Greg who is used to the American way of management, should take into account the fact that his teams in India, UAE and even France
may need to get clear instructions from him, as in their countries they are used to get directions from the management. Also he needs to have
more frequent communication with his employees to help his teams in India and UAE to feel comfortable to express their ideas and opinions.
The freedom of expression is not a problem in US or France, while in India and UAE it is not a usual thing. This will help Greg to find out any
concerns that his teams have and prevent future problems.
4. Greg should work on increasing the sociability and solidarity in his teams. Face-to-face meetings and frequent communication are
necessary for all the four countries. It is necessary to promote the sharing of ideas, interests and emotions among the team members, to arrange
social events, although the teams are in different countries. It can be not very often, but even gatherings once a year can change the level of
sociability and solidarity in the organization. As the work in his team is interdependent, it is necessary to increase social interactions among the
employees and encourage shared corporate goals.
5. Time schedules should be reviewed. Greg should pay more attention to the working hours and time differences with other countries.
India being the most distant country, should not be the last considered during the conference calls.
6. The compensation schemes should be rationalized and justified. Greg should show to his team that each of them is valuable.
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7. To become a successful leader Greg had better to consider the specific ways of leadership in each of the four countries.
Transformational leadership will be appropriate to inspire, encourage and motivate the team to achieve success.
8. Greg should thoroughly consider all the differences and make the right decision following the proposed implementation plan (See
Appendix I, II).

References
1. The Hofstede Center (2015). Available at http://geert-hofstede.com/
2. Motivating and Rewarding Employees (2016). Available at www.epowerpoint.com
3. Harvard Business Review in Managing People. Article by Rob Goffee, Gareth Jones. (1999). Available at https://hbr.org/1996/11/whatholds-the-modern-company-together
4. Adams Equity Theory. Balancing Employee
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_96.htm

Inputs

and

Outputs

(1965).

Mind

Tools,

1996-2016.

Available

at

5. A Research Approach to Leadership Problems. Kurt Lewin (1944). The Journal of Educational Sociology.
6. Bass Transformational Leadership Theory. Bernard M. Bass (1985). Available at http://www.leadership-central.com/basstransformational-leadership-theory.html#axzz3zzIUv4q9
7. Toward a Behavioral Theory of Charismatic Leadership in Organizational Settings. Conger & Kanungo (1998). Academy of
Management Review. Available at http://amr.aom.org/content/12/4/637.short
8. Managing Multicultural Teams. Jeanne Brett, Kristin Behfar, Mary C. Kern. Harvard Business Review (2009).
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9. Leadership modes: Success strategies for multicultural teams. Lena Zander, Christina L. Butler. Scandinavian Journal of Management
(2010).
10. Management and Organizational Behavior, Laurie J. Mullins, 2005, Pearson Education.

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Appendix I
Global Team Challenges

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Appendix II
Implementation Plan

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