Cultural Intelligence as a Prism between Workforce Diversity and Performance in a Modern Organization

In today’s globalizing world it is of importance for managers to manage the constantly growing workforce diversity. Besides the generally promoted idea of diversity management, often limited to fair employment, less attention has been paid to the advantages and hidden potentials of diversity. Previous research that has emphasized the link between diversity and organizational performance has indicated very different results. However it highlights mainly only the easily detectable level of diversity. In the present article a theoretical background is created proposing cultural intelligence as a tool linking different levels of workforce diversity and performance in organizations.workforce diversity; values; cultural intelligence; multicultural organizations.

Perception of negotiation partner: cultural differences from perspective of estonians

Negotiations are a means for entrepreneurial communication and the manner how participants in negotiations treat each other is very much influenced by their cultural background. Cultural background pro¬vides individuals an understanding of their partner’s role from various perspectives. Several cultural orientations have been proposed by different authors to measure cultures. Cultural orientation is considered a relative phenomenon and thus the way other cultures are perceived depends largely on the perceiver. Estonia is a small country which was ruled by various powers but Russian and German impact is mentioned the most often. Both of these countries also play an important role in Estonia’s economy and hence it is interesting and valuable to gain better understanding of how Estonians perceive them in the framework of entrepreneurial communication. The aim of the study is to draw some implications for entrepreneurs by way of studying Estonians’ views on Germans’ and Russians’ negotiation behavior. The study was based on the framework of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions using qualitative research method. The findings, along with other issues, bring up three aspects for entrepreneurs to consider when dealing with international negotiations. Limited experience and the perception of differences may lead to generation of stereotypes among entrepreneurs. Therefore, education and thorough investigation would be beneficial for acquiring efficient negotiation behavior.negotiations; entrepreneurship; national culture; Hofstede’s dimensions; perception of partner.

The Measurement of Organizational Culture: Cross-country Perspective. Organisatsioonikultuuri mõõtmine: kultuuriülene perspektiiv.

This paper contributes to the research on organizational culture (OC) from a crosscountry perspective. From the economic point of view we see that society today has led us to increasing international cooperation and globalization. Despite the opening of economic borders there are still limits to consider when operating across national boundaries. One of those limits can be associated with culture – the way things are commonly understood and accepted in different national entities. This can be of special importance for small countries, as they need to adjust to their larger counterparts in order to be economically competitive. Research focuses on different aspects when studying OC, but it is generally agreed that task orientation and interpersonal relationships become important dimensions when we analyze this phenomenon. In order to understand OC and to measure it in cross cultural settings, a universal measurement tool is needed; however, drafting such a tool has for some time been a sticky task. In this paper the measurement invariance of the Organizational Culture Questionnaire (Vadi et al. 2002) is examined by comparing the data from seven countries representing Eastern and Western Europe, Russia, and China. This sample covers both small and large countries. A confirmative factor analysis was used as a means to test measurement invariance across the selected samples. In addition, Multidimensional Scaling technique was applied to provide a visual representation of the data. An analysis was carried out using the statistical software SPSS/AMOS 17.0. The results indicate that task orientation can be found as a common dimension whereas relationship orientation seems to hold a diverse meaning across countries. Instead of relationship orientation, a dimension reflecting negative employee emotions towards the organization was detected. It also turned out that the strength of the relationship between the obtained subscales shows interesting variation across countries. These findings potentially allow us to better understand and lead international collaboration between countries and organizations