Managing expatriated Indians in South African organisations through understanding their values

Abstract

The selection of this study topic was based on specific problems being experienced within the Standard Bank environment, but which are also valid for all organisations having business dealings with India. India is one of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India China) and therefore it is almost guaranteed that there will be increasing interactions between South African organisations and Indian knowledge workers that necessitate the mutual understanding of cultural distinction. With such vast perceived differences in the values and cultures of South African and Indians, together with this future working relationship, it is important to understand what the key drivers are in both sets of working professionals in order to ensure a long and mutually benefitial working relationship. The study is a quantitative study, based primarily on the findings of Globe Study, (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, Gupta) on four value drivers, i.e Performance Orientation, Collectivism, Power Distance, and Uncertainty Avoidance. Each of these values were broken down into sub-values and were then analysed for variances between the two sample populations. Findings were, in the most part, inconclusive. There are indeed differences in the perceptions of the groups on these value items, but many are not statistically different enough to be attributed to national culture. A larger sample may reveal different results, but conclusions in this paper are that, even with differences in some sub-items, in general, Indians only score higher on Performance Orientation, out of the four Hypothesis. Copyright