Communication in an Organization Based on Credentials

People in the United States, Nakane argues, identify themselves by professional attributes such as job qualifications or credentials; they are accountants, salespersons, engineers, or carpenters.18 These job labels give Americans their professional identity, and they can take these professional credentials with them. A certified public accountant (CPA) license, for example, is valid in most states in the United States and is recognized in several other countries. More and more workers want to have portable credentials. Recently, for example, salespeople have been talking about a sales certificate that would be based on specific educational and work credentials.

Credentials are influenced by cultural priorities. The labels do not necessarily have the same meaning in different cultures. The label engineer does not mean the same educational level and expertise in all countries. Germans make clear distinctions between various levels of engineers. Russians use the term medical doctor much more loosely than Western countries do. One credential that is almost universally understood is the MBA. As a-result, universities in countries from China to Mexico to Portugal have established MBA programs because the MBA is an internationally recognized credential. Everyone knows that the MBA is a generalist management degree at the graduate level, and as a result, international Omega Replica hiring and evaluation of qualifications are made easier. For example, Germany for many years awarded the Staatsexamen as the official degree at the end of one’s studies. As long as most business was domestic, this presented no problems. However, with the growth of international business, people from other countries began to wonder what the Staatsexamen was. They did not have any idea how to categorize the qualifications. During the last few years several German universities have added the MBA program to their offerings.

In an effort to encourage mobility across Europe and create a European identity, the European Union is encouraging standardization of university degrees: three years for an undergraduate degree and an additional two years for graduate work.

Credentials contribute to the identity of an American businessperson. The identification with the firm for which Americans work is only part of their existence; it is not all-encompassing. In the United States an employee can enter and leave an organization at any level. A person can enter at the beginner level at the bottom or, as has happened at IBM, Kodak, and Home Depot, at the level of CEO. What counts are the qualifications the employee has, some of which may be credentials.
People want the job that best corresponds to their qualifications. In results-oriented cultures, if that means leaving the firm, that’s okay. In fact, most new graduates in the United States stay with their first companies for only three to four years. Career counselors tell them that they should reevaluate their employment situation on a regular basis and jump if a better opportunity presents itself. The emphasis is on individual advancement and individual opportunities, as discussed in Chapter 3. That, of course, has implications for training. In that environment training will be job-specific and brief. The employer wants to get some work out of the employee before the employee leaves the firm, and the employee wants to develop job attributes that are portable.

The emphasis on portable credentials and individual achievement influences communication within the firm. For example, if an employee is not absolutely loyal to the firm, how much should he or she be involved in sensitive discussions and issues? The tendency will be to concentrate on job-specific information and limit communication. As a result, it is more difficult to establish teamwork, which requires mutual trust and openness. Firms that operate within a low-context culture try to protect their confidential information through contracts. For example, an employee who has access to confidential information and leaves the firm may have to sign a statement specifying that she will not use any of that information. In these circumstances the emphasis in communication may be on safeguarding information rather than on long-term education, training, and sharing of information to reach company goals.

People who come from a cultural environment where relationships, commitment, and loyalty are important values may be puzzled by the constant Replica Watches personnel changes in U. S. firms. If Masataka Hyashi from Nagoya, Japan, talks about the possibilities of a joint venture to Patricia Lesch in Chicago today, there is no guarantee that Patricia Lesch will still be there a few weeks from now. When Hyashi contacts Chicago again, Lesch may have left the firm for better opportunities and someone else will have taken her place. The Japanese, for whom the building of personal relationships is a crucial aspect of doing business, may find the personnel changes in U.S. firms disorienting.