The Pygmalion effect.

(Image taken from mayragarcia.v2efoliom.mnscu.edu)

Perceptions are the ideas we have about certain things, people or situations before we even knoe how they really are. Perceptions can be influenced by internal factors such as personality or previous experiences, and can be influenced by external factors such as the environment and the context.

When we are talking about companies or organisations where people from many different cultures are working together, perceptions are very important. Many times we use to think that people from certain places are in a certain way, that working with them is hard, that they don't work, that they are lazy, etc. Adopting these ideas as true can be very harmful for the organization's working environment as they affect personal relations.

There are several theories that try to explain how individuals perceive what happens around them, the perceptions thay have towards internal and external factors, responsibility, etc.
The Pygmalion effect is a theory that states that "the perceiver's positive expactation anhances the target's performance" (Inamori, T & Analoui, F (2010) Beyond pygmalion effect, Journal of management development Vol 29 No 4). This theory is important because it shows how negative predisposition or perceptions towards a person can affect the realtionships between both as the way the other person reacts is affected by the way I aproach him. This theory can be translated to organizations too. In this way "leaders generate subordinates' motivation and increase work performance for accomplishing a designated goal." (Inamori, T & Analoui, F (2010) Beyond pygmalion effect, Journal of management development Vol 29 No 4). This is the reason why friendly interatcion (derived from positive perceptions) betwen people is so important for an effective organisation.

Maintaining good perceptions about work, environment, expectation and stress is fundamental for successful management of people and operations.

Perceptions create expectations. When you have an idea about somebody's behaviour, you expect him to do certain things.

All the previous can be evidenced through an example. When people expect you to do things well, to accomplish certain goal, because they believe you are capable, because they have good perceptions of you, you make your best effort to don't let them down and when you do your best is very probable that you meet your goals.

Cultural diffrences as a determinant in international business

When we are talking about a globalized world, where countries and people are connected through many different channels, we must take into account that not everybody thinks or behaves in the same way. The behavior of the individuals depends in many cases on the way they have been raced and what they see around them.The different attitudes, beliefs, preferences or behaviour of people can be grouped under one world: culture. Cultures can change in the same country. As Nick B. Meyer explained in his conference "Dealing with Cultural Differences", National cultures are those present in the same country but different depending of the zone (Ex: Culture in the big cities is different from culture in a small town), there are also subcultures that vary depending on the social groups (Ex: Homosexuals, prison inmates, military). Finally, behavior and culture as a whole, can also change depending on the professions (Ex: nuns, militars).

Studying the differences in the behaviour and culture is important when you are thinking about working in a multinational corporation, taking a company to an other country, or selling a product abroad.

With the purpose of studying the behavior of people from different cultures working and interacting in an organization, culture is divided in several dimensions according to the model of Professor Geert Hoffstede (Ex: Masculinity vs. Femininity, Uncertainty avoidance, Individualism vs. Collectivism, and Confusian Work Dinamism).

In this case I am going to focus on Uncertainty Avoidance and I am going to try to ilustrate it with an example.

Guatemala, Greece, Portugal, Uruguay and Japan are the countries with the lowest tolerance to uncertainy as Singapore, Jamaica, Denmark and Sweden tolerate new ideas easier (Taken from http://internationalbusiness.suite101.com/article.cfm/risk_adverse_trade_cultures).

The Uncertainty Avoidance is a very important aspect to take care of in a big company where people from many countries are working together, and also if you are trying to open a new branch of your company in other place. Depending on this dimension you can anticipate somehow the way somebody reacts towards risk, problems and most important change.

In order to ilustrate the previous, lets imagine that a companie in Sweden wants to open a branch in Greece. First of all, the manager has to take into account that the behavior and culture in this countrie is not the same as the culture in Sweden. The manager reviews the dimensions suggested by Professor Geert Hofstede and when he studies the Uncertainty Avoidance dimension, he finds that in Greece the acceptance of uncertainty is very low. The manager has to create more norms, laws, standarize the processes, make clear goals, objectives and the way to reach them in order to reduce the uncertainty and create a more satisfactory working environment for the people. (http://www.via-web.de/uncertainty-avoidance/)

Every new project has to be analized from the culture of the people involved in the organization and the people out of it. Studiyng culture can be the difference between success or failure.