Cross Cultural Communication

Based on the movie Gung Ho

By: Anjali Raj

The movie Gung Ho was a classic example of cross cultural problems in an organization. National culture predominantly affects the work culture of an organization. Taking gung ho as an example, throughout the movie we see that all conflicts arise because of cultural differences between Americans and Chinese.

Chinese culture was very work centric and pressure driven. Chinese were trained to work under pressure, perfection and no mercy. Perfection was a standard they could not tolerate not to reach. Americans on the other hand were family centric. They liked to do things they felt was right. They had a problem with ‘conformance to methods of performance’ of the Chinese. Incidents in the movie like when a Chinese asks the American worker to paint in a specific direction are examples of that.

The work culture at Assan Motors was totally influenced by the national culture of China. Chinese expected and wanted to run the company like a Chinese establishment even though 99% of the workers were American. Exercises in the morning before starting work, not giving leave for family problems, not having a personal relationship with peers, all these and many incidents in the movie tell us that Chinese culture affected the culture of the organization.

According to me, the main reason why this conflict between national culture and work culture arises is because the national culture is what is imbibed in a person from the time he is born. He grows up imbibing that culture. Hence, when he joins an organization or starts an organization, he imbibes that culture in the organization. That’s why national culture is very prevalent in the work culture. If the Americans in the movie were born and brought up in China, they might have easily adapted to the organization because they already have it in them. This is true to every organization across the world. An Indian organization like TATA has Indian culture imbibed in it.

This brings me to second and most important part of the Question, What do we do about it?

We have 99% American employees in a Chinese organization. How do we manage the culture conflicts? Easiest would be to avoid it and toughest would be to face it. I would face it because the entire town survives on the income generated by the employees of Assan Motors.

To start with, firstly the Americans would have to be trained, coached and spoken to about the Chinese culture. We can’t expect the Chinese to be the understanding set of people as they are the ones who own the place! We must talk to both the parties, identify the similarities and differences. Once we know what we are exactly up against, we can start a multicultural approach by mixing the values of both the countries.

We must have socializing between the two cultures. We can have events for example, a culture day each for Americans and Chinese where the entire organization follows that culture from the way they dress,

eat and behave. We need to bring the people together and make them focus on the good part of both the cultures. We must pick up the best from both the cultures and imbibe it in the organization. For example, the punctuality of the Chinese with the ‘fun at work’ approaches of the Americans.

All this is easier said than done but in the end we need to do what is necessary. We can’t let cultural barriers hinder the productivity of the world. Gung Ho is an old movie. During that time cross cultural issues were not thought of much. If they were not happy, they would close the factory and go back. In today’s world, the entire globe survives on globalization. We cannot run an organization only based on national culture. We need to open up, People need to adjust and cherish other cultures just like their own. It’s a big task but the importance is bigger than its size. Face it, don’t avoid it.