CMC Business Solutions consulting and training services are founded on analysis using instruments for individuals, teams and organizations. The Culture in the Workplace Questionnaire™ is derived from the work of Dr. Geert Hofstede, a Dutch social scientist who developed this questionnaire to illustrate culturally dependent work preferences.
Culture, what Geert Hofstede refers to as “software of the mind/mental programming,” is a critical variable that guides peoples’ actions and reactions. Cultural misunderstandings can be counterproductive for individual development, organizational effectiveness and profits, as well as international relations.
Understanding one’s own culture and the impact of culture on the actions of others is essential for effective global business interactions. The Culture in the Workplace Questionnaire™ will provide you with insights about yourself and provide you a better understanding of how your cultural preferences, as well as the cultural preferences of others, impact working relationships. It also will provide you with a framework for understanding diverse approaches to workplace interactions such as problem solving, working in teams and managing projects.
Background on the Culture in the Workplace Questionnaire™
CMC licenses the Culture in the Workplace Questionnaire™ from ODE Consulting® Pte. Ltd. ODE Consulting and its licensees have the worldwide exclusive rights to its use. This instrument provides an individual cultural profile compared against country averages.
The dimensions, as described and interpreted in the Culture in the Workplace Questionnaire™, are:
Individualism: The degree to which action is taken for the benefit of the individual, or the benefit of the group.
Power Distance: The degree to which inequality or distance between those in charge and the less powerful (subordinates) is accepted.
Certainty: The extent to which people prefer rules, regulations and controls or are more comfortable with unstructured, ambiguous or unpredictable situations.
Achievement: The degree to which we focus on goal achievement and work or quality of life and caring for others. This dimension also tracks the relative masculine and feminine influences in the workplace.
Time Orientation: The extent to which members of a society are prepared to adapt themselves to reach a desirable future, or the extent to which they take their guidance from the past and focus on fulfilling their present needs and desires.
Indulgence: The tendency to allow relatively free gratification of basic human drives related to enjoying life and having fun, or the conviction that such gratification needs to be curbed and regulated by strict social norms.
Responses to Culture in the Workplace Questionnaire™ help to illuminate attitudes and values, and provide a springboard to understanding and discussion of cultural differences and similarities. The insights are then built upon to create more effective and productive cross-cultural working relationships.
We offer a minimum of 5-hour coaching program for Expatriates who are assigned in the Asia Pacific Region for a short to medium term contract. These sessions are designed to provide focus learning on key cross-cultural management issues, specifically between Expatriate and his/her local stakeholders. Intercultural competences such as awareness, knowledge, and skills are to be developed in the program. It all begins with a focus on the Culture in the Workplace Questionnaire™ (CWQ). The CWQ is derived from the work of Dr. Geert Hofstede, a social scientist who developed this questionnaire to illustrate culturally dependent work preferences. This online culture assessment should be completed by the participant three working days before the initial coaching session.
With the results of the culture profile and the subsequent one-on-one coaching sessions, one can ensure there will be minimal miscommunications and misunderstanding with co-workers, team members, clients, and stakeholders while working in their assigned location, and therefore lead to a more productive experience.
This course is designed to provide focus learning on key cross-cultural management issues and to enhance intercultural effectiveness of employees today working with different locations and with multicultural team members. Intercultural competences such as awareness, knowledge, and skills are to be developed in the program. It begins with a focus on the Culture in the Workplace Questionnaire™ which is derived from the work of Dr. Geert Hofstede, a social scientist who developed this questionnaire to illustrate culturally dependent work preferences one needs to recognize that there are cultural differences, respect these differences and find ways to reconcile them in the work done together.
With our network present in over 30 different countries, the culture audit and training can take place in each location the organization is working in. In this way, the consultants that are assigned for the intervention can also have a good sense of the cultural issues by being on-site to observe interactions of the team, even if team meetings are done over teleconference.
Culture as an Asset.
Initially our company focused on Organization Development projects, HR Strategic projects and Leadership programs. In addition, we coached and trained many executives who were moving from one part of the world to another (relocation coaching). It was in support of these activities and training programs that we developed the first of our proprietary approaches to cross-cultural capacity building and consulting. With our Partner organization ITAP International, we have Associates and Affiliates around the world which can provide clients with comparable programs and services in over 40 locations. (Cultural Preferences)
Too many companies view culture as a barrier to doing effective global business. We help companies see culture as an asset to be leveraged. We are a full?service consulting firm specializing in building human capability across functional, global and cultural boundaries. Our approach is to deliver highly developed expertise in the cross?cultural aspects of international business as a fully integrated and natural part of global business solutions. We are specialists in doing business internationally ? across borders and cultures. We serve clients through a comprehensive set of international human resources (HR) development and organizational development (OD) services.
We provide a suite of cultural awareness courses designed around different needs and situations. Although all the training we provide is tailored to the organization, team or individual, we group certain types of workshops together. Popular programs include Expatriate Coaching and Mentoring, Business and Culture, Global Team Building, and Customer Services and Outsourcing Culture Management.