One important aspect of leadership is understanding cultural differences. There are seven important dilemmas that people of all cultures face as defined by Huges, Ginnett and Curphy at the Researchers at the Center for Creative Leadership. While immediate thoughts on culture are typically an individual’s family culture and heritage, I would like to compare and contrast the cultures that exist between an employee in the business world and a student in the academic world. I would also like to assess if academics are properly preparing students for life after college. Listed below are the seven dilemmas, the differences between the demands of students and employees.
• Source of Identity (Individual/Collective): This is the degree to which individuals should pursue their own interests and goals or contribute to a larger group goal. Students have a unique opportunity to pursue their own interested by selecting their courses while being apart of a whole school (be through going to a football game or participating in a club). This source of identity carries through to the business world, employees each have their own contributions to the business and yet they each contribute to a larger group goal.
• Goals and Means of Achievement (Tough/Tender): This is the way that success is defined in a culture–either by tangible rewards such as material wealth or by intangible rewards such as spiritual satisfaction. Students successes are defined by a grading scale with tangible rewards. Whereas in the business world, immediate report on participation and projects often times does not exist. Constructive feedback is a complicated skill which many employers avoid. Is it possible that academics can provide opportunities for individuals to report on their progress to see how the teacher assesses them? Could this help avoid potential fires based on poor performance?
• Orientation to Authority (Equal/Unequal): This deals with the way that people of different status behave toward one another. Should they behave as equals or unequals? In the social environment, it is easy to assess where someone is along their career by simply asking which year are you? Or how many years from graduation are you? While this opens the door for potential mentorship relationships, were one person clearly more experienced than the other. Whereas in the business world, it is your responsibility to speak for yourself and your experiences it is not necessarily based on how many years you have been out of high school or college. For example, who would be a mentor in this relationship: Emily who has a biology degree who applied for a sales position at a biotech company, or MaryKate who has a marketing degree with one years’ experience at the biotech company? Are they treated equal? Is the cultural orientation to authority from college capable of transferring to the business world?
• Response to Ambiguity (Dynamic/Stable): This is the extent to which uncertainty is tolerated. Either structure is imposed on the organization or tolerance for ambiguity is obvious in nonexistent control systems. In business, there are lots of opportunities for problem solving, self-instruction and decision making which your position is dependent upon. The work environment is often not very stable and often times a job description is not limited, tasks are very dynamic. Do the syllabi which professors hand out in the beginning of the courses help or hurt individuals growth in handling ambiguous tasks?
• Means of Knowledge Acquisition (Active/Reflective): Either action or reflection is more valued as means of acquiring information. In academia, there is an opportunity for students to actively find information by researching for papers and projects or gathering more information on which was reflectively given in a classroom setting. In business what means of acquiring knowledge are there? Could professors direct students to a specific type of material that would help with later training processes in the business world?
• Perspective on Time (Scarce/Plentiful): Some cultures view the sense of time as relaxed, while others view it as urgent. Deadlines exist for students and for employees- exams, projects, beginning of class and beginning of a meeting. Being prompt, and timely is a valuable trait in both a student and employee. Often the culture on campus is to push off assignments until the last minute, staying up all night is seen as the norm. This cultural difference is the biggest. If I could imply a solution to better prepare students for the business world, would be to have professors have a google document for students to complete their work. Bosses and co-workers are often keeping track of an employee’s progress on an article or project- completing assignments at the last minute is not acceptable and it is does not produce quality work.
• Outlook on Life (Doing/Being): Some cultures prefer mastery over nature while others prefer living in harmony with nature. In my opinion, I think of how acceptable it is to pass by college with average grades (simply being, rather than complete mastery) and in contrast how it is completely unacceptable to perform averagely at work. They will quickly be interviewing new candidates in your cubical if you treat your work assignments like your college assignments.
Cultural differences are far and wide amongst college students and employees expectations.
For humor:
This picture may capture a student whom was not capable of adapting to the business culture.
Jamie Brown says
I think it’s important to remember that there’s more than one “culture” at any given university or college – and that culture is based in many things. For example, those of a specific major tend to have many courses together, and might have similar interests. They are more likely to share the same culture than with those who are from a major that is the exact opposite of theirs.
Frankly, it sounds like you’re describing a true liberal arts major in this – say, English, French, the Classics, etc. Someone who’s college career consists primarily of paper writing, rather than some form of practical application skills with rigorous testing.
For example, I was formerly a neuroscience major through the psychology department – that select group has a completely different culture than the rest of the undergraduate psychology students because of the more rigorous nature of the major. I actually got a job based on just how much practical application data analytics experience I have – and then proceeded to find my job to be less work than school, with more flexible and understanding bosses than a typical professor.
Honestly, large organizations are made up of subcultures with wide variations between each other. As an overview, this is misleading.