The Role of the Leaders

It is the leaders’ responsibility, according to Schein and Hofstede, to create an organizational culture that is as common as possible and as Carl expresses:

“[…] there would have had to be […] a description of the objectives of the team and […] a clear […] description of the roles of the different team members who has responsibility for what and how often the team is meant to meet […] who is representing the team abroad […] or outside the organ-ization and stuff like that” (Carl, 48:59).

Accordingly, it is the leader’s responsibility to make sure that negatively loaded frictions do not appear in the everyday life when the team has to work efficiently in order to accomplish the different tasks. Carl expresses that there is “[…]a lack of definition of roles and structur-ing of the process from above […]” (Carl, 48:35) and thereby we can say that he calls for more leadership and more defined structures. In order to make the organization function, it is needed from the leadership to define some concrete structures and start explaining them right from the beginning from the training process for the newcomers (cf. chapter 4.2.4).

The notion that people are different is related to this project group’s punderstanding re-garding frictions that might occur when different way of doing things are in contrast between individuals within the group work. The authorities have a significant task to accomplish, the responsibility of making the colleagues within a workplace able to collaborate. Moreover, they have to make sure that the collaboration is efficient and functions between the employees despite their different cultural values and national cultural values (cf. chapter 4.1.2). This is when the leader as earlier explained, needs to establish a category systems in the form of a meaning system and a language system, which the leader creates in collaboration with the in-dividuals in the given subculture (cf. chapter 4.2.6). Hofstede agrees with this statement about the leader’s great responsibility in order to make the organizational culture work, which in the end clarifies the organizations’ common goals. John talks about how he experienced the tran-sition from one academic task to another. He does not seem to feel that this task was influ-enced by the national differences, but instead he expresses that it was a challenge in general because of the different people who needed to work together in order to reach a common goal.

“[…] I experienced a different culture when coming from […] academic research to design this policy interface in public institutions but that is not related to […] national issues it's more related to different goals that these institutions play […]” (John, 23:46). Hence, the in-troduction training is useful for the newcomer as it is perceived to be the first encounter with the organizational culture through which he or she is able to start noticing what adaptions need to be made. Aleksandr makes a comparison with his previous workplace and states that

“[…] the academic […] was lower than here […]” (Aleksandr, 26:19) and thus, by that he expresses that his previous experience was not as professional as the given organization where he is working now.

Carl has explained that the training is seen more as being used by the individuals to improve themselves (17:29), it would be relatively useful for the newcomer to take part in the training

the training process, he or she is able to get accustomed to the organizational culture and ad-just his working habits accordingly. As argued before, the given organization is influenced by being located in the individualist society. Thus, there is more room for the individual for deci-sion-making, as low power distance is also present (cf. chapter 4.1.4). This said, Carl explains the notion of low power distance by bringing out that his previous experience was influenced by an individualist society and thus, he has noticed differences between people who are com-ing from different societies, related to“[…] how much you expect to be told what to do and how much you have to interpret what authority tells you […]” (Carl, 09:01) and by that he also supports our perception that the workplace is perceived as an individualist one.

“[…E]very country has their own way how they do things […]” (Aleksandr, 18:48) supports that values – in Hofstede’s terms – and basic assumptions – in Schein’s terns – differ from society to society and in order to merge together when people come from different societies, it is needed to understand the values of the culture where they are collaborating and the adap-tion is required from all the employees to make the workplace funcadap-tion. When the adapadap-tion is not persecuted to the level expected, some frictions might occur and Carl points out, when asked if he has had any experiences regarding frictions: “[…] I’ve gone home very annoyed and the other person has gone home annoyed […]” (Carl, 11:11).

Nevertheless, people always adapt to their surroundings and seeing that, they also include the cultural values from the other people when acting out their own cultural values (cf. chapter 4.1.2). As Aleksandr points out, “[…] people change constantly […]” (Aleksandr, 24:07), he is supporting the idea that people are constantly adapting to their surroundings. As it has been mentioned earlier, Aleksandr used to work in a less academic workplace before and thus, he needs to adapt to the requirements and expectations that are set for all the employees. As he asserts, he is “[…] slowly getting to it […]” (Aleksandr, 31:18) and therefore, he is implying that adapting takes time and practices cannot be taken in only during the introduction training.

Rather, it is a stretched out process, which needs full commitment from the employees. Also Carl points out that there is a general understanding that all the employees working in the giv-en organization are committed to the work and have high standards (Carl, 24:20) and accord-ingly, this is something that is expected from the newcomers to adapt to.

Thus we can say that the observable features are important for the person coming from the outside to the organization as he or she will build the first impressions upon those visible fea-tures. It is important for the employees in the organization to follow some unwritten rules,

ate an image of the organizational culture that they want the outside world to perceive them as.

Furthermore the introduction training is needed according to what Aleksandr has expressed as a newcomer. He has confirmed this with great appreciation and a feeling of fulfillment.

Though, Carl seemed relatively worried in regard to the lack of concrete structures in terms of defining roles, he did perceive the introduction training as a good improvement of the organi-zation towards their concern about the leadership, and as a possible solution to accomplish a more joined work culture.

The various combinations of individuals in the same organization do create some frictions in terms of the employees’ different national backgrounds. Therefore, the introduction training is useful for the newcomer in order to fit in and understand the organizational culture.