Transkulturalität

Clash of the Mindsets: Unterschiede in der Weltanschaung zwischen indischen und westlichen Ingenieuren

⋅ August 20, 2009 ⋅  Print-Version ⋅ Kommentar schreiben

Auf Harward Business schreibt Navi Radjou über die interkulturellen Unterschieden zwischen den Ingenieuren aus dem West und ihren Kollegen aus Indien. Ein spannender Artikel, wie ich finde, da Navi dabei auf die wissensorientierten Aspekte eingeht. Er sprich vom eigentlichen Umgang mit dem Wissen, wobei seine Darstellung auch zu anderen Wissensworkern in interkulturellen Kontexten passt – nicht nur zu Ingenieuren.

Hier ist sein Artikel: Clash of the Mindsets: How Indian And Western Engineers View the World Differently. Den letzten Satz des Artikels: “It’s time for B-Schools in the West (and in India) to start teaching a course titled “Managing cross-cultural innovation networks.” I am sure it will be a hit.” würde ich allerdings umschreiben. Es ist an der Zeit, die Kultur als Wissensressource zu betrachten und die inter- bzw. transkulturelle Zusammenarbeit aus wissensorientierter Perspektive zu erforschen. Demnach sollte der Kurs folgendermaßen heißen: “Managing cross-cultural knowledge networks”.

Nun eine kurze Darstellung wesentlicher Faktoren, die Navi Radjou beschreibt.

Because Indian and Western engineers completely differ in their:

1) Reasoning. Unlike Western engineers, who reason with a predicate logic (a statement is either true (1) or false (0)), Indian engineers solve problems using a fuzzy logic (the degree of truth of a statement can range anywhere between 0 and 1). Both reasoning styles have their own merit. In the exploratory stage of product development, Indian engineers’ creativity and flexibility help solve ambiguous technical problems with imprecise data. But Western engineers’ quest for predictability brings stability to the development process later as it gets closer to commercialization. One Indian exec who manages a multinational R&D team joked he felt like a diplomat as he must constantly broker peace between uncertainty-loathing Western engineers and ambiguity-loving Indian scientists!

Another major difference I have noticed is the way Indian and Western prefer to communicate. Indian tend to be more comfortable with verbal communication and Westerners are more comfortable with written communication. (Udayan Banerjee)

2) Problem-solving. Given their average age (mid-20s), Indian engineers belong to the Generation Y, or the Millennials, who learn through hands-on experiments (think video-games) and peer-to-peer interactions (instant messaging anyone?). When solving a problem, these grown-up “kids” harness the multiplicative power of social networking tools to experiment with multiple solutions simultaneously, and select the optimal one based on peer input. You can call this problem-solving approach “Collaborative Darwinism.” By contrast, Western engineers, many in their 30s/40s/50s, theoretically weigh the pros and cons of every single solution before even trying it, and feel too proud to ask for help when stuck solving a problem. It’s the “ostrich-style” problem-solving.

3) Market expectations. It’s hard for Western engineers living in rich economies with advanced infrastructure to design products for use by customers in developing economies with poor roads and unreliable electrical and water supply. But that’s second nature for Indian engineers in Bangalore, with its ever-congested roads and frequent power cuts. As a US tech multinational’s exec eloquently puts it: “Western engineers’ product ideas are shaped by laws of abundance whereas Eastern engineers’ inventions are motivated by the rules of scarcity. Our Silicon Valley engineers don’t even know what “low-cost” product means. And they would have never conceived, let alone marketed, a telecom router with embedded back-up power-supply, as our India team did, to cope with India’s constant power shortage.” Necessity is indeed the mother of invention.

As India integrates its engineering and scientific talent into global innovation networks, Western and Indian multinationals need culturally-savvy managers adept at harmonizing and synergizing the opposing mindsets in their transnational R&D teams. It’s time for B-Schools in the West (and in India) to start teaching a course titled “Managing cross-cultural innovation networks.” I am sure it will be a hit.

Tags: Transkulturalität Interkulturalität

Von: Maxim Grouchevoi
hat insgesamt 16 Artikel auf Wissensmanager.Blog publiziert.

Info: Postgraduate an der Donau-Universität Krems im "Wissensmanagement und Organisationsentwicklung"