The rapid expansion of increasingly interconnected markets, processes and operations is affecting virtually every industry, company and worker today. Between the increase in strategic business alliances, the proliferation of global organisations, and the use of new technologies, the share of the market run by companies that span two or more business cultures is growing constantly.

A great proportion of time expended by people from all walks of life is nowadays given over to structured organisational activities. It is little wonder that individuals find themselves at times perplexed and overwhelmed by bureaucracy, technological advances and corporate politics by which they are increasingly confronted.

The drive to gain and sustain competitive advantage in today's innovative markets has resulted in the increased use of technology. Companies can no longer rely on former predominance and are thus having to make rapid and wide-ranging operational and strategic changes.

One of the outcomes of this change in approach is that cultural differences no longer pose problems when introducing new strategies and techniques to bring the organisation forward. Rather, cultural diversity can actually become an advantage: individuals are able, through advanced technology, to benefit from one another in terms of culture, the sharing of information and values.

The recognition of cultural differences within an organisation has become paramount for the successful business. Today globalisation is an increasingly widespread phenomenon, and therefore it is essential to recognise that many countries are becoming increasingly empowered and educated and as such it would be foolhardy to fail to take into consideration their cultural needs. This leads to reduction in conflict and misunderstanding, overall improved customer relations and a better working environment.

The implementation of the necessary changes in managerial approach is indeed a significant challenge to managers. They must, therefore adapt to new ways of working and be prepared to lead their employees accordingly.

The ways in which management go about rolling-out new technologies and introducing changes in managerial approach will be addressed in this dissertation. It will also look at how a business can be conducted profitably whilst still taking account of cultural differences such as differences in communication styles, political/social attitudes etc.

1.2 Research Rationale

Throughout many years of experience of working for a large, global pharmaceutical company (Glaxo Smith Kline), the author has had un-paralleled exposure to working with people from very different cultural backgrounds with disparate values and expectations.

In the process of introducing and integrating e-business tools to the global organisation, markedly different responses have been observed which range from enthusiastic acceptance to complete rejection. The reasons behind these attitudes have been unclear and sometimes unpredictable.

The rolling-out of e-business can be a high investment exercise which should lead to the more effective control of resource planning and ultimately an increased market share. If, through lack of understanding about the probable response of individuals from other international offices, the project is unsuccessful, a potentially large amount of capital investment (for instance one project undertaken by enterprise had a budget of 1.2M) could be lost, and disaffection would arise through poor people.

1.3 Problem Definition

The issue of culture and how this affects the adoption and use of technology is fundamental to this work. The area of eBusiness is very broad, and this work will look specifically at the roll-out of the Enterprise Portal based on the authors own experience in enterprise. This experience was in the management of a Global Technical Information Sourcing System (GTISS) which led to involvement in the subsequent integration of that system into an Enterprise Portal which encompassed other data sources.

A number of large organisations have started to use Enterprise Portals. It represents a move away from traditional eBusiness models such as 'Business to Business', 'Business to Customer' and 'Business to Employees', to a more integrated 'Business to Everything' model. The idea is to create a 'one stop' entry into a single, comprehensive and wide-ranging data source, where internal employees and external customers can locate specific information pertinent to their requirements, with greater ease and speed.

The problems addressed are as follows:

International culture is an extremely complex and broad topic. As could be predicted, most of the material on culture varies significantly in its interpretations of 'culture' and methods for evaluating the degree to which 'culture' affects people's behavioural patterns and value systems. There is also very little or no focus on how 'culture' affects the acceptance and deployment of new technologies.

In today business environment a key objective is to enhance the usage of resources, communication and co-operation. This goal could be impeded considerably by a lack of enthusiasm in taking on new, centralised ways of working. It can, in some circumstances be seen as disempowerment. Resentment of the requirement to use a centralised Portal because it has been developed centrally is a reality which must be overcome.

Failure by management to consider cultural implications of the need to accept changes imposed from the 'core', as well as failure to promote that system, can only perpetuate the negative attitudes of employees.

1.4 Aim of this Dissertation

Within this dissertation the aim is to explore the meaning of culture as well as the scope of the role that Enterprise Portals can play in our understanding and management of cultural differences. A data collection framework which was previously created within enterprise will be used to analyse the different perceptions and experiences of a number of managers. These managers are based in UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, US and India and will be asked to provide feedback on differences in levels of co-operation, communication style and understanding when working with the my Enterprise Portal.

Although the enterprise merger finalised in January 2001, still there are cultural internal issues to be overcome. A case study of the Portal called 'enterprise', which has aided the merger process, will be used in this dissertation as an example.

1.5 The Scope of this Dissertation

An in-depth discussion of the many cultural differences in the countries mentioned; to understand how the British, French, Germans, Italians, Spanish and Americans work from a social, political or ethnic lens would be an interesting angle of research, it would, however, outweigh the scope of this dissertation. Though we will touch upon cultural diversity in our aim to understand the interrelation of the international business community, our goal remains to focus on key areas that affect the use and adoption of technologies; the Enterprise Portal.

Enterprise Portals are now becoming popular in organisations both internally (Intranet) and externally (Internet). Some of the portals in use today are designed to link to other organisations; such as through secure EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) connections (Extranets). In this dissertation we will focus on the internal, Intranet piece of the overall 'net' space, as we are most interested in the role of culture within the organisation.

Local ethics, working methods and attitude to business vary enormously from country to country, but it should be pointed out that one also observes a reasonable degree of variance within individual markets. The French from the North East of France, for example, are culturally much closer to the Germans, whereas those from the Côte D'Azur are arguably more Latin in their attitudes and customs. A similar divergence can be observed between the North East and South West of Spain. For the purpose of this dissertation, the author has used examples taken from the men and women who live and work in the capital of their country, as this is where enterprise's offices are often based, as opposed to a national, more general view.

1.6 Summary of Dissertation Objectives

The overall aim can be broken down into the following specific objectives:

To fulfil the requirement of Henley Management College, MBA

To understand what is meant by Culture

To understand what is meant by an Enterprise Portal

The link between the culture and the Enterprise Portal within an organisation

To utilise an existing framework to compare a technology like an Enterprise Portal across different cultural boundaries. The framework will dictate how culture affects the Enterprise Portal

To use the framework to collect data from enterprise senior managers, on their views of the countries in the scope of this dissertation

To test and evaluate the framework by applying it to the enterprise study example

To summarise finding and evaluate the value of the framework.

1.7 Structure of the Dissertation

The structure of the dissertation is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 - Structure of the Dissertation

CHAPTER TWO - ENTERPRISE PORTALS

2.1 Introduction

The following chapter will focus on the Enterprise Portal and in particular how the Portal addresses the problem managers face whilst confronting the 'global' versus 'local' dilemma. We will discuss in detail what Enterprise Portals are and how their functionality may be leveraged within organisations. The Chapter will include a case study review of the enterprise Enterprise Portal within enterprise where the various terms used within this technology, such as gadgets and communities will be described.

The aim of this chapter is to ensure that a full definition of Enterprise Portals is provided, for example how and why they are utilised, and to provide a review of the various resources researched, to share some of the industry views of this new technology. The final conclusion will be drawn which illustrates the impacts on current business using the Enterprise Portal.

Web sites within company intranets have proliferated, with each web site serving specific organizations, different geographies, and specialized needs. Over the past several years, large companies have begun to consolidate separate independent web sites into single portal sites to eliminate redundancies across web sites, to provide a more consistent framework to meet the global, local, and specialized requirements of employees and business groups, and to make information easier to find. Building portal sites for companies with physical sites all around the world is a complex process, requiring an understanding of the needs, interests, cultural diversity, and linguistic differences of the various constituent groups. Usability testing is a commonly used tool, which provides web designers with critical information about what works and does not work well on web sites from a user perspective. There is a rich literature describing usability study methodologies, providing guidelines for how to perform usability tests (Head, 1999, 2000; Nielson, 2000; Spool,1997). Results from usability tests also provide guidance on specific parts of the process or web site, such as on page design guidelines (Borges, Morales & Rodriguez, 1997) and online indexing structures (Hert, Jacob & Dawson, 2000). Academic libraries are using the results of usability tests to improve the structure of their web sites and to make it easier for their customers to find the information they need (Dickstein & Mills, 2000; MIT Libraries, 1999).

Corporations, like Microsoft, are also applying usability testing to improve their corporate intranets (Kanerva, et al., 1997). In defining typical enterprise informationportal users, Feldman (2000) describes a diverse group of users ranging from R&D researchers to information professionals to support staff to managers who are "driven by enterprise-wide goals and business rules, and they are chronically short of time." These usability tests have influenced the portal design process, proving to serve as a rallying point for the global corporate enterprise portal project by providing data on customer perspectives across the different enterprise locations. The results have helped the portal design team to make decisions and to rationalize the multiple voices of the participant enterprise organizations. Throughout the usability testing at each of the five locations, it was clear that most participants were unaware of the breadth of enterprise resources and services at their disposal. Some of value-added services were not well known by enterprise customers and participants were pleasantly surprised to learn about many services. More marketing of these services, on the splash page and other ways, would help people to know that they can find this type of information on the enterprise's site. Participants suggested using the home splash page as a way to communicate current up-to-date information about enterprise services. The results from the five usability studies have implications for the design of a global corporate enterprise portal site, which takes into account differences in the needs of each location.

Search and Navigation - Participants need to have multiple ways to access information, including a logical and consistent navigation framework, effective search functionality, and site maps. Most people start looking for information by using navigation frameworks, and use search features when they cannot find what they are looking for. However, participants at several locations had difficulty finding the search button on the existing enterprise web sites. Search boxes need to be placed in a prominent location on the screen. Participants preferred search boxes to search buttons.

Labels - One of the challenges in developing a global corporate enterprise site is to find appropriate labels for navigation links that are clear and appropriate across different locations and languages. The results suggested that several labels were unclear and confusing to participants. Participants expected labels to be descriptive ("external web links") rather than creative ("information jetport"). Enterprize terminology and metaphors should not be applied to web site labels, as participants found this confusing. Labels need to be tested with the user base, as it can be difficult to recognize that the label terminology is overly specific, based on professional jargon, or has a different meaning in different locations. We conducted additional usability tests to help us determine the most appropriate navigation link labels for the global enterprise portal site; the results of these studies will be reported in a forthcoming paper.

"Look and Feel" - The participants in the study expected consistency in the "look and feel" of the enterprise pages, explaining that this is needed "to let you know that you are still on the enterprise page." Another participant observed that the different "look and feel" was confusing: "I don't like the different look, feel, and flavor of the different pages. It makes you forget where you are." While the importance of employing a consistent look and feel across web pages is well understood, it can be difficult to ensure that a web site with many content owners resist the temptation to design their own look for the pages they create and manage. Creating a design template that meets the needs and tastes of several libraries and gives a consistent "look and feel" to a global corporate enterprise web site is necessary for building brand awareness of enterprise services. Participants preferred light backgrounds for web sites. Participants felt that dark backgrounds, like the England web site, "... make it difficult to read the text."

Screen Space Utilization - Since we observed participants using their own computers, we were able to make several observations about the ways participants displayed information on their monitors. Many participants did not set their display to view the enterprise web site on a full screen, but rather opened the window to a smaller size so they could layer different windows and have multiple tasks going

simultaneously. This has implications for where information is placed on the screen. For example, participants using the California 1 web site who kept their window small, missed seeing the search button in the upper right hand side of the screen. This meant that information on the far right of the screen was not visible to people who had their screen displays set up this way. In addition, some participants set their screens to display larger text in order to make the text easier to read. This reduced the amount of visible text on the computer monitor.

Geographic Differences - Several geographic differences in language/terminology, identity, and content were identified in the usability studies that need to be taken into consideration in the design process. Each enterprise location should retain some local control over content, terminology, logos, and marketing to accommodate the needs of their primary users.

Language- Language differences across web sites are problematic for retrieval of and understanding information across web sites. At this time, we are using English for the portal site, with documents and web sites in their native languages. However, as the technology improves to handle cross-language issues in terms of translations and information access (Bian & Chen, 2000), greater accommodations to a variety of languages will be valuable to the users.

Terminology - In addition to language differences across sites, use of English terminology differed across web sites. For example, Americans refer to "business information" and the English refer to "market information." It is critical to accommodate these terminology differences in the design of a portal site, since a diverse set of users will be accessing the site.

Identity - Each of the enterprise web sites had developed its own identity. For example, the Colorado web site has become closely identified with the dog picture that appears on their pages. One participant said: "I really like the picture of the dog. As soon as I see the dogs I know I'm at the enterprise home page." This local identity for each of the libraries needs to be retained in the portal.

Unique content and interests - Participants at each location had different information needs based on the type of work they were engaged in. Users at each of these sites need to be supported to meet their unique information needs. For example, the European locations were particularly interested in Copyright information and Standards. Patent resources and technical reports were of greater interest at the R&D research lab locations than at the other enterprise locations. For example, at the Colorado site, one participant remarked: "I have no idea. I'm not sure what is meant by the question (regarding technical reports)."

Text Length - Several of the enterprise web site pages were text-intensive, which made it difficult for participants to scan and locate the information they needed quickly and sometimes obscured the information they were looking for. For example, on one enterprise web site, participants had difficulty finding the search button on the "Search Our Catalog" page because there was so much text on the page. Text should be kept terse and clear, especially for corporate enterprise users who need information in a timely manner to make decisions and solve problems. One participant said: "I don't tend to read text heavy pages and descriptions, it takes too much time. I look for links matching phrases in my head."

Depth in Navigation Structure - Corporate enterprise users expect one-click access to commonly used services and are frustrated when these services are buried. Direct access to these commonly used services needs to be supported by the global enterprise portal site. If multiple clicks are required, the user should be lead to valuable and actionable information on the portal. Participants did not like it when they had to click multiple times only to find out they still had to call someone to utilize a service. Participants expect to have the capability to complete tasks online.

Cross-Linking - Participants valued having more than one path to finding the same information on enterprise web sites. For example, participants consistently looked for interenterprize loan information in one of several places: online catalog, request forms, and enterprise services. Under these circumstances, cross-linking ensures that enterprise portal users will find the information they are seeking. However, excess cross-linking can diffuse the meaning of different categories and should be avoided.

Contact Information - Contact information, especially for research analysts, should be prominently displayed on the portal site. Participants at all of the sites repeatedly stated how they valued the research services provided by the enterprise staff. One articipant comment summed up the general sentiment: "Keep the people. They are who I use the most. They are the surest way to get information." Participants want to be able to easily locate enterprise staff.

Going Home - Some of the enterprise web sites tested did not make it easy for the participants to get back to the home page. As there was often unique and useful content on the home page, a global portal site needs to clearly offer a way to return to the home page, such as listing "home" as the first or last option in the navigation framework.

Mouse-Overs - Several of the enterprise web sites utilized mouse-over technology, however the mouse-over text appeared far away from the button. Participants either did not notice the mouse-over text since it was disconnected from their action or found it annoying. One participant observed: "My eye is bouncing all over the place." Mouse-over text needs to be displayed next to the button rather than at the top of or else where on the screen.

This study aimed to identify design considerations for the creation of a global enterprise portal site that brings together five separate enterprise sites in three different countries from within a single company. The findings provided an understanding of user success rates on five different enterprise web sites and the factors influencing their success, user perceptions of web site usability, and valued elements of web sites. Implications for design of a global enterprise portal site were discussed. In addition to search and navigation, look and feel, labels, and other considerations, it is critical to take into account geographic differences in the enterprise portal design. The usability of the new global enterprise portal will be assessed and compared with the results of the benchmarking studies reported in a follow-on series of usability tests. Further research is needed to determine the generalizability of the design considerations, as identified in this study, for building enterprise portal sites for other organizations

2.2 Description of Enterprise Portals

The quotes below describe a new entry point, a website, a single gateway; a communication part of an organism. Portals can be described as a 'new' use of the 'net' related technologies, which are designed to meet unique demands placed on net-enabled organisations today.

"a portal...[is] designed to span every department, every website, and every major application in...[the]...organisation to create a complete view of...[the]...business" (Plumtree Software, 2002).

"1: A doorway, gate, or gateway; especially a large and elaborate one; 2: a communicating part of an organism; specifically: the point at which something (as a pathogen) enters the body; 3: (Computing) an Internet site providing a directory of links to other sites" (Oxford Dictionary)

"A personalised website built on a common set of application services that enables firms to connect employees...to all appropriate corporate computing resources form any Internet capable device" (Forrester Research, 2001.)

"...a single interface and infrastructure for access to all corporate information.... A true Enterprise Portal interface is characterised by device-agnostic formatting, single password security, role-based access management, and content and workflow personalisation." (Corporate Executive Board, 2001).

2.3 's Enterprise Portal: enterprise

As a direct result of the merger between former GW (GlaxoWellcome) and former SB (SmithKlineBeecham) the new organisation enterprise had an immediate requirement for a means of communicating within the new, and very large global community. This led to the instigation of the gateway project which was created in May 2001. The initial objective was to create a one-gateway entrance to all up-to-date information on the integration process using static web content. This would continue the legacy fGW and fSB Intranet websites until the official completion of the merger, which was continually delayed due to regulatory and monopolies commission concerns.

All announcements of new structures and appointments were made visible to members of both organisations. The next phase vision of the Portal was presented for funding approval in September 2000. See Figure 2.

Figure 2 - Vision of enterprise - GlaxoSmithKline

The importance of this tool was soon realised by senior management who authorised the necessary resources and capital to invest in software and infrastructure.

The bespoke Portal solution developed by Plumtree software was commissioned and enterprise was officially launched on 7th January 2002 after a number of set-backs, such as software and web browser compatibility issues. Initially the look and feel of the Portal was kept as user-friendly as possible, with similar appearance to the old webpage. The introduction of this new technology was embraced by a number of groups, in particular IT who were keen to see how this could be used in individual markets. The new 'Home Page' seen in Figure 3, was available as employees returned after the Christmas holiday period.

Figure 3 - Welcome to enterprise page - GlaxoSmithKline

A system of authentication of identity was installed (SED), which basically screened individual's ability to access various levels of the portal, depending on their personal details. The screen shot shown in Figure 4 is post authentication.

Figure 4 - enterprise Portal Screen Shot Taken in September 2002 - GlaxoSmithKline

2.3.1 Definition of Portal Terminology

2.3.1.1 Banner

The company logo and enterprise logo appear at the top and is referred to as a 'Banner'. This section is defined as mandatory. The search engine for the Portal can be found on the right of the screen, and was supplied by 'Verity' a company who specialises in search engines. This search engine tool allows users to search using one tool across many different domains and also incorporates other fields such as 'FeedBack', 'About', and 'Help'.

2.3.1.2 Tab

The tab field is placed just below the banner, as show in Figure 4. There are three shots: enterprise; Life@Work; Communities. One of these tabs (enterprise) is classified as mandatory for all users of the portal. This tab is mainly controlled and updated by enterprise's Corporate Communications department.

The tab 'Life@Work', is community created and owned by HR (Human Resources), the second sponsor of the project. Communities can be accessed through a Tab shortcut, which can be activated after the authorisation of the relevant Vice President (VP). Through the Strategic Enterprise Directory (SED), selected users can have Tabs activated which point to defined communities. For example, in France a tab would point specifically to information concerning the French market: the French community.

The final tab, 'Communities', is customisable through options, which can be found below the banner on the right hand side. It allows users to select a number of communities, which comprise groups of users, functional departments and markets which created their own 'neighbourhood'.

2.3.1.3 Gadgets

A gadget can be described as a 'mini'web-page', see Figure 5 below which has 10 gadgets. Some of these gadgets are mandatory and can be customised if required. For instance a user can select how many new items they would like to view on their portal. The figure below currently shows that five items have been selected. Another example is the 'Share Price' gadget (perhaps the most interesting!) where users can view the share price on either or both of the London or New York exchanges. Other gadgets are shown which give an illustration of the variety of different facilities which can be made available.

2.3.1.4 Communities

The fourth tab, 'Communities', is customisable through options, which can be found below the banner on the right hand side. It allows users to select a number of communities, which comprise groups of users, functional departments and markets which created their own 'neighbourhood'. 'Life@work tab refers to community and maintained & owned by the Human Resources, the second sponsor of the projects. This functionality can be accessed via short-cut and activated once the relevant Vice President (VP) authorises. Each market access their own community through the Strategic Enterprise Directory (SED).

Figure 5 - Areas of enterprise - GlaxoSmithKline

2.4 Are Enterprise Portals Necessary?

By using a common framework a Portal is said to provide "a rapid, cost-efficient and integrated platform" for presenting applications to a user in "a single and simple experience. Enterprise Portals provides a single point of contact between the enterprise and all its stakeholders." (Plumtree, 2002). Enterprise Portals are said to help companies organise all of this information, partly by "letting stakeholders create custom views" of it and by "reducing the overall infrastructure costs and capital tied up in hardware" (Plumtree, 2002), which in most cases is under-utilised.

Intranet websites are supported by a large number of servers which all have the need for design, development and testing of their infrastructure and for user authentication and support, such as personalising that service for each user, often using different and conflicting front-ends. Websites now contain vast amounts of information and eBusiness services are commissioned by most of the large organisations for example on-line procurement, expense report processing, self-service benefits enrolment etc.

Since the availability of web-pages has become commonplace, many organisations are facing a plethora of sometimes almost duplicated web-pages, which can be difficult to navigate.

This also gives rise to a substantial burden on IT support departments through hardware and supporting functions.

Corporate Executive Board state that "...[a]...typical users/employees struggle with an average of seven passwords (many following different length/character conventions)." Furthermore, on average an organisation is said to have up to "five search engines", resulting in information duplicated or rendered inaccessible by lack of integration across thousands of Intranet and legacy systems. The multitude of interfaces is supported by an equally desegregated IT infrastructure.

IT is responsible for managing the cost and complexity of duplication of hardware and software and also high user training demands. According to Corporate Executive Board (2002) "Firms...report that as much as 40 percent of all helpdesk requests (costing between $19 to $32 each) are caused by forgotten passwords." enterprise addressed these issues quite early by deploying a global SED to minimise the need for users to have many passwords within the organisation, as well as a powerful search engine, Verity.

According to Forrester (2001) the users are expecting a big benefit and as per research 49 Portal Managers from Global 3,500 companies were interviewed, 53% thought their Portal would provide better access to information, 24% rated it would reduce costs, and 14% thought it would be a process improvement.

Despite having high expectations of their portals, only a minority of organisations report having formal metrics for demonstrating Portal benefits and 41% of organisations were not measuring the benefits at all. A further 20% did not know if they were or not. (Forrester, 2001).

The driving force behind the deployment of Portals in many organisations can be as a result of fear of competition. This has resulted in a lack of understanding of the implications in terms of maintenance, implementation and deployment. The result can be a financial over-spend which is unlikely to be recovered through improved internal communication and efficiency. Gartner Group (2002) predicts the costs of development, deployment, maintenance and support to be one to three times the cost of the product acquisition. An organisation should, therefore, have a clear vision of business goals and objectives before taking this path. Gartner Group advise that "Long term success rests on solid business leadership that can resolve political problems...[and]...adequate funding to meet ongoing development and change management costs."

In order to sustain competitiveness leaders must be ready to share their unique experiences and vision across the enterprise. This will lead to the best working practice being deployed across the company. Thus, enterprises should ensure that the Portal is not a great technology in search of a business problem. Today, however, companies can share their best practices with greater ease thanks to large departmental and enterprise wide deployments that began in 2001, such as enterprise.

2.5 The Effect of the Enterprise Portal on Business

Forrester (2001) found that there was a definite preference for the type of information managers typically listed on content-oriented portals. Far more information bout benefits and company news than on the transaction capabilities such as personnel information changes. This is presumably due to the way in which Enterprise Portals are usually funded within organisations. Take enterprise for example, which was initially funded by Corporate Communications and HR.

Not only was there a clear preference in terms of Portal content, but there was also a large divide between the types of systems deemed suitable for migration to the Portal environment. Organisations have had to deal with an avalanche of Intranet websites. 92% of existing Intranet sites were included in the migration to the Portal environment whilst only 59% of existing application servers were migrated.

Lissak and Bailey point out that "people want a single environment for work...that is their own and one they can manage themselves." By creating a dynamic environment that is customisable, users are both in control of which information they see and how they see it.

In a multicultural environment, it is obviously necessary for a Portal to have multilingual capabilities in order to be accessible to all the potential stakeholders. The only method of achieving this end is to create several 'sets' of the user interface each of which, whilst based on the same data, is written in the target language of the country to whom it is designated. enterprise is one Portal which exemplifies this procedure.

Indeed, before migrating business models to a global web-based environment, it is essential that the needs of individual international markets are fully understood and taken into consideration. Lissak and Bailey point out that "once the Portal becomes about me and about the things I do and that are important to me, it becomes the internalisation of what all leaders in organisations want to achieve...what leaders intrinsically want to make happen is for the organisation to reach a point where it effectively leads itself." (Lissak and Bailey, 2002).

2.6 Development of enterprise Portal

At long last we have designed a tool which can integrate the minefield of disparate systems and technologies which have plagued corporations over the past decade, transforming them from a confusion of disconnected grids into an a highly organised web of interconnected markets which can communicate key information through a single, user-friendly, interface: the Enterprise Portal.

At enterprise, we have widened the scope of the Portal as is illustrated in Figure 6. As can be seen, the portal's functionality has been extended to incorporate collaborative working and sharing of information, such as community discussion forums, community tasks and announcements. In addition,

'life' and 'work' have been separated out into different tabs so that HR may provide a localised service for each country.

enterprise have also invested in an eLearning solution which is fully integrated into the Portal. This solution provides employees with resources and support to help them develop new skills. This they can pursue at their own pace in their own time and at low cost. The full benefit of this eLearning environment is reaped when it is rolled out globally as it can be utilised to train and prepare multiple global markets for system upgrades and new technology, as was the case with upgrade to Windows XP in 2003.

Figure 6 - enterprise Portal

2.7 Summary

In this chapter, we have introduced and discussed the functionality of the 'Enterprise Portal' through our case study about enterprise We have put forward a business case for the Enterprise Portal and in particular we have underlined the infrastructural issues needing be addressed prior to its rollout, such as the vast number of disparate intranet sites and application servers which need to be integrated into the new environment.

We have seen how, in today's global market, organisations can utilise the Portal to create a single focal point or 'hub' across which they can post strategic, mission-critical information to each of the key organisational members.

However, whilst there is a general move towards globalisation, at the same we have seen how the local markets can also take advantage of the Portal's customisability to create 'local' communities addressing 'local' needs. In this way, the Portal is thus at once helping to ease the process of globalisation whilst helping to resolve the 'global' versus 'local' dilemma. Users are able to personalise and 'localise' their experience of the Portal within its 'global' infrastructure.

In chapter three, we will discuss in more detail the ways which the Enterprise Portal addresses the issue of 'Culture' within organisations. We will framework to identify some areas of improvement needing to be addressed at either a global or a local level.

CHAPTER THREE - CULTURE

3.1 Introduction

In the previous chapter we introduced the Enterprise Portal and some of the ways in which it can be rolled out across international organisations. In particular, we looked at the way in which the Portal addresses the 'local' versus 'global' dilemma and the need to have a central 'hub' throughout essential strategic company information is to be channelled.

In this chapter we will discuss how 'Culture' and cultural differences affect relationships between global markets and how the productivity of the international corporation as a whole is largely dependent upon their understanding, acceptance and collaboration. We will discuss the pressures facing not only global leaders but also local operational managers who often disregard the impact of culture in everyday life at work. Using the various sources information collated during the author's research, we will present some of the models used to describe culture. We will also discuss and analyse the results of the author's own pole conducted across 5 major international markets at enterprise.

First, let us discuss more specifically what we mean by 'Culture'.

3.2 What do we Mean by Culture?

Culture is a vast topic and, as one might expect, there is a panoply of literature on it and many contrasting schools of thought. To take a few examples:

"Culture is... a system for creating, sending, storing and processing information..." (Hall and Hall, 1990)

"Culture is the deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members... that operate unconsciously, and that define in a basic 'taken for granted' fashion." (Shein, 1985)

"Culture is like gravity: you do not experience it until you jump six feet into the air." (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 1997)

As can be seen, Culture can be interpreted in many different ways. Cultural diversity can be seen through differences in language, dress, rituals, customs, art and music, to name a few. Culture, however also consists of less tangible components, such as value systems, shared notions and beliefs, assumptions and the emotions with which these are invested. According to Shein (1985) "...culture as a concept...[should not be]...misunderstood and confused with other concepts, such as 'climate', 'philosophy', 'ideology', 'style'...and the like. Culture is as a complex pattern of ideas, emotions and observable manifestations (behaviour and symbols) that tend to be expected, reinforced and rewarded by and within a particular group."

Figure 7 - Model of Culture - Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (1997)

For Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (1997), on the other hand, "...culture is like water to a fish. It sustains us. We live and breathe through it." They separate culture and our awareness of it into separate layers, with an inner core of implicit assumptions and an outer core of more tangible manifestations of culture (see Figure 7 above). At the outer layer, they describe the 'explicit' which is the observable reality of the "language, food, buildings, houses, monuments, agriculture, shrines, markets, fashions, and art." These are said to be the symbols of the deeper level of culture. In the middle layer they describe the 'norms', which are "the mutual sense of the group has of what is 'right' and 'wrong', and the 'values', which on the other hand, "determine the definition of 'good and bad'" and are therefore closely related to the ideas shared by the group. A culture is said to be relatively stable when the norms reflect the values of the group. At the core they describe the 'basic assumptions' which are acquired silently and often without the individual's even noticing. These basic assumptions however, are very deep-rooted and generally shared by the majority of conforming group members.

The word 'culture' comes from the same root as the verb 'to cultivate', which underlines its connection to survival and Mother Nature. Indeed, culture is the way in which humans act upon nature and towards one another. It becomes so ingrained in our daily activities that we are often not aware of its existence,

just as the fish takes water for granted. This obliviousness to the existence of 'culture' and the shared basic assumptions that unites a cultural group often leads to members of that group becoming confused or irritated when situations arise which are alien to their set of norms and expectations.

Hofstede uses a similar diagram to demonstrate how culture manifests at different levels of depth, see Figure 8.

Figure 8 - The 'Onion Diagram': Manifestations of Culture at Different Levels of Depth (Hofstede, 1991)

At the outer layer, Hofstede describes 'symbols', which are the "words, gestures, pictures, or objects that carry a particular meaning." These are symbols such as flags, brands and status symbols, which are said to be the most superficial. In the next layer, we have the 'heroes', who are the people, who are either "...alive or dead...real or imaginary", serving as role models for members of a given culture. Moving deeper through the layers are 'rituals': collective activities such as the ways of greeting people, paying respect, social and religious ceremonies, etc. These rituals are considered as socially essential to any successful culture. Hofstede (1991) subsumes symbols, heroes and rituals as 'practices', as they are tangible to the outside observer as manifestations of culture. However, the ways in which these manifestations are interpreted internally by members of the cultural group often remain 'invisible' to the outsider. At the core, Hofstede suggests that culture is formed by values: "broad tendencies to prefer certain states of affairs over others." Values, Hofstede argues, are 'feelings', and are among the first things children learn implicitly, such as "dirty" versus "clean", "evil" versus "good", etc.

The diagrams discussed above offer us a loose structure through which we can analyse culture. However, the topic of culture is certainly not clear-cut. "Culture is learned" argues Shein (1985) "[it]... evolves with new experiences, and can be changed if one understands the dynamics of the learning process...If one is concerned about managing or changing culture, one must look to what we know about the learning and unlearning of complex beliefs and assumptions that underlie social behaviour."

Indeed, deeply embedded within us all are thought patterns and programmed responses to certain situations and stimuli. These 'learned reactions' we acquire from our parents, teachers, peers and other social groups as well as from direct experience. Culture, therefore, is both learned and inherited. This explains, in part, why culture is so dynamic, evolving throughout the lifespan of both the individual and his civilisation. For Hofstede, culture as both learned and inherited. He describes culture as being

sandwiched between what he calls 'human nature' and individual 'personality'. This is depicted in Figure 9.

Figure 9 - Three Levels of Uniqueness in Human Mental Programming (Hofstede, 1991)

Hofstede (1991) differentiates human nature from individuality through a computer analogy: human nature " represents the universal level of one's mental software [which is] inherited with one's genes. It is the 'operating system', which determines one's physical and basic psychological functioning." In other words, it is the genetic programming of the individual which is totally independent of the cultural context into which he or she is born. On the other hand, the personality of the individual "...is his unique personal set of mental programs which he does not share with other human being[s]." According to Hofstede, it is the fusion of human nature and individuality which create one's 'personality'. He argues that personality is based on traits which are partly inherited through the individual genes and partly learned.

One often thinks of culture in terms of national identity: for example, French culture versus German culture. However, cultures are often formed wherever a group of people are united for a common cause. An example of such culture is corporate culture. Indeed, whenever we work for an organisation, we inevitably experience and inherit a cultural identity with its norms and rules through our environment within that organisation. This 'organisational culture' is often created by the organisation's leaders, and one of the most decisive functions of leadership is, to create the culture, manage it and, where necessary reinvent it.

The term 'organisation culture' becomes a much broader and more complex issue when dealing with multinational corporations which span several continents, such as enterprise. Here, we are dealing with a set of distinct 'local' cultures the totality of which make up the global organisation as a whole. On a broad level, we could view the individual markets as different 'personalities' within the organisation. In the same way that individuals within a group naturally adopt a personalised modus operandi, each of the national 'cultures' has its own distinctive approach in doing business, in communicating, interacting, socialising, etc.

3.3 Cultural Issues

Jean Monnet, the founder of the European Community, once stated: "If I were again facing the challenge to integrate Europe, I would probably start with culture. Culture is the context in which things happen: out of context, even legal matters lack significance." (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 1997).

As we mentioned above, many people associate culture with national identity and thus disregard the impact culture has within organisational life. Indeed, many business leaders fail to pay adequate attention to the cultural diversity present within their department. This inevitably has a negative effect over the way employees work with each other, as well as with their line managers.

By the same token, employees are seldom aware, or rarely take time to consider the deep-rooted motivations for their behaviour and that of their fellow employees. These motivations are often predetermined by the national and organisational culture within which they operate and remain below the level of their daily awareness. When we do take the time to consider them objectively, however, we become aware that culture is hugely complex and its importance and even existence is often overlooked.

Indeed, there are situations in which we are forced to ponder the ramifications of cultural diversity: namely when we move into a 'foreign' culture, for example when travelling abroad, or when moving to a new organisation. Shein has observed that "anyone who has travelled knows how potent the impact of different cultures can be. We encounter a new language, strange customs, unfamiliar sights, sounds and smells, and unpredictable behavioural responses from 'locals' that make it hard to relax." (Schein, 1985). The same 'strangeness' is often experienced by new employees or those who move from one department or country to another within their own organisation. They are moving from one 'culture' into another 'foreign' culture.

Psychologically, we experience and observe that a group people seem to follow a common code of conduct; "that others in the setting treat the behaviour as 'normal' and 'to be expected', and [that] behaviour is not random or unmotivated but purposive and patterned" (Shein, 1985). As Shein points out, "we tend to deal with these kinds of situations by making attributions to the group and associating components of the culture to represent the group as a whole. In situations where we experience a new cultural situation, it is rarely a bland or neutral experience. We feel a need to respond, react, 'do the right thing', 'fit into the situation', 'gain acceptance' as we often find it difficult to tolerate the feelings of alienation and tension that it may arise. Instead we need to determine what is expected of us, as such anxiety can turn into anger if we sense a pressure to conform without knowing how, or if we sense that conformity might undermine our own sense of identity."

Needless to say that members of one culture often have difficulty in understanding the values and behavioural patterns of members of other cultures. We tend to view foreign cultures through our own cultural lens, judging their beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviour according to our own standards. This inevitably leads to our failure to understand foreign cultures, resulting in confusion and possibly friction and resentment. This is precisely what happens when important business decisions made in centralised head offices are rolled out to each of the local markets within the multinational corporation. For example, over the past three decades discussions of management practices were first dominated by Japanese models (JIT - Just In Time, etc) and later on by American models (MBO - Management by Objectives, TQM - Total Quality Control, etc.). It was often assumed that these models were universal templates for conducting business. However, business leaders failed to take into consideration the firmly established models in use across the individual global markets. An employee of Ford described how the JIT and TQM methods, which were introduced to Ford globally, took years to perfect, as traditional working methods had become so ingrained within the fabrication of automobiles. Clearly the introduction of business models 'out of context', i.e. in other cultural environments, often has unexpected effects and can actually hamper productivity, as opposed to improving it.

However, as the global economy expanded substantially in the late 1990's, there was increasing awareness of the existence of many other substantially different business models. Indeed, as companies globalise, corporate leadership teams have faced with the difficult task of coupling a repertoire of managerial and leadership skills with a thorough understanding of and sensitivity to global organisation culture. Schein (1985) even sugges that "culture and Leadership, when one examines them closely, are two sides of the same coin, and neither can be understood by itself."

Thus, the 'hard skills' of business management and strategy and the 'soft skills' of interaction and communication are thus inextricably linked. The success of today's business leaders, it would seem, is largely dependent on their ability to equip themselves with a sound knowledge and understanding of the business culture present within their organisation, particularly when it comes to co-ordinating the individuals involved in carrying out the day-to-day activities.

Nevertheless, cultural awareness is also indispensable in elaborating a good business strategy. In today's global economy one finds that different international markets have different goals and objectives. Multinational corporations that develop management policies, practices and procedures centrally and then attempt to implement them across the various international markets without due regard for the specific cultural context of that market often encounter a number of unforeseen hurdles. Similarly, managers who attempt to apply management principles across foreign markets without taking into

consideration their local cultural norms may not be able to create the most efficient working environment.

Today, it is often the objective of centralised head offices to 'streamline' and homogenize the work environment across the business through the sharing and rolling out of best practices globally. Nevertheless, individuals' interpretations of these practices depend heavily on certain cultural preferences, and the 'meaning' people give to the organisation, in other words their concept of its structure, practices and policies, is inevitably defined by culture. Shein astutely points out that: "idividual and organisational performance, and the feelings that people in an organisation have about the organisation, cannot be understood unless one takes into account the organisations culture" (Schein, 1985).

3.4 Culture and International Business

Thus, the role of international business leaders is clearly a challenging one. They must adopt a number of different strategies and techniques according to the nature of the culture of the organisation that employs them.

Despite the huge diversity to be found across cultures, there are certain common elements in every culture, such as authority, bureaucracy, good fellowship, verification, accountability, to name a few. However, again these elements tend to be expressed in different ways and our interpretations of them are often quite different from those of our neighbours. Then again, in light of increasing globalisation Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner suggest that "internationalism will create, or at least lead to, a common culture worldwide." If this were to happen, it may simplify the task with which global managers are face today. In fact, we are already seeing examples of global culture such as McDonalds and Coca-Cola whose tastes can be found all over the world. However one should bear in mind that even the products sold by these global giants have to be adapted to accommodate local needs. For example, in France multi-flavoured chicken sandwiches have replaced hamburgers, as the cow is a sacred animal.

There are, indeed, many products and services becoming common to world markets. What we must not overlook, however, is what they mean to the people across the different cultures. It is not, therefore, the external or 'objective' reality which must be considered, but rather the internal, 'subjective' experience of these elements which defines how they really affect target cultures. It is the shared ways in which groups of people understand and interpret the world. "So the fact that we can all listen to Walkmans and eat Hamburgers tells us that there are some novel products that can be sold on a

universal message, but it does not tell us what eating hamburgers or listening to Walkmans means in different cultures. Dining at McDonalds is a show of status in Moscow whereas it is a fast meal for a fast buck in New York." (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 1997).

Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner conclude that "if business people want to gain an understanding of and an allegiance to their corporate goals, policies, products or services wherever they are doing business, they must understand what those and other aspects of management mean in different cultures." (Trompenaars and Hampden Turner, 1997).

Thus, global managers who wish to centralise operations from different national markets are faced with a hugely complex task. They must always take into consideration foreign cultures' norms, rules and procedures as to overlook these could result in the local market's total rejection of the new strategy being rolled out. On the other hand, an overly decentralised structure could lead to a heavily fragmented business with little streamlining and sharing of best practises. Indeed, finding the right balance between centralisation and decentralisation is very difficult to achieve. Managers are constantly under pressure both to globalise and to adapt their organisation to the local needs of the individual markets' legislation, socio-political systems and of course cultural systems. However, as markets globalise, the need for standardisation in organisational design, systems and procedures increases in line with the ever more dynamic nature of global business today.

3.5 Summary

In this chapter, we have looked at different theories about culture, both national and corporate. We have discussed the meaning and implications corporate culture has in the global economy. Through some of the models used by other researchers in this area we can see how national culture does indeed relate to organisational life and how this affects workers who are often from diverse backgrounds and share different value systems.

Trough our analysis of cultural diversity within the multinational organisation, we have seen that global business leaders are faced with many dangers and pitfalls. Indeed, we have illustrated through our examples of global management practices how their effectiveness is often hampered by the failure to take cultural issues into account.

We have demonstrated that however much we try to homogenise and streamline multinational organisations, the ways in which global policies and strategies are interpreted locally inevitably vary enormously depending on their culture. Logically this makes the role of today's global manager a most challenging one and we discussed the 'global' versus 'local' dilemma. faced by many global organisations today:

CHAPTER FOUR - A FRAMEWORK TO ANALYSE ENTERPRISE PORTALS THORUGH A CULTURAL LENS

4.1 Introduction

In the previous two chapters, we discussed both Culture and Enterprise Portal technology. In Chapter Two we discussed the Enterprise Portal and the ways in which it can be implemented and customised to suit different business needs across the international corporation. In Chapter Three we introduced the role of culture, especially with regard to peoples' attitude to changes in working methods. We also touched on the lack of literature pertaining to the subject of the role of culture, especially in the rollout of new technologies. The topic remains largely undisclosed at this point in time. We also discussed the implications of culture in the international business arena and highlighted the 'global' versus 'local' dilemma present today.

In this chapter, we will use the concepts we defined in the previous chapters together with other sources demonstrate how the Enterprise Portal can be used to address a number of the business problems posed by cultural diversity within international organisations. The objective of chapter 4 is to define a common framework through which we can assess the degree to which the Enterprise Portal addresses these issues. For the purpose of this dissertation we shall apply the framework to the enterprise study.

4.2 The Missing Link: Culture and Enterprise Portals

The creation of GlaxoSmithKline involved uniting approximately 110,000 employees in over 160 countries from two separate corporations. Not only were there two distinct organisational cultures, but in addition a multitude of smaller 'local' cultures present throughout each of the companies' local markets. The union of such a large number of diverse groups is somewhat daunting as it potentially involves pulling up the roots of the whole organisation's structure and starting over.

Mergers are a highly expensive and risky dependent on the successful union of potentially incompatible operations and cultures. Clashes between systems, people and processes can derail an entire merger at the cost of employees, partners and customers. In fact, there was an earlier attempt to integrate GlaxoWellcome with SmithKlineBeecham back in 1997 which failed due to similar issues. These issues were subsequently resolved during the re-launch of the merger activities announced in January 2000, however, senior executives initially found that their efforts to provide consistent information and a coherent message in support of merger integration activities were hampered by the lack of reliable internal communications channels. A holding page was developed called enterprise to enable new enterprise led corporate messages to be viewed by employees. This was the start to developing a new culture for enterprise.

"The Portal provides a forum for executives to project key messages and information to people who may be anxious about the merger and unfamiliar with the leadership and culture of the new organisation. The Portal is an ideal vehicle for a CEO to project a consistent, daily message to employees about values and culture, which are critical to the organisation's morale and long-term success. When everybody in a group or organisation knows what the CEO is trying to do, people can prioritise tasks better and pull together to help achieve those goals." (Plumtree website, 2002).

The introduction of new practices and technology into the workplace is often received as an unwelcome and unnecessary change. Well established employees may well feel threatened and unsettled, particularly as their working methods will have to be adapted to the new organisational culture. This can be a slow and painful process, particularly where processes from other foreign business cultures are introduced, as it may involve substantial modifications to deep-rooted cultural assumptions, as we discovered in Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner's (1997) model of culture in Chapter Two.

It is hardly surprising that new working models and technology often face severe resistance at the onset. However, it is important that managers realise that any resistance is not necessarily to the technology per se, but rather to the cultural change its introduction implies. Over the past two decades, employees have often found themselves struggling with organisational and technological advances, many of which led to more confusion and irritation than increased productivity and job satisfaction.

The issue of culture must be carefully considered when introducing new technologies into the organisation and the Enterprise Portal is no exception as its deployment crosses departmental, organisational, national and cultural boundaries. Nevertheless, the deployment of the Enterprise Portal at enterprise has helped considerably in the creation of the new management structure. As the new

organisational design at each level was created and announced, candidates within the company were able to apply for those roles, and as individuals in each role were announced, people knew instantly who to contact. The creation of new departments was communicated across the organisation very quickly.

When Carly Fiorina became Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett Packard (HP) in 1999 on a mission to reinvent the company, she described it as a company of "a thousand tribes." Indeed, HP had more than one thousand internal websites for employee training and the same number delivering some form of human resource management. What had happened over time was that everyone had been allowed to go off and create their own personalised working method with no streamlining or sharing of best practices." (Lissak & Bailey, 2002).

Seven Years ago HP initiated an independent assessment of its culture. A survey of the top 300 senior managers showed that managers at HP had far more autonomy than their counterparts at other corporations. HP managers were taught to believe "show me how I'm going to be measured and I'll tell you how I'll behave" (Lissak & Bailey, 2002). Fiorina saw that HP drastically needed a complete overhaul and decided to reinvent its culture. Without clear channels of communication and a defined corporate strategy, an organisation of the size of HP could not operate effectively.

Fiorina's focused her strategy on the creation of an ambitious Enterprise Portal harnessing the power of the Internet. The Portal enabled the rapid consolidation of 145,000 employees in over 127 countries and allowed users across different platforms to access the latest information on the integration of the two companies. Since its initial creation, the Portal has expanded to cover Finance, Purchasing, Marketing, Engineering, and Operations. Moreover, HP is planning to take their Portal one step further by giving access to customers, suppliers and business partners, thus making it the company's de-facto central nervous system.

In today's business work, Information Technology plays a critical role in stimulating and supporting global strategies and operations. Yet despite the many technological advances, the task of assembling electronic assets scattered across a global network into a single, simple experience open to everyone, regardless of language, or location remains one of the most ambitious projects in technology." (Plumtree, 2002). The Portal has the potential to offer the rapid delivery of new electronic services to a global audience, aiding collaboration across organisational and national boundaries. Through a centralised point of contact, it possible to assemble documents, webpages, and messages from the whole of the international corporation in a single virtual knowledge-base that everyone can access.

According to Forrester (2001) "In order to capitalise on Portal potential, firms must overcome organisational and technological challenges." The organisational challenges are by far the biggest, as observed by Forrester, in their recent study. The biggest Portal challenge was Organisational Issues (71%), followed by Portal Design Issues (23%), Implementation Issues (15%), and finally Portal Server function issues (6%). See Appendix A for further research from Forrester (2001).

Thus, it would seem that there are relatively far fewer problems associated with the implementation and maintenance of the Enterprise Portal. Rather, the problems lie within the structure and direction of the corporation as a whole. It follows that in addressing these organisational issues, a high-level of managerial support and direction is required. We discussed in the last chapter Hofstede's view of Culture and how this related to organisation culture within large multinational corporations. Thanks to the customisability and centralised management of s system such as the Portal, managers are better able to resolve these organisational issues. The Portal can both host the global view of the organisation, its 'human nature'; those aspects which are universal to the international corporation (in the case of enterprise Portal, one might take main page containing Global News as an example) and the local view of what the is important to each organisational member or each 'personality' (in the case of enterprise Portal, the selection of communities and various other personalised options).

The Enterprise Portal clearly offers potential to address both the global and local needs in shaping culture in an organisation.

4.3 Portal Technologies and Local Cultures

In the last section we briefly discussed the creation of common framework through which we could assess the degree to which the Enterprise Portal addresses the many cultural issues present in multinational corporations. Prior to creating this framework, two important questions needed to be answered: which nations were to be included in its scope and which variables were to be measured.

For the purpose of this dissertation, the author has decided to take 5 major international revenue earners, namely UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, as well as the biggest global market, the US. Faced with the difficult task of defining the variable 'culture' to be used in the framework, the author decided that this should denote the 'typical' organisation (generally located in the capital of each country as this is where enterprise offices are generally based) with the most common style of management in that country.

Hofstede has conducted a similar study in which he researched some 88,000 employees of IBM in over 50 countries. However, Hofstede's IBM questionnaire was not designed for cultural comparisons but for organisational development. Employees gave self-report responses to about 160 items which Hofstede analysed with ingenuity; he compared scores not for individuals but between countries, which he called an "ecological analysis." He reported and analysed four dimensions of culture:

Power distance: "the extent to which the members of a society accept that power in institutions and organisations is distributed unequally"

Individualism versus Collectivism: "Individualism - a preference for a loosely knit social framework in society, in which individuals are supposed to take care of themselves and immediate family's only; as opposed to Collectivism - a preference for a tightly knit social framework..."

Masculinity versus Femininity: "Masculinity - a preference for achievement, heroism, assertiveness, and material success; as opposed to Femininity - a preference for relationships, modesty, caring for the weak, and the quality of life"

Uncertainty Avoidance: "the degree to which members of society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity" (Hofstede, 1983, 1991)

Hofstede has made unusual efforts to elaborate the conceptual nature of his dimensions. Such extensions have also been made by others such as Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (1997). There is already considerable research concentrating on these dimensions, especially regarding individualism-and collectivism.

4.4 Individualism versus Collectivism

Our sense of identity is often dependent, to a large degree, on our sense of belonging to and affiliation with a particular group - be it family, caste, clan, tribe or class. However, in individualistic countries, much more emphasis is placed on the realisation of the individual. Independence is greatly valued and social bonds between people tend to be relatively loose and flexible. This is particularly evident in the

decision-making process as decisions tend to be made by individuals in positions of authority rather than by a committee or group.

On the other hand, collectivistic countries are primarily oriented towards common goals and objectives and more value is placed on group interests. In collectivistic countries, employees often expect the organisation to protect their interests by way of providing them with professional development, benefits and long term security within the organisation.

Needless to say that there is a sliding scale between the two poles of individualism and collectivism and one often finds gradations within individual countries. It is therefore important to base the country scores on comparable samples each of the countries in our study. Hofstede used a series of 'work goal' questions in order to do a comparative analysis between countries. Hofstede formulated six questions of which the first three were geared towards the individualistic pole and the last three towards the collectivist pole. Participants were then asked to choose the relevant importance of each of the questions. One country ranked work goal question 1 as very important, 2 and 3 as relatively important and questions 4, 5 and 6 as unimportant. Based on Hofstede's model, it could then be construed that this country had an individualistic approach. The scores are represented in Table 1.

Score Rank Country Individualism Index Values

1 United States 91

3 United Kingdom 89

7 Italy 76

10/11 France 71

15 Germany 67

20 Spain 51

Table 1 - Individualism Index (Extracted Data) - Hofstede (1991)

The USA, the most individualist of the nations covered in this project is closely aligned to the UK. On the other hand, there is a group of more family-oriented cultures, most of which typically industrialised late, such as Italy and Spain. "[These are] countries in which the transition from feudalism to industrialism was rapid [and] many feudal traditions remain". (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 1997). As might be expected, these countries are more aligned to the collectivistic pole.

Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner conducted a similar study with 30 companies spanning 50 different countries. Below are the results to the question about the quality of life showing those who opted for individual freedom:

Country

% of Respondents Opting for Individual Freedom

US 69

Spain 63

UK 61

Germany 53

Italy 52

France 41

Table 2 - The Quality of Life (Extracted Data) - Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (1997)

Surprisingly, there appears to be little or no correlation between the two sets of results. However, the results do conform to the arguments put forward by the respective authors: Hofstede's states that Spain is the less individualistic, whereas Trompenaars and Hampden- Turner suggest that Spain is more individualistic. This brings us back to one of the first points we made about the literature available on culture: that most writers use different methods of comparison when studying cultural diversity.

Trompennars and Hampden-Turner's results are nonetheless aligned to the Portal community adoption at enterprise. Currently only France has developed a community, and we can therefore assume that France is most collectivistic followed by the Italians, who have shown an active interest, followed closely by Germany. UK has decided not to currently proceed with a Portal community due to other priorities and lack of business demand. Spain had already invested heavily on developing an Intranet web page, through a joint venture company, where enterprise holds a large share.

However, researching which countries are individualistic and collectivistic would outweigh the scope of this project. Let us concentrate, rather, on those elements which directly affect the implementation and success of the Enterprise Portal, such as communication for example, which is one of the primary objectives of an Enterprise Portal

4.5 Communication

"When considering all life as communication we see a spectrum covering a wide range of communication events" (Hall 1976).

Communication and Culture are tightly interlinked. Indeed, not only do our actions and words have different meanings to people from different cultures, but also the way we express ourselves varies enormously, particularly in this day and age in which there is a multitude of communication media ranging from formal exchanges from person to person using words and gestures to informal exchanges such as e-mail and memo's. Let us compare communication methods at enterprise for example:

Figure 10 - Comparison of enterprise Communication Channels

Figure 10 lists some of the more common methods of communication on a sliding scale from low to high rapport and from high to low context. High context interaction such as person to person is more intimate and ideal for relationship building. In person to person communication, much of the communication is non-verbal, such as gestures and body language. This form of communication requires a relatively low 'rapport'. On the other hand, Low Context forms of communication are more aligned to exchanging facts and opinions in a frank, impersonal manner. Examples of low context forms of communication are GroupWare applications and E-mail where only words are exchanged. Low context communication requires a relatively high rapport.

One finds similar patterns in the preferred methods of communication across different cultures. After much research into cultural behaviour and communication patterns, we have split up the different communications methods across the following four continua:

a) Low Context - High Context

b) Direct - Indirect

c) Expressive - Instrumental

d) Formal - Informal

4.5.1 Low and High Context

Low Context culture is most commonly associated with task-centred environments in which business tends to be impersonal. Trust and loyalty are not primary consideration when doing business and therefore relatively little information about is needed about an individual or a company in order for

business to be transacted with them. Indeed, in order for tasks to be accomplished it is not deemed necessary to have good relationships between the parties involved. Communication in low-context cultures is primarily to exchange information, facts and opinions.

On the other hand, High Context cultures tend to require far more contextual information about individuals and companies before business can be translated. Business relationships most commonly built upon trust and loyalty and to attempt to make a transaction without having established them would be very difficult. Unlike Low Context cultures, a significant amount of time tends to be spent on 'small talk' e.g. family issues, food and drink, the weather, etc. In addition, as Stewart and Bennett (1991) point out, "conclusions are often not stated explicitly; it is up to the listener to divine the conclusion implied by the context...". Japanese culture is a classic example of an extremely High Context culture. In Japan, it is not unusual at a business meeting for one party to say 'yes' simply to 'save face' and as such, one should not take this necessarily as a firm response or decision. The primary purpose of communication in high-context cultures is to form and develop relationships rather than exchange information and facts.

4.5.2 Direct and Indirect

In direct cultures information is communicated through the business structure in the form of orders and directives and conflict is often dealt with from the top by means of power and force. On the other hand, in indirect cultures a range of conflict avoidance techniques are often employed and third parties are often involved in the resolution of conflict. Much in-directness in communication is to save 'face', protect honour and avoid shame. Direct communication and business manner, such as that typical of the USA, may be perceived as "...highly competitive, adversarial and impersonal to those used to having indirect style" (Hill, 2001). "Asian cultures are well known for their indirectness. Such communication tends to be highly ritualised and understated" (Lewis, 1996).

4.5.3 Expressive and Instrumental

In expressive cultures far more importance is given to the establishment and maintenance of personal and social connections than to the precision of communication. People openly show emotions at the workplace and voices may be raised in anger, joy or another intense emotion. Similarly, body language is likely to be demonstrative and affectionate: touching or hugging is often considered an acceptable form of behaviour among colleagues. Examples of highly expressive cultures are Latin America and Middle Eastern, Southern and Eastern Europe. On the other hand, Asian cultures tend to shy away from being

overly expressive, especially in the workplace. Outside of work and among friends, however, they are likely to display a more expressive orientation than in the workplace. Conversely, instrumental cultures place far more stress on the accuracy of communication rather than its appropriateness or style. Communication is more problem-oriented, pragmatic and impersonal. As the primary objective is to reach factual, objective unemotional conclusion that lead to action, people who display emotion are likely to be perceived as lacking in professionalism or rationality and therefore emotions are often kept hidden as much as possible, even under stress. American culture leans heavily towards the instrumental end of the spectrum.

4.5.4 Formal and Informal

Formal cultures tend to have strong traditions and strict social protocols and adhesion to these rules and norms at the workplace is taken very seriously. There is a great awareness of and respect for hierarchy and failure to comply may results in severe consequences. In business, one is expected to show sincerity and seriousness by observing these customs and rituals, examples of which are attire, greetings, business card exchange, forms of address, scheduling and conducting meetings, eating and drinking, entertaining and gift-giving. Latin America, UAE and parts of Asia and Europe are all formal to varying degrees (Lewis, 1996).

Informal cultures, on the other hand, tend to give much less importance to historical continuity and focus much of their efforts on change and progress. By the same token, individuals in informal cultures often feel uncomfortable with social or power differences as these may inhibit direct and candid communication. Business relationships are often relaxed and informal and much more emphasis is placed on the observance of schedules or deadlines than on the maintenance of image or status. The United States and Australia are widely considered to be two of the most informal cultures in the world. (Lewis, 1996).

4.6 Cultural Lens

Figure 11 - Cultural Lens - A Framework To Compare Communication Across Cultures

One of the aims of this project is to provide some comparative analysis between a sub-selection of nations, namely US, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Through our analysis of communication styles we have identified four continua along which each culture can be compared. The 'Cultural Lens' has been designed to offer a consistent and visual representation of our findings and is depicted in Figure 11.

During the data collection process, the 'Cultural Lens' was put into a template form (as can been see in Appendix B) and was sent to 50 senior managers/directors/ presidents across the enterprise business globally. These were then asked to complete the template by circling the keywords which best described their experience of a given culture. They were requested to complete the template using guidelines and rules, which can be viewed in Appendix C.

4.7 Summary

In this chapter we have discussed ways in which the Enterprise Portal my be utilised to help resolve the typical problems which arise when different business cultures clash. In addition, we have also discussed how Enterprise Portals may be leveraged to help shape the burgeoning culture of a newly formed company. We then looked at possible areas of research relating to cultural implications of introducing Enterprise Portal technologies in particular, we looked at how two authors reached different conclusions due to their having different assumptions and different ways of collating and analysing data. In light of this, it was deemed necessary to create new, more objective framework to collate and analyse our own data pertaining to the subject. In the next chapter we will define a cultural view of the Enterprise Portal and analyse the responses received from participants.

CHAPTER FIVE - DATA COLLECTION

5.1 Introduction

In the previous chapter we discussed Culture and Enterprise Portals through two case study reviews. We introduced our framework, a 'Cultural Lens', which was put into a template and sent to 50 senior members of enterprise for completion. In this chapter we will examine the Enterprise Portal through our framework as well as analyse the 30 responses received.

5.2 Portal Technologies - A New Phenomenon

Enterprise Portals are a fairly new phenomenon and therefore inspire a degree of hesitation and doubtfulness in those who have not previously encountered them. In order to overcome this, the term "Enterprise Portals" was deliberately excluded during data collection.

5.2.1 Low and High Context

In a similar way to email and groupware programs discussed above, the Enterprise Portal particularly suited to the exchange of facts, information and opinions. Whilst the Portal may certainly aid in building relationships, especially between people from geographically remote offices, this functionality is not currently one of its major objectives. There are plans to incorporate collaborative working, but these are still at the pilot stages of the project. Rather, the Portal today is more of a low-context tool used for the communication of task-oriented and business critical data.

5.2.2 Direct and Indirect

Enterprise Portals present information visible to all (unless it has been requested to be restricted through the SED) and whose nature is largely factual and conclusive. Thus the Enterprise Portal is very much a direct communication tool.

5.2.3 Expressive and Instrumental

The Enterprise Portal is an instrumental tool as again, the way in which information is communicated through it is typically unemotional and impersonal with a high degree of objectivity. This is because most of the content in the Portal is put together expressly to communicate clearly defined messages.

5.2.4 Formal and Informal

The Portal hosts both formal and informal information, depending on the subject and audience. However, the majority of corporate communication in the enterprise Enterprise Portal is formal and factual, defining clear rules and guidelines (for example, corporate policies and procedures). Indeed, enterprise is a highly regulated company due to its size.

5.2.5 The Result - Portal Technologies Cultural Lens

Figure 12 shows the results after the analysis above.

Figure 12 - Cultural Lens - A View of Portal Technologies

5.3 The Data Collection

The template (see Appendix B) was e-mailed to the participants with instructions and guidelines (see Appendix C). All responses were sent back via e-mail or by fax or post and each individual result was subsequently entered into an Excel spreadsheet for further analysis. Out of all the participants, the highest percentage were based in the UK (44%), followed by France (18%) and Germany (12%). Not only did participants come from an array of geographical locations, but in addition their cultural backgrounds varied significantly with 40% from a British background, followed by 16% Asian and 8% Hispanic backgrounds. There was a slight discrepancy in the male to female ratio (58% 42%), due to the fact that a higher percentage of senior positions are currently held by men. 43% of respondents were in the 26-35 age group, followed closely by 40% in the 36 - 45 age-group. 15% of the respondents had over 15 years of International or European experience followed by 24% who had 10 years and 18% who had 3 years. Respondents' seniority varied from Vice President's of major functions to operational managers. See Appendix D for further demographic results.

5.4 The Results

Table 3 shows the results of the data collection and the dominant views are highlighted.

Table 3 - Results: Cultural Lens Analysis

5.4.1 The Cultural Lens - The Results

Figure 13 presents the results.

Figure 13 - The Results Depicted on The Cultural Lens

5.5 Cultural Lens Results versus Enterprise Portal Results

Table 4 - Results: Cultural Lens versus Enterprise Portal

Above in Table 4 are the results of our research; the yellow bands correspond to the Enterprise Portal's alignment. If we look at columns A and B, it becomes clear that the Portal is well suited to American, British and German business models and communication styles, which are more task-oriented and relatively Low Context. On the other hand, the results indicate that Italy and Spain have more of a tendency towards developing personal relationships and are therefore less suited to the Portal. France is more neutral and could therefore adopt the Portal more easily. All three countries, however, are High Context cultures and will therefore need extra consideration and careful planning when implementing the Enterprise Portal.

The results in columns C and D show that participants considered all countries to favour direct communication, which is well aligned to the Enterprise Portal. Nevertheless, apart from the US and Germany, the results are very close which means there is still a significant number of users who would prefer indirect communication. Attention may therefore be required during the implementation of the Enterprise Portal in the UK, France, Italy and Spain.

Columns E and F show us that US, UK and Germany all favour the instrumental approach in which communication is often unemotional and impersonal. This type of communication is again more aligned to the Enterprise Portal. On the other hand, France, Italy and Spain, where communication is more personal and emotional and where relationship building is seen as more important, are considered to be more expressive. The Spanish and the Italians, especially, use their languages very eloquently and often gesticulate and use their face expressively to convey their message.

Finally, we observe in Columns G and H, UK, that France, Germany and Italy are predominantly formal in business, which is aligned to the Enterprise Portal. The US and Spain, on the other hand, tend to be more informal.

5.6 Addressing Cultural Diversity

We have discussed the ways in which different cultures communicate and conduct business and how these important differences must be taken into careful consideration when implementing global solutions, such as the Enterprise Portal, in an Organisation. Interestingly, it would seem that the most advanced and innovative organisations are those which excel in "selling" new, cutting-edge technology to the different markets across their organisation. The Americans, it would seem, are very advanced when it comes to marketing and deploying innovative products and solutions. The Japanese have taken this even further, dominating not just the American but also the global consumer electronics industry today. However, far too often organisations employ a top-down approach which does not take due heed of corporate diversity and risks severely hindering the acceptance and therefore success of new technologies. This is depicted in Figure 14.

Figure 14 - Traditional Top-Down Approach of Implementing an Enterprise Portal

Indeed, as countries are introduced to new technologies, there is always the risk that they will not adapt and may even reject the new working environment. In the case of the Enterprise Portal at enterprise, the momentum to phase in the new solution came primarily from the US and UK. Other markets, it seems, were not consulted prior to its roll-out and consequently their local needs were not taken into consideration. As might be expected, the deployment of the Enterprise Portal caused a number of problems. For example, prior to the development of France' Portal "community", there was an Intranet in place which had a cartoon theme throughout. There was concern about the new Portal would cater for this 'theme' as certain parts of the Portal environment were not customizable, such as the banner. Another unforeseen problem which hindered the deployment of the Portal across Europe was the poor infrastructure in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The Internet connection speeds were so slow in some countries that it would take several minutes to load individual pages on the Portal. It is essential to identify such technical problems early on in the project and prepare each of the countries accordingly. For example, the networks in CEE countries should have been upgraded prior to the installation of the Portal to prevent bandwidth problems. Alternatively, one could have considered implementing a more stripped-down version of the portal with fewer bandwidth-hungry elements.

Nevertheless, most technical problems can be solved relatively easily with the correct tools and planning. The most significant hurdle to overcome remains gaining acceptance from each of the local markets to ensure their full collaboration in the new global solution. Far too often the local markets end up feeling alienated from new technology developments due to their not being duly involved in the early stages of the project. One way to resolve such issues could be to create task groups during the analysis and design of the project which included representatives from each country. These local 'champions' would then take on the responsibility of selling the solution to local stakeholders and ensuring local needs, such as local communication styles, were catered for. This would ensure that each country had full exposure to new developments from the onset and would greatly improve chances of securing their buy-in. The resulting global and local alignment of the project is depicted in Figure 15.

Figure 15 - Alignment of the Enterprise Portal with Local Needs

5.7 Summary

In this chapter we discussed our data collection tool, 'Cultural Lens' and analysed the results collated from participants across enterprise globally. The results showed us, through the four continua

presented, how international markets demonstrate preferences for largely different business models, behavioural patterns and communication styles. Through our side-by-side comparison with the Enterprise Portal, we were able to get an overview of the extent to which the Portal suited the different markets' cultures and to predict which elements of the Portal might cause incompatibilities. This analysis helped us to identify areas that may need to be addressed prior to implementing a solution of the scale of the portal.

CHAPTER SIX - SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

6.1 Introduction

Let us start by recapitulating on the main areas of research identified in the introduction to this work:

­ The meaning and significance of Culture, in particular within the context of international business.

­ The Enterprise Portal: what is it and how can it be implemented.

­ The link between culture and the Enterprise Portal within an organisation.

­ The development of a framework through which to analyse how culture affects the global rollout of new technologies such as the Enterprise Portal.

­ The analysis of the data collected through the framework and the evaluation of the value of the framework.

This final chapter is split into two sections. In the first of these sections we will summarise our findings on each of the five objectives listed above. In the last section of this chapter we will draw together our findings and conclude this dissertation.

6.2 Summary of Research Findings

6.2.1 Enterprise Portals

In chapter two we turned our focus to Enterprise Portals and used the enterprise case study to provide real-life examples of the problems facing global managers with a project of global scale. We also introduced some key terminology of the components and presented various research materials on Portals which are presented in Appendix A. A vital use of the Enterprise Portal, it was concluded, is its ability to help bridge the global versus local 'gap' through its customizability, e.g. communities, personalisation, etc.

6.2.2 Culture

In chapter three we reviewed the topic of Culture in detail. We looked at various definitions of 'culture' and examined some of the models used by other researchers in this area. We went on to discuss how the issue of culture relates to professional life and, in particular, how it can have a profound effect on business performance, especially in the international corporation. We underlined the importance of global business leaders taking into consideration the cultural diversity within the organisation when considering implementing global business solutions. This lead to our realisation of the 'global' versus 'local' dilemma which often faces international corporations today.

6.2.3 Culture and Enterprise Portals - The Missing Link

In Chapter Four we focused our lens onto culture and look a more in-depth look at Enterprise Portals through the enterprise and HP case study. We saw the advantages of the Enterprise Portal in shaping new cultures for these two organisations.

6.2.4 Cultural Lens

In Chapter Four we examined Hofstede and Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner's models and their conclusions about cultural diversity across six global countries. It was apparent that the different conclusions reached by the authors was largely down to their having made different assumptions and the way they collected and defined their data collection dimensions. This prompted us to define our own framework (Cultural Lens) for collecting and analysing data.

6.2.5 enterprise Data Collection

Our framework 'Cultural Lens' was put into a template (see Appendix B) and sent to 50 senior members of staff at enterprise for completion.

6.2.6 Enterprise Case Study

In Chapter Five, we took the Enterprise Portal and placed it within the context of business culture. Following this we analysed the data collected through the framework and discussed the apparent cultural differences between the countries analysed. This also gave us the possibility of doing a side by side comparison of the Enterprise Portal and of identifying those cultures with which the Portal might be initially less compatible.

6.3 The Value of the Framework

The framework was developed in order to identify potential culture-related problems in the deployment of a global Enterprise Portal at enterprise. Indeed, it demonstrated that there are a number of significant cultural differences which need to be taken into consideration prior to the implementation of global solutions. The 'cultural lens' framework is not just limited to the Enterprise Portal; it could be applied to other technologies too, however the variables would obviously have to be adapted accordingly. Furthermore, the framework has provided us with a firm basis on which to compare and contrast the varying cultural models across the global organisation (in our example, enterprise). Finally, the framework also helped us in placing the Enterprise Portal culturally and establishing how closely its model is aligned to the various cultures examined in this work.

6.2 Conclusion

Far too often the discussion of 'culture' and 'international relations' is low down on the list of priorities for global managers. Nevertheless, mergers and acquisitions typically involve the coming together of a number of very disparate business cultures and it is imperative to determine whether these cultures are, in fact, compatible as well as how best to deal with any incompatibilities. Indeed, if an organisation is to make informed, strategic decisions based on realistic assessments of external and internal factors, it is essential that it understand not only its own culture but that of the many nations and individual business cultures which it comprises.

It is interesting to observe that top-down direction from centralised head offices can provoke defensive, survivalist behaviour in the members of local 'cultures', particularly if there is a lack of consideration for local needs. The local group may face the dilemma of having to work for external survival within the larger corporation whilst dealing with the integration of new, unfamiliar technologies and working methods. How effectively these issues are addressed is ultimately dependent on the quality of leadership and the openness of communication channels throughout the organisation. The success of the global corporation is largely dependent upon its having a clear vision and the ability of its leader to articulate and communicate its vision clearly throughout the organisation. This is particularly important when faced with the problems of mergers and acquisition which we highlighted above.

The issue of culture is not, on the other hand, only conducive to problems. Culture serves to provide a familiar environment for local employees thus reducing anxiety. Culture gives a group its character, and that character serves the function of a defence mechanism required for survival. Thus, when faced with local resistance, it is often not necessary to analyse the personality and motives of each individual, but rather we can search for causes in the common culture which is shared by the group.

Many people have and continue to struggle with technology. Some would argue that this is largely because it has consistently failed to embrace the way we live and work. Interestingly, this could explain why so many over-hyped technological initiatives have failed in the past. With the invention of the personal computer, PDAs, mobile communications and the Internet, the way we work has changed as well as where we do it, yet what we actually do and why we do it has not. In actual fact, the nature of our work has not changed significantly during this revolution. In other words, what we do has not been redefined by the way in which we do it. The facts remain: managers still manage, directors still lead, accountants still count, and HR still manage benefits. Take mobile phones, for example: they have not changed the fact we communicate, only the way in which we communicate and, more importantly, the speed and flexibility with which we do it.

Where technology fails is where it dictates to the end user how and where they use it. The secret, it seems, is to make technology 'personalised'; making people feel in control of the tools they use. To use the mobile phone example, these can now be personalised to a large degree with customisable ringtones, elaborate covers in different colours and styles and a whole array of other options and tweaks. Perhaps the most powerful and most successful aspect of an Enterprise Portal has been that it allows employees to do precisely that: personalise their experience of it.

In order to gain competitive advantage, companies must move away from formal structures and instead adopt a dynamic culture which encompasses the mindsets, competencies and practices of the individuals who create, support and sustain the organisation. It is essential to find ways to unite the workforce, and foster an environment of communication and collaboration. If there is to be a single conclusion drawn from our research, it is that the ability to reach everyone in the organisation with a platform-independent and consistent message is a hugely powerful and valuable tool. Indeed, by embracing new technology such as the Enterprise Portals, companies can effectively and dramatically change their working environment and cater for the global organisation effortlessly.

Enterprise Portals have the ability to provide employees with the extended up-to-date information on the company and sense of their involvement in the company - certainly a great motivational factor. With the aid of this system the leader can bring their team and communities together to work in partnership in planning and achieving their common mission, goals and objectives.