Cross-Cultural Change Management

Abstract Organizational structures are hardly stable these days especially in a global, multi-cultural environment. Multinational enterprises in particular can simply not afford to maintain existing structures if they do not want to risk being left behind. Technology advantages are perishable and no longer a guarantee for revenue and business success. Competitive advan-tages in a rapidly changing environment such as China might help to stay ahead for a certain time frame—but with a de-clining trend.

The paper is investigating and comparing the historical development of three change management theories (Lewin, Bul-lock and Batten, Cummings and Huse) assisting companies to stay ahead of the competition and adds the cross-cultural perspective to them. Permanent changes are counterproductive to the basic desire of a human being, namely to live in a steady environment. Inevitably, organizational changes put stress on the most important resource a company has—the employees.

Situations of change must be handled thoroughly as unrest of the staff will have devastating consequences to the organization when operating in a cross-cultural environment. Important precautions are discussed which have to be taken in order to successfully conduct an organizational change under cultural aspects. The lessons learnt are then applied to a real example of a new company setup in China concluding with a brief analysis on the possibility of transferring knowledge gained from an organizational change process to the homeland headquarters.