Suits vs. Cubes (Score 1)

Surely the greater cultural difference is between the management types (and wannabees) and those of us who would rather do than oversee. I've worked in several cross-cultural associations (I'd hate to try to think of them as organizations) where the H-1Bs got along fine until they learned to ask questions. Then the fireworks started.

The biggest cross-cultural chaos was a global Oracle integration where managers demanded almost 150 privilege levels (the most stringent for "Eastern" DB input) but couldn't agree on the type of data Bangkok would put into a field specced in New Jersey. And who fought the hardest over what Bangkok would do? Plant managers 20 miles apart in Pennsylvania. That project went many $$$M over budget.

My biggest difficulty with cross cultural organizations is the racial and gender biases. "Western" managers can be intimidated into being polite to women and African-Americans under an implied threat of lawsuits. No such inhibition exists for the manager (or wannabe!) from India or Russia. Cultural norms must reward male prerogative excessively, because I've never seen a mixed-gender work group get past it, long distance or under the same roof. Usually I have been the one let go (their loss), but the cost to the project is demoralization of the "what's the use" sort, especially, I hear later, from younger work groups. Brown-skinned managers dissing darker-skinned cubies has the same effect. Besides the legal implications, the social skills are very different from European or Corporate American management types.

Have you spoken with an Indian IT recruiter lately? The job shops have picked up a whole lot of stranded H-1Bs. The problem with accent, especially over a cell phone connection, is terrible. This AM one hung up on me when I asked him to repeat something I couldn't understand. He wasn't the first, either.