The Internationalisation of PTT Telecom: A Cultural Perspective - Free

25members of a group. Ethnic groups distinguish themselves from other groups bysymbols, language, rituals, signs and other outward appearances. Ethnicity canbe emphasised or concealed and thus be used strategically by individuals orgroups. Groups can point out shared cultural elements for social or politicalpurposes, reinvent non- existent or lost cultural traditions and create new ethnicboundaries. This is called the manifest form of ethnicity. Baud et al. indicatesthree conditions for the start of manifest ethnicity (Baud et al. 1994: 129).Firstly, there has to be interaction between the distinct ethnic groups. Secondly,there has to be limitations of ethnic boundaries from which a sense ofcommunity can emerge. Thirdly, the life security, the autonomy and the identityof one of the involved ethnic groups has to be under the pressure of externalforces such as foreign occupation.Barth (1994) stresses that the flux of contemporary cultures in the worldcauses difficulties for ethnic groups to distinguish themselves based on culturalelements. These endangered ethnic groups sometimes strategically use and overestimate the cultural differences between themselves and other cultures. Royce(1982) also states that cultural elements are created or invented by members ofan ethnic group to distinguish themselves from another group. Culturaldifferences can be understood as the result of social interaction that can changeover time and in situations (Royce 1982, Cohen 1994, Jenkins 1997). It istherefore important to understand manifest ethnicity in relation to the ‘thepolitisation’ of culture (Barth 1994, Cohen 1995, Koot 1997). Commenting onhis own work, Barth (1994) states that:We need to recognize that the dichotomized cultural differences thusproduced are vastly overstated in ethnic discourse and so we can relegate themore pernicious myths of deep cultural cleavages to the category where theybelong: as formative myths that sustain a social organisation of difference,but not as descriptions of the actual distribution of cultural stuff (Barth 1994:30).In the cross-cultural cooperation between organisations ethnicity can be usedas an informal source of power. Power is the practised possibility to influencebehaviour of people in organisations in a desired direction (Pfeffer 1992). Anorganisation has formal and informal sources of power. Examples of formalsources of power are finances, know-how, human resource capital and businessagreements. Examples of informal sources of power are informal networks,access to markets, resistance and history. Not all of the business enterpriseshave equal access to all types of resources. Power is exercised through themedium of resources, which are defined as the facilities or bases of power thatsomeone manipulates to influence the course of action with others. Power is notonly based on access to physical resources but moreover, on the social forcesthat mobilise, shape and influence its exercise (Fung 1995: 98). In the strugglefor power between two organisations therefore, ethnicity can be usedstrategically.Koot (1997) addresses the need to expand the current practices of crossculturalresearch serious and sees possibilities for multinationals to stimulate