LoD
Learning on Demand
eLearning and Culture
Rob Edmonds
Contributors:
Eilif Trondsen
Marcelo Hoffmann
BUSINESS
INTELLIGENCE
An SRI International Business Partner
February 2001
© 2001 by SRI Consulting Business Intelligence. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use or
reproduction of all or any part of this document is prohibited. Printed in U.S.A.
CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................ 1
Working with Corporate Culture ................................................................................. 1
Implementing eLearning in a Multicultural World ....................................................... 2
Identifying Opportunities in eLearning and Culture .................................................... 2
RECOGNIZING THE IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE ................................................. 4
WORKING WITH CORPORATE CULTURE .............................................................. 7
Aligning eLearning with Corporate Culture ................................................................. 8
Defining Corporate Culture ................................................................................... 9
Identifying a Corporate Culture ........................................................................... 10
Creating Alignment ............................................................................................. 13
Using eLearning as a Tool for Cultural Change ....................................................... 19
Becoming a Learning Organization .................................................................... 23
Bridging Corporate Cultures with eLearning ....................................................... 25
Developing an Action Agenda .................................................................................. 29
IMPLEMENTING eLEARNING IN A MULTICULTURAL WORLD............................ 30
Understanding Cultural Expectations about Learning Experiences ......................... 30
Working with Multinationals: A SmartForce Perspective .......................................... 38
Localizing eLearning ................................................................................................ 43
Developing an Action Agenda .................................................................................. 48
IDENTIFYING INTERNATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES: THE ROLE OF CULTURAL
FACTORS ............................................................................................................. 49
Adopting a Framework for Identifying Opportunities ................................................ 49
Harnessing Change as a Driver for eLearning ......................................................... 53
Developing an Action Agenda .................................................................................. 57
PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER ...................................................................... 58
Linking Corporate and National Cultures ................................................................. 58
Exploring the Likelihood of Cultural Convergence ................................................... 59
Capturing Opportunities in eLearning and Culture ................................................... 60
Tables
Characteristics of the Culture Analyst ...................................................................... 11
Four Types of Corporate Cultures ............................................................................ 14
Differences in Corporate Attitudes toward Managing Information and Knowledge .. 18
eLearning in Cultures with Different Attitudes toward Managing Information and
Knowledge ............................................................................................................. 19
eLearning Opportunities through Accelerated Change ............................................ 54
Figures
The New Scope of eLearning ..................................................................................... 6
Corporate Culture as an eLearning Constraint or Catalyst ........................................ 8
Corporate Subcultures in an eLearning Project ....................................................... 12
eLearning Tools for Different Corporate Cultures .................................................... 16
eLearning’s Role in Cultural Change ........................................................................ 20
National Cultures and eLearning Tools by Power Distance and Individualism ........ 31
Regional Cultures and eLearning Tools by Neutrality and Specificity ...................... 34
Global eLearning Projects: A SmartForce View ....................................................... 39
Transware’s Localization Process ............................................................................ 45
Identification of International eLearning Opportunities ............................................. 50
Interplay of National and Corporate Cultures in a Multinational eLearning Project .. 59
Strategic and Operational Cultures .......................................................................... 60
Boxes
Defining Culture .......................................................................................................... 5
The eLearning Toolbox .............................................................................................. 7
Adapting eLearning for Cultural Differences: Pensare’s Approach .......................... 13
Creating Strategic Change with Involve Learning .................................................... 21
Creating and Sustaining a Learning Culture at Unipart ............................................ 24
Promoting eLearning at the Royal Bank of Scotland—and NatWest ....................... 26
Creating Cultures of Use with Knowledge Navigators .............................................. 28
Providing eLearning for Business Leaders ............................................................... 33
Addressing Cultural Issues in eLearning for Asia ..................................................... 36
Protecting Employee Data in Germany .................................................................... 43
Localizing eLearning for the Royal Bank of Canada and Harvard
Business School .................................................................................................... 46
Taking a Global Position: eLearning Vendors and International Expansion ............ 52
ii
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
eLearning is like no other product. Internet routers and mobile telephones work equally
well in any corporate or national culture. But learning is all about communication, and
communication can become muddled—or fail completely—because of cultural
differences. eLearning vendors and users need to understand the impact of corporate and
national cultures on eLearning success. Both groups can benefit from aligning eLearning
with cultural expectations, and they can even use eLearning as a tool for cultural change.
A number of innovative companies are already tackling cultural issues as eLearning
heads toward the global mass market.
Working with Corporate Culture
To ensure the success of corporate eLearning, vendors and users need to align eLearning
initiatives with the needs and expectations of the corporate culture they serve:
• Some people define corporate culture as “the way we do things around here.” To
understand a culture, vendors and users must identify an organization’s underlying
beliefs, not just the beliefs it claims to have.
• To identify a corporate culture, vendors and users should employ “culture analysts”
who can analyze the corporate culture and subcultures that will influence the success of
an eLearning initiative. To cut costs, companies could use postgraduate students or
undertake a more informal analysis.
• To align eLearning to various types of corporate culture, users and vendors can:
— Choose from the eLearning toolbox. Many types of eLearning exist, so vendors and
users can select the solution that best meets the needs of a particular corporate
culture.
— Change the marketing focus. As well as designing the eLearning system, the
project team can market and promote the solution internally, tailoring marketing
messages to the corporate culture.
In some cases, companies can use eLearning to help create and sustain a cultural
change within the organization. Innovative examples follow:
• The Pan-Nordic eLearning company Involve Learning—a company that aims to be the
leading world provider of eLearning for cultural change—recently supplied an
eLearning initiative to communicate corporate strategy at Ericsson.
• U.K.-based Unipart used a variety of innovative techniques—most recently,
eLearning—to create and sustain a corporate culture dedicated to learning.
• Telia and Telenor commissioned several Nordic eLearning companies to develop
eLearning solutions to bridge the cultural gap between the two companies in a
proposed merger.
1
Implementing eLearning in a Multicultural World
In addition to dealing with corporate culture, international vendors and multinational user
organizations need to understand the impact of national cultures on eLearning success.
• The report discusses national cultures’ different expectations of learning experiences.
Asia is perhaps the most complex region because (in some cases) the governments and
companies that commission eLearning want the products to help change traditional
cultural attitudes and behaviors (for example, to encourage more entrepreneurial
behavior).
• To align eLearning to national cultures, users and vendors can:
— Choose from the eLearning toolbox. They need to select the solution that best
meets the needs of employees’ national culture (or cultures).
— Change the marketing focus. Marketing and promotion of an eLearning solution
must align with employees’ national culture. Vendors can change both external and
internal marketing programs.
— Provide learning on eLearning. In some cases, face-to-face and online learning can
communicate the benefits of an eLearning solution to a culture that is unfamiliar
with this new style of learning.
• eLearning projects for multinationals—which often must meet varied national-culture
expectations—are particularly challenging. The report examines SmartForce’s
experience in implementing international eLearning projects.
• Localization of eLearning products—customization of content to meet the linguistic
and cultural expectations of different countries—is often necessary. Vendors and users
often enlist the help of a localization partner such as Ge.World Transware. Moreover,
they should address localization issues as early as possible in the design cycle.
Identifying Opportunities in eLearning and Culture
The report presents a framework for identifying international opportunities in eLearning
with a particular emphasis on cultural factors. The framework shows how vendors can
monitor opportunity signals in a country or region that point to readiness for eLearning.
For example, are companies in the country using knowledge management or running
corporate universities? Are companies moving to electronic business?
Vendors need to test themselves and their products against a variety of opportunity
filters if they are to identify an actionable opportunity. For example, does the product
match the needs and expectations of the national culture? Will localization be necessary?
A number of countries and regions—such as China, India, Mexico, Korea, and
Singapore—are facing accelerated change in their overall economic, business, social, and
cultural environments. These regions will need learning tools that can help equip and
reskill their people for these new environments.
2
The final section of the report examines the combined influence of national and
corporate cultures on eLearning projects. This section looks at the likelihood of “cultural
convergence”: Are factors such as globalization and electronic business creating
corporate cultures that are similar to one another?
3
RECOGNIZING THE IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE
Companies in competitive industries must position themselves on the international and
global stage to achieve long-term growth. Companies that fail to do so will either
disappear as globalization gathers pace or stall at their geographic boundaries.
In the eLearning industry, the vast majority of companies are still operating within
national borders (or at best in a small number of countries), although this pattern is set to
change. Whether vendors work outward, starting at a local or national level and
expanding internationally, or whether they attack international, even global markets from
the outset, they need to be ready for the emerging global eLearning industry.
Vendors are likely to confront a number of hurdles when taking eLearning to global
markets, including language differences, problems in the technical infrastructure, and
national legislation. But one issue that is very important—and that companies often
ignore because it is difficult to quantify—is culture. Culture is particularly important
because “learning” is a complex product. An Internet router, a mobile telephone, and a
soft drink are equally effective in varied cultures. But a learning product can fail simply
because cultural differences stand in the way of the message.
But national culture is not the only type of culture that will affect eLearning vendors.
As corporate eLearning—the main focus of SRI Consulting Business Intelligence’s
(SRIC-BI’s) Learning-on-Demand (LoD) program—moves beyond innovative early
adopters and into companies in the early majority, it will confront many kinds of
corporate cultures with different attitudes toward and beliefs about learning. If corporate
eLearning vendors are to take their products to the mass market, they need to make their
solutions relevant, appealing, and practical for all types of companies. If they cannot do
so, the eLearning market could well stall as the early-adopter market dries up, and the
early majority fails to run with the ball.
Understanding and acting on cultural issues are also important for eLearning users.
Users need to make eLearning work for their organizations, not against them. eLearning
initiatives can fail because the chosen solution runs counter to the cultural needs and
expectations of the organization. The new eLearning system fails to find a place on the
agenda of the intended users and falls into disuse. User companies need to align
eLearning with their corporate cultures, their corporate subcultures, and the national
cultures that will play a role in international eLearning projects.
Innovative users can also benefit from the effect of eLearning on corporate culture.
For example, companies can use eLearning to help effect and sustain a cultural change
initiative. Some companies may also use eLearning to share and promote their cultural
values with other players in the value chain.
4
DEFINING CULTURE
People use the word culture to mean many things. Anthropologist Geert Hofstede suggests that culture is a pattern
of thinking, feeling, and potential acting that a person learns throughout a lifetime. He describes this learning
process as “mental programming,” emphasizing that culture becomes deeply ingrained in people’s psyches and
governs their behavior. According to Hofstede, the “programming” starts within the family and continues with
the neighborhood, at school, at youth groups, at work, and in the community. As the figure shows, culture differs
from human nature and personality: Culture is specific to a group or category of people, and one learns it through
life experience.
THE ROLE OF CULTURE
Specific to Individual
Inherited and Learned
Personality
Specific to Group
or Category
Universal
Culture
Human Nature
Learned
Inherited
Source: Geert Hofstede; SRIC-BI
The good news is that because eLearning covers a broad range of products and
services (see Figure 1), all corporate and national cultures will likely be suitable for some
form of eLearning. Vendors simply need to find compatible solutions and create
compelling (internal and external) marketing messages.
5
Figure 1
THE NEW SCOPE OF eLEARNING
Lotus Notes–Based Extranet with
Specific, Quasi-Formal Processes
and Activities with Customers
Customers
Work Processes That Integrate the
Value Chain, with Embedded Project
and Team-Based Learning Activities
Formal, Course-Based
Customer Training and
Education
Formal
(Classroom)
Learning
Relatively Formal Learning
Activities Primarily for
Employees but Sometimes
for Suppliers or Customers
Informal
Learning
Formal, Course-Based
Training for Certain
Groups of Suppliers
Suppliers
Performance Support for
Customers and Suppliers
Source: SRI Consulting Business Intelligence (SRIC-BI)
6
Knowledge Networks That
Develop among Supply-Chain
Players
THE eLEARNING TOOLBOX
• Synchronous platforms
•
Simulations and games
• Asynchronous platforms
•
Performance support
• Customized content
•
Integration with work processes
• Off-the-shelf content
•
Prescribed curriculums
• Collaborative learning
•
Learner-centered materials
• Knowledge management
•
Personalized learning portals
• Virtual classrooms
•
Mentoring
• Blended learning
•
Resource center
• Structured Web-based courses
•
E-mail communications
• Granular learning objects
•
Broadband solutions
This report looks at issues that are important to both users and vendors:
• Ways to align eLearning with corporate cultures, including the tasks of identifying a
corporate culture and using eLearning within corporate cultural-change initiatives
• Characteristics of national culture and the implications for eLearning implementations
• The challenges of working with multinationals and of localizing eLearning
• Identification of opportunity signals and filtering of potential opportunities to ensure
that they are actionable
• The role of rapid cultural and economic change in driving eLearning
• The interplay between national, corporate, and other types of culture.
WORKING WITH CORPORATE CULTURE
If corporate eLearning is to reach the mass market, it needs to function for different types
of corporations with different attitudes toward and beliefs about learning. To ensure the
success of corporate eLearning, users and vendors must align eLearning initiatives with
the needs and expectations of the corporate culture in the user organization.
eLearning can also play a role during times of change in the corporate culture.
Corporate renewal places strategic importance on learning and can therefore drive
eLearning adoption. In turn, eLearning can help effect and sustain a corporate cultural
change as part of a change-management program. In addition, eLearning can bridge the
cultural gap between companies during mergers or acquisitions or even help bridge the
cultural gap between companies in a value chain.
7
Aligning eLearning with Corporate Culture
Companies that recognize corporate culture as a factor that supports and drives eLearning
initiatives are likely to integrate eLearning programs successfully with their corporate
cultures and possibly even use eLearning as a channel through which their company
cultures can express themselves. However, companies that experience corporate culture
as a constraint on eLearning initiatives are likely to find that the goals or strategies of
their eLearning programs conflict with the expectations of the corporate culture.
Adapting the content, presentation, and goals of eLearning programs to suit different
corporate cultures—rather than changing the corporate culture to suit the goals of an
eLearning program—is the most pragmatic and appropriate approach to resolving
conflicting goals. Efforts to change corporate culture are difficult, expensive, and often
unsuccessful. Moreover, a culture change normally addresses broad business
considerations rather than the needs of a single initiative.
eLearning vendors and users first need to understand the culture they work in and
then use this information to:
• Tailor the eLearning system to suit the cultural needs of the organization
• Market and promote the eLearning system to appeal to the needs, preferences, and
expectations of the organization.
Figure 2
CORPORATE CULTURE AS AN eLEARNING CONSTRAINT OR CATALYST
Corporate
Culture
eLearning
Corporate culture can constrain eLearning initiatives when eLearning
does not meet the needs and expectations of the culture.
Corporate
Culture
eLearning
Corporate culture can help drive eLearning initiatives forward when eLearning
goals align with the needs and expectations of the corporate culture.
Source: SRIC-BI
8
Defining Corporate Culture
The first cultural challenge for vendors and users working in corporations is to
understand the culture in which they are working. This task is not as straightforward as
understanding a national culture: A person working in Germany, for example, can fairly
easily identify typical ways of operating in the German national culture, but classifying
the type of corporate culture at work in a specific company is more difficult. Interplay
occurs between national and corporate cultures—German companies tend to reflect
aspects of German culture, for example—but industry also plays a part: Informationtechnology (IT) companies tend to be very different from shipping companies, for
example. Even the addition of an industry perspective provides only part of the answer.
In fact, no clear agreement exists about the meaning of corporate culture. Here are a few
people’s attempts to define the concept:
• “A pattern of basic assumptions—invented, discovered, or developed, by a given group
as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration—
that has worked well enough to be considered valid, and therefore, to be taught to new
members, as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel, in relation to those problems”
(Edgar H. Schein, Sloan School of Management)
• “The basic pattern of shared beliefs, behaviors, and assumptions acquired over time by
organizational members” (Daryl Conner, O. D. Resources Inc.)
• “The taken-for-granted and shared meanings that people assign to their social
surroundings” (Alan Wilkins, Brigham Young University)
• “The way we do things around here” (an anonymous manager)
Edgar Schein defines three layers of culture:
• Basic underlying assumptions are unconscious, taken-for-granted beliefs, perceptions,
thoughts, and feelings. These assumptions have the greatest influence on behavior of
the three layers and tend to be slow to change.
• Espoused values are the strategies, goals, and justifications that a culture explicitly
chooses. These values can differ from, and even contradict, basic underlying beliefs
(which is why a culture can say one thing and do another). Espoused values are likely
to change from time to time. An organization might have an espoused value like “we
are a learning organization.”
• Artifacts are the visible organizational structures, processes, and things that result from
basic underlying assumptions and, to a lesser extent, from espoused values. Artifacts
are useful for gaining insight into the basic underlying assumptions in a culture (which
one cannot derive from espoused values). For eLearning, the artifacts of an
organization are the learning programs that the organization implements.
9
Schein’s analysis emphasizes the importance of looking at an organization’s actions
(or artifacts) to determine its underlying beliefs. The values that an organization publicly
talks about are not always the same as its underlying beliefs, so public statements can be
misleading.
To complicate matters, large organizations tend to have many corporate subcultures.
For example, subcultures may revolve around departments, regional offices, or
generations. In the United States, many companies are confronting the differences
between the Baby-Boomer generation (born between 1946 and 1964), Generation X
(born between 1965 and 1980), and Generation Y (or the “Net Generation,” born after
1980).
Identifying a Corporate Culture
The better an eLearning team understands the corporate culture in which it is working,
the better a solution it can deliver—both by selecting the right system and by marketing
and promoting the system successfully. However, formal analysis of a corporate culture
is complex and requires investment, and a company’s willingness to invest in cultural
analysis will likely depend on the scale and scope of the eLearning investment as a
whole. For example, a company that purchases commoditized eLearning—such as offthe-shelf eLearning for a word-processing application—may have a limited budget to
understand complex issues of corporate culture. However, a company that wishes to
purchase customized eLearning to promote corporate values across the organization may
find an investment in understanding the corporate culture worthwhile. When eLearning is
a new concept for employees, companies may also consider investing in some cultural
analysis. Such an investment increases the likelihood that a company will promote and
use the eLearning program successfully.
Companies usually hire outside consultants who specialize in corporate culture to
undertake a formal analysis. An outside perspective is important because a company is
likely to have difficulty analyzing its own culture. Companies should guard against hiring
outside consultants who share their cultural values and predispositions. To save money,
companies could source postgraduate and business students from universities that
specialize in corporate anthropology or related disciplines. Table 1 cites some of the
characteristics that a culture analyst should have.
10
Table 1
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CULTURE ANALYST
Skills
Knowledge Areas
Open-ended interviewing
Practical wisdom and street smarts
Job analysis
Major business functions
Ethnographic observation
Corporate psychology
Task analysis
Group psychology
Active listening
Corporate anthropology
Analysis of strengths and weaknesses
Organizational development
Behavioral observation and diagnosis
Organizational behavior
Problem solving
Leadership theory
Group facilitation
Survey research methodology
Data analysis
Source: SRI Consulting Business Intelligence (SRIC-BI)
Culture analyses need to examine the following observable elements of culture:
• Behavior
• Objects, symbols, rewards, and surroundings
• Talk, language, and jargon (written and spoken)
• Values, emotions, and beliefs
• Perceptions, tacit knowledge, and assumptions
• Myths, anecdotes, sagas, and stories.
One of the most difficult tasks for a culture analyst is to unpack the various corporate
subcultures that relate to an eLearning implementation. For example, an eLearning
project for sales staff may involve at least four function-related subcultures: corporate
staff, human-resources staff, sales staff, and IT staff. Figure 3 shows a sample matrix for
analyzing corporate subcultures for an eLearning project.
11
Figure 3
CORPORATE SUBCULTURES IN AN eLEARNING PROJECT
Age
Conformity
Sociopolitical
Level
Location
Family life
Corporate
Human Resources
Function
Information Technology
Sales
Trainees
Workers
Managers
Senior
Managers
Organizational Level
Use of a three-dimensional matrix can help identify the subcultures in an eLearning initiative. The
intersection of the three axes of the matrix describes a subculture within the organization. The
descriptors along each axis vary depending on the corporation and the nature of the project.
Source: SRIC-BI
Although experts often dismiss informal efforts to analyze corporate culture, an
informal approach may be the only course of action when users do not want to invest in
an analysis but vendors need a basic understanding of the culture to proceed. Vendors can
develop some understanding of a client’s corporate culture by observing employees’
behavior and practices during meetings and other contacts. This informal analysis should
take place at the start of the sales cycle so that vendors obtain a reasonable picture of the
clients’ culture at project implementation. Vendors can then use this information to guide
the project.
12
ADAPTING eLEARNING FOR CULTURAL DIFFERENCES:
PENSARE’S APPROACH
Among the companies adapting eLearning offerings to different corporate cultures is Pensare Inc. (Los Altos,
California). Companies that buy Pensare’s Knowledge Community benefit from a range of customization
services that tailor the eLearning community to reflect their goals, objectives, and culture. (That is, they can
customize an online/virtual community by the types of features and functionality and types of provided content.)
At the start of a project, Pensare holds a one- to two-day off-site meeting with the project’s main sponsor and other
stakeholders to establish the goals and constraints of the project. Pensare then uses this information to tailor the
solution to meet the organization’s cultural (and other) needs.
Throughout a project, Pensare’s designers work with the customer organization to develop a customized
community that reflects its organizational values, issues, and structure. Pensare designers can also create
performance tools (short eLearning modules that provide a framework for thinking about a topic) that
communicate the organization’s values. The company gives customers tools to create their own content modules
so that they can adapt the solution to their needs over time. Pensare works closely with the project sponsor to ensure
that the organization promotes and markets the system to staff effectively, meeting the cultural expectations of
each stakeholder group.
A customer recently asked Pensare to build an international community around the topic of global
management, which involves many cultural issues. As part of the solution, Pensare created a performance tool
that allowed users to profile themselves against Geert Hofstede’s cultural measures, including power distance,
uncertainty avoidance, and individualism (see page 30 of this report). Users compared their results to typical
profiles for their country and compared to those of other members of the community. The tool helped resolve
cultural differences by providing advice on how to interact with people whose cultural expectations differ from
one’s own.
Creating Alignment
Companies can align eLearning with corporate culture by matching characteristics of the
eLearning solution with characteristics of the corporate culture. One useful and wellrespected model for distinguishing corporate cultures comes from Fons Trompenaars and
Charles Hampden-Turner, authors of Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding
Cultural Diversity in Business. Their model defines four types of corporate cultures—the
Incubator, Guided Missile, Family, and Eiffel Tower—that differentiate across two
factors (see Table 2):
• Does the organization focus on people or tasks?
• Is the organization’s management hierarchical or egalitarian?
13
Table 2
FOUR TYPES OF CORPORATE CULTURES
Characteristic
Family
Eiffel Tower
Guided missile
Incubator
Factors
People/hierarchical
Task/hierarchical
Task/egalitarian
People/egalitarian
Relationships
between
employees
Diffuse
relationships to the
organic whole
A specific role in a
mechanical system
of required
interactions
Specific tasks in a
cybernetic system
that focuses on
shared objectives
Diffuse,
spontaneous
relationships that
grow out of a
shared creative
process
Attitude toward
authority
Status for parent
figures who are
close and powerful
Status for superior
roles that are
distant yet powerful
Status for project
group members
who contribute to
the targeted goal
Status for
individuals who
exemplify
creativity and
growth
Ways of
thinking and
learning
Intuitive, holistic,
lateral, and errorcorrecting learning
style
Logical, analytical,
vertical, and
rationally efficient
learning style
Problem-centered,
professional,
practical, and
cross-disciplinary
learning style
Process-oriented,
creative, ad hoc,
inspirational
learning style
Attitudes
toward people
Family members
Human resources
Specialists and
experts
Co-creators
Ways of
changing
Reliance on the
“father” to change
course
Changes in rules
and procedures
Shifts in goals as
the target moves
Improvisation and
on-the-fly
refinements
Ways of
motivating and
rewarding
Intrinsic satisfaction
in receiving love
and respect
(management by
subjectives)
Promotion to a
greater position
and a larger role
(management by
job description)
Pay or credit for
performance and
problem resolution
(management by
objectives)
Participation in the
creation of new
realities
(management by
enthusiasm)
Criticism and
conflict
resolution
Tendency to turn
the other cheek,
protect others from
criticism, and avoid
losing the power
game
Criticism via
accusation of
irrationality, unless
procedures exist to
arbitrate conflicts
Constructive taskrelated criticism,
admission of error,
and fast correction
Emphasis on
improvement, not
negation, of
creative ideas
Source: Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner (Riding the Waves of Culture:
Understanding Cultural Diversity in Business); SRIC-BI
14
Figure 4 shows selections from the eLearning toolbox (see the box on page 7) that are
likely to suit each corporate culture. In turn, companies will want to tailor their internal
marketing messages to the needs of the culture, as the following examples suggest:
• Incubator culture. “The eLearning system enables you to work with interesting new
people from inside and outside the company—to learn and to create new ideas.”
• Guided Missile culture. “The eLearning system enables you to solve your everyday
problems faster and smarter—and ultimately leads to greater financial rewards.”
• Family culture. “I know you will all join me in moving forward into the era of
eLearning. This is an important initiative for all of us” (from the CEO).
• Eiffel Tower culture. “The eLearning system links to the assessment of your job
competences. The system will give you the tools you need to meet your goals and to
progress in the organization.”
Below are additional suggestions for adapting eLearning initiatives to meet the
expectations of the four types of companies:
• Incubator culture: eLearning in person-oriented cultures needs to emphasize
collaboration and interaction. Employees in person-oriented cultures may see learning
as a social/networking event and may resist eLearning if the organization removes the
social aspect. A workable eLearning solution could take a blended learning approach,
combining online learning with face-to-face workshops, for example. Given its
egalitarian orientation, the Incubator may adopt eLearning from the bottom up. Some
staff members may start their own, local eLearning projects, which could gain
popularity and recognition and lead to more widespread adoption. Major eLearning
projects are likely to reach many stakeholder groups, and if conflicts arise in
stakeholders’ interests, resolution by a central department may be difficult or not
forthcoming. Successful projects will achieve buy-in from all stakeholders early on.
• Guided Missile culture. In the task-oriented Guided Missile culture, content
granularization and the ability of eLearning to “cut to the chase” and help with business
tasks will appeal. eLearning should tie in closely with corporate objectives, and it
should demonstrate how it can help meet these objectives. Learning for learning’s sake
or for vague objectives, such as “becoming smarter,” is unlikely to appeal to people in
this culture. Programs for individual eLearning could link to reviews and job
performance. At every level, an eLearning solution needs to demonstrate its relevance
to the task at hand. If users do not perceive eLearning to be genuinely useful, the
learning initiative will take a back seat in the organization. In this egalitarian
organization, creating a value proposition for all stakeholders is the key to success.
Value propositions should relate to the task of a particular group of stakeholders. A
Guided Missile can have many tasks.
15
• Family culture. As in the Incubator, eLearning in a Family culture needs to emphasize
interaction and collaboration and probably provide classroom “events” for social
interaction. This hierarchical culture tends to define and drive eLearning initiatives
from the top down. Families also tend to be highly political organizations, so problems
can occur when someone’s existing role or authority—for example, that of the
traditional training manager—is under threat. Good relationships with key individuals
are important to ensure the success of an eLearning project.
• Eiffel Tower culture. In some respects, Eiffel Towers are the easiest cultures to work
with. Once senior managers buy into an eLearning project, they tend to push it through.
Because Eiffel Towers are task focused, they are less political than other cultures. Still,
eLearning vendors need to ensure that users at all levels perceive solutions as relevant
to their objectives.
Figure 4
eLEARNING TOOLS FOR DIFFERENT CORPORATE CULTURES
Egalitarian Management
Incubator
Fulfillment-Oriented Culture
Guided Missile
Project-Oriented Culture
• Synchronous Platforms
• Asynchronous Platforms
• Collaborative Learning
• Integration with Work Processes
• Knowledge Management
• Performance Support
• Blended Learning
• Granular Learning Objects
• Learner-Centered Materials
• Learner-Centered Materials
• Knowledge Management
Person
Task
Family
Person-Oriented Culture
Eiffel Tower
Role-Oriented Culture
• Synchronous Platforms
• Asynchronous Platforms
• Blended Learning
• Integration with Work Processes
• Prescribed Curriculums
• Performance
• Virtual Classrooms
• Performance Support
• Granular Learning Objects
• Learner-Centered Materials
• Knowledge Management
Hierarchical Management
Source: Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner; SRIC-BI
16
The Incubator, Guided Missile, Family, and Eiffel Tower describe general corporate
cultures that apply across a variety of corporate behaviors. At a finer level of granularity,
eLearning vendors and users can consider a company’s specific cultural beliefs about
learning and technology.
Table 3 shows four types of cultures that Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner have
identified with different attitudes toward acquiring, disseminating, and sharing
information and knowledge. These four types differ from the Incubator, Guided Missile,
Family, and Eiffel Tower because they focus on attitudes toward managing information
and knowledge rather than on attitudes in general. As Table 4 shows, the degree to which
corporate culture governs corporate behavior varies from company to company. For
example, Understanding organizations have rigid corporate cultures that guide all their
activities and that are therefore central in any eLearning initiative. Learning
organizations, by contrast, do not march within a rigid corporate culture, so aligning
eLearning with the peculiarities of their corporate culture is not so important for success
(the only requirement is that eLearning enable open dialogue).
Two key strategies exist for aligning an eLearning project with a corporate culture
(most solutions will likely mix the two):
• Choosing from the eLearning toolbox. Many types of eLearning solutions exist, and
vendors and users can select from the eLearning toolbox to match cultural expectations.
For example, a Knowing culture (see Table 4) is not likely to succeed with
collaborative learning but is a prime candidate for structured Web-based courses. The
eLearning toolbox can blend elements of classroom learning with pure online
approaches. For example, the Royal Bank of Canada allows end users to select the
learning method that best meets their needs from a variety of eLearning tools. This
innovative strategy allows for variances within the overall corporate culture, such as
corporate subcultures.
• Changing the marketing focus. In addition to designing the features of the eLearning
initiative, the project team can market and promote the solution to align with a
corporate culture. Knowing how to motivate people in the organization is central to a
project’s success; otherwise, the system will lie fallow. Motivational factors differ from
culture to culture and from subculture to subculture. For effective marketing, the
project team must show why the eLearning system is relevant and valuable to each
stakeholder group.
17
Table 3
DIFFERENCES IN CORPORATE ATTITUDES TOWARD MANAGING INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE
Characteristic
Knowing
Understanding
Thinking
Overall
attitude toward
analyzing and
disseminating
information
about change
Seeks the “best”
way to perform
organizational
functions;
operates “by the
book”
Has strong
cultural values
that become the
“ruling myth”
governing
organizational
behavior
Portrays business
as a series of
problems; relies on
management to
identify, isolate, and
help solve problems
Encourages
experimentation,
promotes
constructive dissent,
and encourages
continuous dialogue
with all stakeholders
Attitude toward
the information
infrastructure
Exerts centralized
control and
management of
information and
information
technology (IT)
Adopts systems
to formalize and
capture the
organization’s
culture
Prefers a
decentralized
infrastructure and
relies on end users
for development
Uses technology to
facilitate
organizational
learning
Attitude toward
information
acquisition
Uses centralized
sources and
emphasizes
internal sources
Relies primarily
on internal
sources and
prefers an
acquisition focus
that supports
cultural values
Promotes
information
gathering by multiple
individuals from
internal and external
focus
Encourages
information
gathering by many
individuals from
internal and external
sources
Attitude toward
information
dissemination
Exerts tight
control over
information flow
and makes heavy
use of transaction
reports
Disseminates
information within
existing cultural
norms
Disperses
information among
users and welcomes
ad hoc information
requests
Disseminates
information widely;
relies on information
pull rather than
information push
Attitude toward
information
sharing
Allows limited
sharing and relies
on central controls
Permits sharing
within existing
cultural norms
Sharing of
information about
specific issues
Encourages
widespread sharing
and collaborative
identification and
use of information
Example
companies
Southwestern
Bell, Rockwell
International, and
Southland
EDS, JCPenney,
and Johnson &
Johnson
Jiffy Lube,
Domino’s, and
Metropolitan Life
3M, Motorola, and
Honda
Source: European Management Journal; SRIC-BI
18
Learning
Table 4
eLEARNING IN CULTURES WITH DIFFERENT ATTITUDES TOWARD MANAGING
INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE
Type of Culture
Aspect of
eLearning
Knowing
Understanding
Thinking
Learning
Value
proposition
eLearning
needs to
demonstrate its
superiority to
the company’s
existing learning
programs and
become the
new standard.
eLearning needs
to demonstrate
that it fits in with
the company’s
culture.
eLearning needs to
solve a problem that
the organization has
identified (for
example, “we lack
electronic-commerce
skills”).
eLearning needs to
help sustain
organizational learning
via unstructured
learning and integrate
with knowledgemanagement
programs.
Project
organization
The purchase,
design, and
administration
of eLearning will
be centralized.
The project
needs to operate
within the
company’s
existing culture
and involve little
corporate-culture
change.
The organization will
operate strong, taskfocused project
teams to drive the
solution through.
Adoption of eLearning
may occur from the
bottom up, with a
variety of small
initiatives. Large
projects will have
centralized
coordination but not
centralized control.
Content
Structured,
Web-based
learning content
is desirable.
Content that
promotes cultural
values is
desirable.
Problem-based
learning and
performance support
are desirable.
Collaborative learning
is desirable.
Source: SRIC-BI
Using eLearning as a Tool for Cultural Change
The previous section states that tailoring eLearning to suit the organization is likely to be
the most pragmatic approach for users and vendors in the majority of cases. Sometimes,
however, cultural change is necessary and beneficial for an organization. Companies can
reach a state of “culture lock” that precludes them from adapting to new customer and
market needs. In this situation, companies need to shift the mind-set of the organization
by changing the corporate culture.
In some cases, companies can use eLearning to help create and sustain a cultural
change in an organization. Figure 5 shows how a virtuous circle can occur, in which
cultural change drives demand for eLearning (to help people understand what the change
is and why it is happening), and eLearning drives the cultural change by creating
knowledge and acceptance of the change.
19
Figure 5
eLEARNING’S ROLE IN CULTURAL CHANGE
Corporate-Culture Change
eLearning
eLearning
Corporate
Culture
eLearning can help
effect change in a
corporate culture.
Corporate
Culture
Once the change is in place,
eLearning can help promote and
sustain the new corporate culture.
eLearning
Corporate-Culture
Change
eLearning and the change initiative can work
together in a virtuous circle, in which change
drives the need for eLearning and eLearning
helps create and sustain the change.
Source: SRIC-BI
20
CREATING STRATEGIC CHANGE WITH INVOLVE LEARNING
Vendors can benefit from the synergy between eLearning and corporate change by tailoring their eLearning
solutions for use in change-management programs. One of the leading companies in this field is the pan-Nordic
eLearning provider Involve Learning (see LoD Bulletin, Second Quarter 2000). According to the company’s
CEO, Odd Skarheim, Involve Learning wants to be the leading world provider of eLearning to effect cultural
change. To meet this goal, Involve recruited Jan Carlzon, the former CEO of SAS—a company with a reputation
for one of the most successful corporate change programs in history—as the chairman of its board. In fact, Involve
Learning has recruited people with change-management and strategic corporate communications expertise at all
levels.
In dealing with strategic change, Involve Learning forges strategic partnerships with clients that go well
beyond the isolated transactions that are typical of purveyors of commoditized eLearning. In addition, Involve
Learning aims to create higher value than its competitors do by conducting thorough needs analyses and then,
during development, ensuring that content really does meet the cultural needs of the organization. Involve
Learning sees its project through to the marketing of the new eLearning system, when it either advises clients of
suitable approaches or spends time facilitating the process.
Skarheim points out that although the benefits of offering eLearning for strategic change are large, so are
the pitfalls. If corporate-culture change initiatives fail, the impact is typically high, often leaving a company worse
off than it was before the initiative started. The fallout can be high, and vendors’ reputations suffer. This fallout
is one of the key reasons why Involve Learning takes time to make solutions work rather than resort to “quickfix” eLearning.
Involve Learning’s expertise lies in strategy communication, particularly strategy communication that aims
to effect a cultural, behavioral shift. According to the chairman, Jan Carlzon, “Getting your message across to all
employees is the most important part of strategic management. And it is the responsibility of all top-level
management.”
The figures below show how Involve Learning fits in with a strategy-development process and illustrate the
company’s iterative process for communicating strategy through eLearning. In this process, employees can feed
back into the management process, and Involve Learning takes a blended learning approach, incorporating faceto-face activity to stimulate discussions. Involve Learning recently used its model in a large project for Ericsson
in early 2000. The project called for communicating strategy to Ericsson employees in 50 countries around the
world and is one of the tools Ericsson is using to drive its corporate culture forward. The eLearning content uses
pedagogical activities as the primary form of learning: Experts believe that learning by doing is better than passive
learning for creating behavioral change.
21
CREATING STRATEGIC CHANGE WITH INVOLVE LEARNING—Concluded
INVOLVE LEARNING’S ROLE IN STRATEGY CREATION
Future
Scenarios
Internal
and External
Analysis
Step 2
Shared
Vision, Goals,
and
Strategy
Step 3
Step 1
Organization Based
on Chosen Strategy
eLearning Techniques
That Communicate,
Monitor, and Measure
Understanding of the
Strategy
INVOLVE LEARNING’S PROCESS OF CULTURAL CHANGE
All employees go
through the
eLearning
module to learn
about the chosen
strategy.
Feedback
Feedback
Step 1
Step 2
Managers go through a
customized module that
explores how to facilitate
and deal with change.
Repetition, New Questions, and Feedback/Input to New Strategy Process
Group Discussions Face-to-Face and Through the Intranet
Source: Involve Learning
22
Step 4
Becoming a Learning Organization
eLearning can play a part in one type of cultural change that has been popular for some
time: the transition to a learning organization. Peter Senge, MIT’s Learning organizations
guru, offers the following definition: “Learning organizations are organizations where
people continually expand their capacity to create results they truly desire, where new
and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free,
and where people are continually learning how to learn together.”
Organizations that use eLearning are not necessarily learning organizations, and
learning organizations do not necessarily use eLearning. The two concepts are easy to
distinguish:
• Organizational learning is the ability of an organization, as a whole, to learn from its
successes and mistakes.
• eLearning is the methodology and technology for delivering and enabling learning.
Clearly, eLearning can help build and sustain learning in organizations, often in
harmony with knowledge-management initiatives. A good example of a learning
organization that uses eLearning to support organizational learning is the U.K.-based
parts and logistics company Unipart (see the box on page 24 as well as the LoD report
eLearning along the Value Chain).
Another company that is using eLearning to transform itself into a learning
organization is the computer-services giant Unisys Corporation. eLearning is one of
several tools that Unisys is using to change the company culture. The company has two
key aims: to become a high-performance learning organization and to become an
employer of choice. Unisys believes that its virtual corporate university is helping the
company move toward these goals. Historically, Unisys used both centralized and
decentralized training. However, centralized training was not responsive to the needs of
the business, and local training did not always leverage the resources available or present
a consistent corporate message. The new virtual university is integrating the centralized
and decentralized learning functions and providing a single source for learning. Apart
from bringing obvious efficiency savings, Unisys’s university is a symbol of the
importance of learning in the organization. Like Unipart University (see the box on page
24), Unisys University has a strong brand and a high profile in the organization.
23
CREATING AND SUSTAINING A LEARNING CULTURE AT UNIPART
In eLearning along the Value Chain, SRI Consulting Business Intelligence’s Learning-on-Demand Program
profiled Unipart, an automotive parts and logistics company in the United Kingdom, outlining its eLearning
evolution. The report noted that Unipart has been running successful learning initiatives since its management
buyout from British Leyland in 1987 and has recently launched its virtual university and own eLearning business
(Unipart Advanced Learning Systems). According to Frank Nigreillo, director of Corporate Affairs at Unipart and
an expert in creating sustainable change, the company also uses learning to shape its corporate culture. In
particular, Unipart has always viewed learning as a strategic tool for implementing sustainable change in the
organization.
Unipart began its program to create sustainable change after the buyout in 1987. At that time, the company
had a legacy of industrial disputes, poor quality, and unhappy employees. Nigreillo says that the new company
set out with three core objectives, which remain central to the organization’s culture today:
• Continuous improvement
• Lean thinking
• Long-term shared-destiny relationships with customers and suppliers.
Unipart’s learning programs support these objectives by building knowledge internally and across the value
chain. The company creates mechanisms to help employees design and implement improvements and aims to
create a culture in which the core set of values is central in all employees’ everyday work.
The figure shows Unipart’s perspective on the culture-change process. Nigreillo argues that creating real
sustainable change is not easy. In fact, in efforts to create a “learning organization,” few companies are able to
make the final jump to sustainable behavioral change.
A UNIPART VIEW OF CULTURAL CHANGE
Awareness and
Understanding
Personalization and
Internalization
Source: Unipart; SRIC-BI
24
Behavioral
Change
CREATING AND SUSTAINING A LEARNING CULTURE AT UNIPART—Concluded
Creating Awareness and Understanding
In the first stage of change, companies need to create an awareness and understanding of the change. Nigreillo
says that firms need to tune into the value set of each audience in the organization and make the central message
relevant to each one. In Nigreillo’s view, sending memos from corporate headquarters is the worst thing to do.
(Nigreillo knows something about communication: He started his career in journalism and moved into corporate
communications, running corporate communications for IBM UK at a time of dramatic downsizing.) Unipart has
used a variety of techniques to promote learning initiatives, including banners, plays, parties, and competitions.
When the company introduced its intranet, Unipart executives walked around the offices handing out chocolate
bars to employees who were using the new tool. According to Unipart, any new initiative needs to have a high
profile. Unipart U has a strong brand, and it sits quite literally in the heart of the organization, just off the main
reception area in the head office. To this day, CEO John Neill teaches the first Unipart U learning event that each
employee attends.
Personalizing and Internalizing Change
In the second stage of change, companies begin to personalize and internalize the change, a shift that requires a
process of discovery and action. If managers can persuade employees to try eLearning, pedagogical activities can
be an important enabler. The awareness and discovery stage must offer opportunities for discovery and
experimentation. For example, competitions that push people to do something are far more successful that
campaigns that merely provide information.
Effecting Behavioral Change
Nigreillo believes that many companies will fail in their efforts to become “learning organizations” because they
are not serious enough about the concept to implement and sustain real behavioral change. He describes the
“comfort zones” that people tend to return to, making sustainable change difficult. For example, when Nigreillo
introduced new desktop software during his time at IBM, workers quickly reverted to the software they already
knew. Moving people out of comfort zones is difficult, so companies need to sustain internal marketing and
incentive programs throughout the lifetime of an initiative—not just at the time of launch.
Bridging Corporate Cultures with eLearning
Companies can use eLearning to narrow the gap between two or more corporate cultures,
possibly during mergers or acquisitions. Recent planning for a merger of Telia and
Telenor, the Swedish and Norwegian telephone companies (telcos), illustrates this
approach. During the talks, the telcos commissioned several eLearning companies in the
Nordic region to write pilot eLearning modules to present the “new organization” to
employees and help them understand and overcome any cultural differences that they
encounter after the merger.
One company that participated in this pilot work was Sweden-based Learnways. The
company pointed out that to understand the cultural differences between the two
companies, the telcos also needed to understand the cultural differences between Swedes
25
and Norwegians. Despite the countries’ proximity, clear cultural differences exist.
Learnways’s pilot eLearning product explained the differences in national culture before
moving to the differences in corporate culture. This approach is consistent with the view
in this report: that corporate culture and national culture work together to govern the
behavior of organizations. Learnways is considering developing the pilot product for
other companies that need to work across national borders.
Another illustration of eLearning’s ability to bridge cultural gaps is the Royal Bank
of Scotland’s acquisition of NatWest. The box just below describes the Royal Bank’s
experience.
PROMOTING eLEARNING AT THE ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND—
AND NATWEST
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is one of the most established users of eLearning in the United Kingdom. Thus,
the bank has interesting insights into the highs and lows of integrating eLearning into the corporate culture. RBS
now plans to use eLearning to bridge the cultural gap between itself and the recently acquired NatWest bank.
The first driver for the adoption of eLearning at RBS came from its retail-banking network: The bank needed
to reduce the high cost of delivering a mandatory curriculum of product, business process, customer service, and
regulatory training to 15 000 staff in 650 retail branches. The second driver was a corporate need to create
improved, corporatewide communication networks.
RBS installed its intranet—the Training and Communications Network (TCN)—to meet these needs. The
intranet enabled limited live broadcasts for corporate communications and built the infrastructure for delivering
learning.
RBS uses, and plans to continue using, a mixture of classroom and online learning. As a general rule, RBS
provides technical or theoretical content online and reserves classroom time for practical exercises and discussion.
Brian McClaren, head of eLearning at RBS, says that the on-land/online balance of this model differs for different
levels in the organization. At a clerical level, the course content is “factual” and relatively easy to master online.
Managers’ courses often require more face-to-face activities. Does this difference make classroom learning a
higher-status activity at RBS? McClaren believes that employees may have this perception, but RBS has not
addressed the issue.
RBS will roll out the TCN across NatWest so that it can use eLearning where possible and where appropriate.
RBS faces infrastructure problems with NatWest because NatWest previously operated as seven discrete
businesses, each with its own intranet. Although McClaren described two of the intranets as good, he believes that
the other five are inadequate and unreliable.
Before the acquisition, NatWest planned to move to eLearning but had not yet done so, whereas RBS was
already established in the area. Although the information-technology (IT) department at NatWest was using
online learning, the effort was independent, not an enterprise initiative. In general, NatWest focused on traditional
training at its traditional training center in Heathrow. “NatWest was still using words like ‘teaching’ which didn’t
make sense in the RBS way of thinking,” says McClaren.
26
PROMOTING eLEARNING AT THE ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND—
AND NATWEST—Concluded
RBS intends to introduce eLearning to NatWest the same way that it introduced the concept at RBS.
• The bank “bribed” employees to try out eLearning systems by offering food, wine, and other incentives. RBS
found that a “touch and feel” policy was effective because attitudes to eLearning improved after people had
tried the system.
• RBS sought to communicate the benefits of eLearning to managers and learners. For managers, the argument
focused on cost savings. For learners, the message emphasized “flexible, tailored, self-paced” learning and
offered opportunities to use a wider range of materials (though employees might have to undertake some of
these activities in their spare time).
RBS will inevitably face challenges when introducing eLearning to NatWest, and the bank hopes to build
on its experiences. One of the main issues so far is staffs’ voluntary participation in eLearning. Although the
mandatory curriculum for the branch network has been successful, elsewhere in the organization—where
eLearning relies on voluntary participation—adoption has been low. Only the IT and Treasury departments have
made much use of the facilities. Although the company has not yet identified the reasons for this low use, the
possibility exists that “voluntary learning” remains an alien concept to many employees. Because some learning
is “mandatory,” the company gives the impression that other learning is “optional.” And in the modern, timepressured workplace, “optional” all too often means “omitted.” When RBS finally rolls out the system within
NatWest, it may need to invest more in marketing its eLearning system and promote it in a way that causes
employees to see it as directly relevant to their needs and desires.
Opportunities also exist for companies to deliver eLearning to all parts of their value
chain—suppliers, partners, resellers, and customers—to make the whole value chain
more competitive. One benefit of sharing eLearning with customers and suppliers is the
ability to share cultural, as well as factual, knowledge. For example, a supplier can gain
knowledge about customers’ beliefs and values as well as their products and processes. A
supplier that can understand the beliefs and values of its customer is better able to meet
the customer’s needs, particularly in anticipating new requests and in positioning new
suggestions.
An earlier LoD report, eLearning along the Value Chain, suggests that learning in the
extended enterprise creates higher-value learning at the organizational level. Ultimately,
eLearning could move beyond initiatives for organizational learning and help develop
value chains that are able to learn and act on the knowledge they gain, thereby becoming
more competitive.
27
CREATING CULTURES OF USE WITH KNOWLEDGE NAVIGATORS
When Knowledge Navigators—a provider of online collaborative work spaces—implements solutions for
companies and organizations, it often helps create new cultures within the organization. Knowledge Navigators
believes that the success of its solutions depends as much on the people working in the environment as on the
technology itself. Hal Richman, president of Knowledge Navigators, describes this idea as “sociotechnical
systems,” in which the combination of the technology, the people using the technology, and knowledge make up
the overall system.
The challenge that Knowledge Navigators and its clients face is to make the collaborative work space so
compelling that people will join the collaboration and make the overall system effective. Richman describes the
process of building up this community as “creating a culture of use.”
Knowledge Navigators recently designed and implemented a learning portal for the United Nations
Development Program (UNDP). The UNDP is the largest source of grant assistance for development and
coordination of U.N. interventions. UNDP has more than 5000 staff members in 135 countries. The learning
portal—in operation since January 2000—has helped change UNDP’s hierarchical, closed learning culture into
an open, shared learning culture. Richman describes the change as follows:
• From isolation to belonging
• From unit autonomy to interdependence
• From ownership to sharing
• From a local focus to a global focus
• From fixed priorities to flexibility
• From preservation of the status quo to development and change.
To help effect the change and create a culture of use for the UNDP systems, Knowledge Navigators helped
recruit more than 60 learning managers from within UNDP. The role of the learning managers is to:
• Promote lifelong learning and the development of their clients
• Establish an effective community of practice
• Strengthen and build the knowledge, skills, and attitudes their clients need to undertake their roles effectively.
Richman believes that companies must ask some tough questions when creating learning cultures. He
believes that learning will soon be an integral part of collaborative work—incorporating a variety of elements and
activities in Figure 1—making the learning process more transparent than it is now. Although eLearning systems
will exist and support peoples’ informal learning, vendors will not market all these systems as eLearning solutions
because individuals often do not perceive a need for learning. For most workers, learning is a means rather than
an end. The trick to building a successful learning culture that people want to use is to create a solution that
explicitly helps people achieve their primary workplace goals and uses informal learning to help achieve that aim.
In this vision, the end users may not recognize that they are learning (as is true of most informal eLearning today).
28
Developing an Action Agenda
Vendors should consider the following action steps:
• Offer “cultural-alignment services” as part of an overall eLearning solution. Through
these new services, vendors could increase the value of their eLearning engagements by
working directly with “soft” implementation issues, such as how to market eLearning
in an organization. Some vendors could transform themselves from product vendors
into solution providers through such offerings. Vendors should also consider cultural
alignment as a way of moving corporate eLearning into the mass market. For long-term
success, all vendors will need to develop offerings that appeal to many kinds of
corporate cultures.
• Provide a range of products and services (and/or implementation options) from the
eLearning toolbox to meet the different needs of corporate cultures. Developing this
eLearning portfolio will likely involve some in-house development, as well as
partnering with, acquiring, or merging with other eLearning vendors.
• Acquire, or partner with, “high-touch” consultants to help companies align eLearning
with their corporate cultures. The two main skills groups necessary for such a service
are culture analysts and corporate communications experts. These culture specialists
should work with the eLearning team throughout the project but will likely play a
central role upfront during the evaluation and analysis stage, and before and after
system launch, to implement internal marketing solutions.
• Demonstrate commitment to the success of clients’ eLearning projects by offering
cultural-alignment services and risk-sharing payment models. One possible metric for
cultural alignment is a scheme that pays the vendor according to the extent of
employees’ voluntary use of eLearning.
• Offer a second phase of culture services: eLearning for changing a corporate culture.
To provide this service, vendors need to broaden their culture teams to include people
with expertise in change management, either through recruitment or a partnership with
a change-management consultancy.
Users should consider the following action steps:
• Unless a strong business reason for culture change exists, demand that vendors provide
eLearning that meets the existing cultural needs of the organization.
• For high-value eLearning projects, employ culture analysts—perhaps graduate students
of corporate anthropology or related subjects—to assess the corporate culture.
Companies could use this information to guide their selection of eLearning tools and
their internal marketing for the new system.
• If appropriate, use eLearning to effect change in the corporate culture. Initially,
eLearning may serve as a “voice” for new corporate values (as Involve Learning’s
strategy-communication solutions do). eLearning can also communicate the change to
employees and—through games or simulations—help people internalize the change.
29
• Consider using eLearning to share corporate values with other parts of the value chain.
Feedback mechanisms can foster consistent values along the value chain and increase
players’ ability to work together.
• Move beyond organizational learning to intraorganizational learning. The creation of a
learning culture need not be solely an internal process; companies can implement
culture-change programs throughout their value chain (that is, apply such programs to
the extended enterprise). The value chain can then learn and improve from its mistakes
and maintain a more competitive position in today’s fast-moving, uncertain markets.
eLearning can help communicate cultural values and move cultural change throughout
the entire value chain.
IMPLEMENTING eLEARNING IN A MULTICULTURAL WORLD
To guarantee long-term success, eLearning vendors need to deliver eLearning products
and services to international markets—and international users need to roll out eLearning
across national borders. But different national cultures have different learning needs and
different expectations about learning experiences. In turn, multinationals and vendors
working with multinationals face complex cultural challenges: Corporate culture,
corporate subculture, and varied national cultures all influence learning expectations.
eLearning users and vendors need to tailor their eLearning tools and marketing
campaigns to meet these varied needs and expectations if they are to achieve success. In
the medium term, localization providers will likely help eLearning vendors meet some of
the cultural challenges.
Understanding Cultural Expectations about Learning Experiences
People develop ideas and expectations about learning experiences as part of their national
or ethnic cultures. For example, they may expect a learning experience to be formal or
informal, and they may expect a tutor to take the lead or expect to take the initiative
themselves.
Cultural expectations about learning experiences can affect the design and delivery of
an eLearning solution. All cultures are suitable for eLearning because so many types of
eLearning exist, but some types of eLearning fit more naturally with some cultures than
with others.
Figure 6 shows two of anthropologist Geert Hofstede’s measures of national cultural
difference, which he describes in Cultures and Organizations: Intercultural Co-operation
and its Importance for Survival. The study took a comprehensive sample of IBM
employees in 50 countries and analyzed their attitudes toward authority. In a graphic
illustrating his findings, Hofstede used the horizontal scale, “power distance,” to show
the extent to which individuals depend on authority figures—such as managers—to guide
their decisions and actions (a large power distance shows high dependence). The vertical
30
scale distinguishes individualist cultures, in which people look after themselves and their
own needs, from collectivist cultures, in which people focus more on the needs of groups
(such as a company) to which they belong.
Figure 6
NATIONAL CULTURES AND eLEARNING TOOLS BY POWER DISTANCE AND INDIVIDUALISM
Collectivist Culture
• India
• Japan
• Malaysia
• Portugal
• Singapore
• Blended
Learning
• Prescribed
Curriculums
• Virtual
Classrooms
• South Korea
Small
Power
Distance
Large
Power
Distance
• Canada
• Belgium
• Learner-Centered
Materials
• Great Britain
• France
• Personalized
Learning Portal
• Germany
• Italy
• Finland
• South Africa
• Prescribed
Curriculums
• Collaborative
Learning
• Norway
• Spain
• Mentoring
• Knowledge
Management
• Ireland
• Personalized
Learning Portal
• Sweden
• United States
Individualist Culture
= eLearning Tools
Source: Geert Hofstede; Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner; SRIC-BI
eLearning implications for each category that Hofstede identified follow:
• Small power distance collectivist. No countries in the study fall into this group.
• Large power distance collectivist. The Asian countries that use eLearning are in this
group. Although eLearning is beginning to surface in these countries, the cultural
expectations about learning are very different from those in the United States and the
dominant eLearning countries in Europe (all of which fit in the opposite quadrant in
Figure 6). Learners in this group expect learning to be a group activity. Therefore,
companies should not present eLearning as a “personalized” solution (for example, as
an individual learning portal) but as a collaborative solution (perhaps with blended
online and classroom collaboration). However, finding the right solution is difficult
because this group has a large power distance, which in a learning situation translates
31
into heavy dependence on a teacher or expert mentor to guide the learning process and
a reliance on structured curriculums. Although collaboration is desirable, this
collaboration is not a free-for-all in which participants exchange ideas freely and
openly. Learners will likely seek the approval of their group and the mentor before
contributing ideas. Structured online classrooms that mirror aspects of a traditional
brick-and-mortar training session are probably a good fit for this group of learners, as is
blended learning that integrates classroom learning with online learning. Once leaders
in a company decide to adopt eLearning, the rest of the company will follow. Less
likely is bottom-up adoption in which an innovative group or division starts to
experiment with eLearning.
• Small power distance individualist. All the leading eLearning countries outside Asia
(both on the demand side and on the supply side) fit in this group. The group’s
characteristics are a good fit for eLearning implementations that expect learners to
drive and “own” the learning process, both in pace and in content. Learners in cultures
with a small power distance have limited dependence on teachers in learning situations
and are used to taking the initiative. Because learners view teachers as equals, they are
comfortable with the idea that they can be as good as or better than the teacher is at
driving the learning process. This group is also individualist, so personalized eLearning
programs—such as personal learning portals—appeal to it. Collaborative learning in
this group can be open and informal because little perceived hierarchy exists. However,
unlike people in the previous group, individuals in this group focus on their own needs
and progress—not on the needs and progress of the group. Companies in this group that
adopt eLearning are just as likely to respond to bottom-up initiatives as to start their
own top-down efforts (in contrast to Asian countries). Among the key challenges for
vendors and users is to develop value propositions for each stakeholder in an
implementation (such as the learner, human-resources department, IT department, and
senior managers) because each group will tend to have its own agenda and resist topdown initiatives.
• Large power distance individualist. The European countries in this group have been
relatively slow (certainly in relation to the United States and Northern Europe) in
adopting eLearning or in spawning eLearning companies. Although personalized
eLearning has appeal in these countries, learners are highly dependent on tutors and
prescribed curriculums. One-to-one mentoring via e-mail or Web-based communication
is highly suitable for this group. Although vendors and users need to develop value
propositions for each stakeholder group in an eLearning implementation, companies in
large power distance individualist cultures are likely to respond to top-down directives
more positively than are people in the previous group. Bottom-up eLearning initiatives
in this group are unlikely.
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PROVIDING eLEARNING FOR BUSINESS LEADERS
Senior business leaders offer a potentially lucrative specialist market for eLearning because they match the “need
profile” for eLearning very well. In particular, they are usually mobile (so need learning anytime and anywhere)
and are under severe time pressure (so need learning that is quick, flexible, and focused).
Culturally, business leaders are an interesting group. Unlike most workers, business leaders tend to be true
“global citizens.” Business leaders often obtain their education outside their native country and later work in very
international environments. As a result, business leaders are a complex breed with multiple “layers of influence”
that may include:
• Their country of origin
• Their country of education
• Their primary working countries
• The primary countries of peers
• The culture of “internationalism” itself.
These varying cultural influences all shape a business leader’s attitude toward learning. For example, a
Korean who went to school in the United States and now works between Singapore and the United States brings
both Asian and U.S. influences to the table, as well as a certain amount of “cultural objectivity” gained through
high international exposure.
eLearning cannot and should not try to address every cultural nuance of a business leader’s background. The
influences are too many and too complex to make this pursuit worthwhile, except perhaps in the most extreme
of high-value, tailored services. Instead, vendors should present eLearning as a “global” product that deals with
issues beyond those of one country and that talks the language of global business—as well as recognizing the new
era of electronic business. Although companies are likely to deliver such eLearning in English, the content should
avoid an “American” or “British” feel. As far as possible, eLearning for business leaders needs to shed the
trappings of national culture. Such learning should be a part of the culture of global business.
Figure 7, which derives from a study by Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, shows
two more measures of national cultural difference. The vertical scale describes the level
of emotion that individuals in a culture exhibit. Affective cultures often hold heated and
highly engaged debates, whereas neutral cultures are more reserved and factual in their
communications. The horizontal scale indicates whether individuals in a culture focus on
particular things, tasks, or people or whether their attention is more diffuse, taking a
holistic approach to activities and groups of people. Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner’s
work relies on a large database of some 50 000 cases from 100 countries that
Trompenaars has built over time.
33
Figure 7
REGIONAL CULTURES AND eLEARNING TOOLS BY NEUTRALITY AND SPECIFICITY
Neutral
• Resource Center
• Virtual
Classrooms
• Granular Learning
Objects
• U.S. East
Coast
• E-Mail
Communications
• Scandinavia
• Northern
Europe
• Japan
• Blended Learning
• Southeast
Asia
• E-mail
Communications
• East Africa
Specific
Diffuse
• Granular Learning
Objects
• U.S. West
Coast
• Arabia
• Canada
• Simulations and
Games
• South
America
• Simulations and
Games
• Southern
Europe
• Synchronous Platforms
• Synchronous
Platforms
• Virtual Classrooms
• Blended Learning
• Broadband Solutions
• Broadband
Solutions
• Knowledge
Management
Affective
Source: Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner; SRIC-BI
Figure 7 highlights items from the eLearning toolbox that show a good match to the
characteristics of each culture in the Trompenaars/Hampden-Turner taxonomy. eLearning
implications for the categories that Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner identified follow:
• Specific neutral. Leading eLearning regions such as the East Coast of the United States
and Northern Europe (including Scandinavia) fall into this group. As a “specific”
group, this set of learners is likely to respond to the granularity of eLearning,
appreciating learning that does not bog down in background material but cuts straight
to the items the learner needs to know. Learning objects that are accessible during a
work task will appeal to this group, especially if the learning objects genuinely help
with the task. But given that specific cultures tend to compartmentalize aspects of life,
such as learning and work, bridging these aspects to create “learn-as-you-work”
systems could prove difficult. As a neutral culture, this group is comfortable with using
relatively inexpressive media such as e-mail for communications. Some of today’s
relatively simple collaborative-learning systems are therefore suitable for this group.
34
• Diffuse neutral. The Asian countries that use eLearning fall into this group. Granular
learning does not appeal to this diffuse culture because learners typically want to
understand the background and context of new knowledge. Learners in this group can
use learning objects, but such objects need to be an integral part of a more rounded
learning program. Part of the appeal of eLearning might be the option to spend more
time researching and understanding background topics; therefore, some form of
electronic resource center might appeal to this group. This group is comfortable with
inexpressive media, and current forms of collaborative learning are likely to appeal to
it.
• Specific affective. Silicon Valley fits in this group. The granularity of eLearning is
likely to appeal to this specific group. The group is more affective than the other two
groups and therefore prefers highly engaging and interactive communication.
Collaborative learning via e-mail alone is unlikely to appeal to this group, as is Webbased training that isolates the learner from discussions with others. New forms of
media-rich broadband collaborative learning on specific topics are likely to be the most
appealing forms of eLearning for this group. If specific affective companies or
individuals find eLearning appealing, they are likely to embrace it enthusiastically and
may become eLearning “champions” as a result. This enthusiasm for innovations may
also explain why the founders of many eLearning vendor companies come from this
group.
• Diffuse affective. Some regions in the diffuse affective group have been slower to adopt
eLearning than other groups. “Granular” learning does not appeal to this diffuse
culture; learners typically want to understand the background and context of new
knowledge. eLearning needs to provide rounded courses and learning programs. As an
affective culture, this group wants a level of interactive communication that is not
currently available with commercial eLearning (particularly given the bandwidth
constraints in many regions). As bandwidth and products improve, these markets may
begin to open up to eLearning.
35
ADDRESSING CULTURAL ISSUES IN eLEARNING FOR ASIA
In Asia, more than in any other region, creating new ways of learning while meeting cultural expectations is a
highly complex task. Asia’s cultural heritage largely supports formal instructor-led models of learning, but some
companies and governments are starting to question the effectiveness of this style of learning. Some of the demand
for eLearning in Asia comes from companies and governments trying to change worker attitudes—in particular,
to foster more innovative and entrepreneurial behavior.
Individuals’ Motivation for Learning in Asia
In an interview for this report, executives at a Singapore-based company that delivers customized eLearning
solutions offered their personal views of Asians’ learning styles and expectations. For example, they said that
Asian adults tend to focus on the end results of learning because they believe that learning should result in a form
of certification or validation that carries credence with employers and that can result in pay raises, promotions,
or new opportunities.
Even education for a degree can be a bit of a paper chase. For example, many students have little interest in
peripheral subjects or courses, preferring to focus on the core components of their degree programs. Such
specialization and focus also exist in other countries, such as the United States, but these countries often assign
equal value to learning for the sake of learning. In contrast, many Asian parents tend to encourage children to take
career-oriented subjects. Learning for the sake of learning is not a common motivation. Although Asians have
a strong commitment to self-improvement in learning and education, self-improvement efforts often aim to
improve their material lifestyles, not to develop knowledge for its own sake.
Individual Learning Styles in Asia
According to the eLearning executives, Asians prefer a clear learning path or syllabus and like to know all the
goalposts and expected achievements in advance. (This phenomenon is evident in other regions of the world as
well but is more pronounced in Asia.) Asians often want to know exactly what a teacher or superior expects of
them and how they must perform to achieve their goal. They appreciate clear directions and lots of examples.
When receiving feedback, Asians tend to want model answers and “correct” responses, with explanation of why
an answer is correct. They are not satisfied with ambiguous answers and dislike requests to figure out answers
themselves, though this approach certainly has a place in Asian education, especially in high-level practice-based
courses. As a result, Asians tend not to like informal learning, particularly if goals are open-ended.
Although Asians typically prefer to learn in a group, they expect an expert mentor to lead the group. Asians
tend not to want to discuss their views, especially off-the-cuff views, in front of peers, because they fear “losing
face.” During assignments, Asians may also be uncomfortable with activities such as peer reviews and
development of material that is accessible to a wide group. Nonetheless, when Asians do collaborate, especially
to create a public outcome, such as a presentation, they prepare solidly and give each other considerable support.
36
ADDRESSING CULTURAL ISSUES IN eLEARNING FOR ASIA—Concluded
New Demands and Expectations of Governments and Corporations in Asia
The preferences and needs of the individual in Asia seem to contrast with the new preferences and needs of some
corporations and governments. The eLearning executives report that employers are finding that some Asian
workers have difficulty translating their knowledge into action. Employers in Asia are starting to demand learning
programs that encourage Asians to think on their own and to make decisions for themselves. Some Asian
companies and governments see eLearning as a way to encourage more Western behaviors in the marketplace.
This objective is certainly present in Singapore, where the government plans to use eLearning to create more
innovative and entrepreneurial behavior.
Implications for eLearning Vendors
eLearning vendors face a complex situation in Asia because tension exists between the need to meet the cultural
expectations of Asian individuals and the need to meet the requirement of companies and governments that want
to encourage more “Westernized” behavior. The most successful eLearning in Asia will resolve these conflicting
desires, providing eLearning for innovation and creativity while remaining sensitive to Asian learning expectations.
One challenge for vendors is Asians’ emphasis on certification and the end results of learning. Although
eLearning that ends in certification is likely to be successful, other forms of learning—including more informal
learning—may struggle. Learning that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship does not lend itself to testing
and certification. Thus, vendors and users will need to demonstrate to Asians that such learning programs are
“recognized” and will result in rewards.
One eLearning technology that is likely to be popular in Asia is the virtual classroom. Virtual classrooms
allow learning in a group but also provide structure. Most important, expert mentors who set direction for the
group can lead virtual classrooms. A virtual classroom can start off formally but, with the development of trust
and the guidance of the mentor, encourage Asians to share ideas and start collaborating on problems. Thus,
learning aimed at encouraging innovative behavior might begin as a formal virtual classroom and evolve into a
collaborative-learning experience.
For some overseas vendors, the diversity of the Asian market is likely to cause problems. The interviewees
believe that diversity will present particular problems for vendors offering customized “high-touch” solutions.
They believe that major multinationals that try to implement the same eLearning in Asia that they do in other
countries are not likely to succeed in the Asian market. An eLearning backlash could occur if too many companies
treat eLearning as a “quick-and-dirty” solution to save costs rather than an opportunity to serve local needs and
expectations.
Both vendors and users need to be aware of cultural expectations about learning
outside their domestic market and take measures to deal with them. The process is by no
means easy, and this report can provide only a short guide to the sort of cultural nuances
readers might encounter. National culture does not exist in isolation; the corporate culture
also has a strong influence, as does the type of end user (for example, senior business
leaders are more likely to have a “global” outlook than are customer-service staff
members, who may require a greater degree of cultural “localization”). Several strategies
exist for reconciling a type of eLearning with a national culture. Most solutions will
likely mix the following approaches:
37
• Choosing from the eLearning toolbox. Vendors and users can select from the eLearning
toolbox to match the expectations of a national culture, as they can with corporate
culture, although offering learners a range of alternatives is not appropriate in all cases.
For example, Asians who tend to expect formal curriculums will expect someone to
choose their learning medium for them. Some companies may choose to develop a core
set of eLearning objects/components that they can culturally localize for different
markets.
• Changing the marketing focus. In the United States, a series of Web-based courses
needs to emphasize speed, interactivity, and on-demand access, but in Asia, courses
should emphasize the credentials of the content authors. Tailored marketing is equally
important in traditional external marketing and in the internal marketing to promote an
eLearning system inside an organization.
• Providing learning on how to use eLearning. When an eLearning solution does not fit
naturally with a national culture, vendors and users may need to teach employees how
to use eLearning and point out the benefits (for the user). The learning material may be
online, but a mentor can also sit with a learner while he or she uses the material.
Education in how to use eLearning may be particularly useful in Asian companies and
governments that wish to use new forms of learning to change cultural attitudes. Many
Asians may need some guidance and encouragement before they become comfortable
using new forms of learning such as unstructured collaborative-learning systems.
Working with Multinationals: A SmartForce Perspective
Multinational corporations typically need to launch an international rollout to achieve the
full benefits of eLearning. These benefits include:
• Cost-effectiveness, particularly for large numbers of learners
• Distributed learning that allows learning anytime, anyplace, and anywhere
• Content consistency across learning programs
• Knowledge sharing, both within the company and in the extended enterprise.
For multinational users, or for vendors working with multinational clients, the global
working environment presents unique opportunities and challenges. On the positive side,
eLearning opens possibilities that major corporate training and education programs have
not been able to offer before—particularly an opportunity to disseminate knowledge
quickly and consistently via corporatewide eLearning programs. On the negative side,
infrastructure problems will likely combine with a range of national and corporate
cultural issues to complicate eLearning implementation.
The experiences of the eLearning provider SmartForce give insight into the
challenges that multinationals face. According to Laura Overton, SmartForce’s Global
Programs manager, SmartForce is currently working with some 100 global companies,
including Intel, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Xerox, British Airways, Dell, and Ericsson. To
meet these companies’ global needs, SmartForce offers content in Portuguese, Dutch,
Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish.
38
Figure 8
GLOBAL eLEARNING PROJECTS: A SMARTFORCE VIEW
GLOBAL
ENVIRONMENT
CORPORATE
ENVIRONMENT
Technology
Adoption and
Costs
PROJECT
ENVIRONMENT
Culture
Internal
Communications
Presale Challenges
• Capture of Local Intelligence
Internal
Politics
• Local Preference for Local
Vendors
• Local Competitive Activity
Sale
Postsale Challenges
Different
Stages of
Opportunity
• Creation of Local Commitment
Legislation
• Differences in Technical
Infrastructure
• Coordination of Project Team
Corporate
Structure
• Tailoring of the Internal
Marketing Strategy
• Sustained Support for
Repeat Business
Language
Source: SmartForce; SRIC-BI
39
Common
Technology
Platforms
Local
Learning
Opportunities
Figure 8 summarizes SmartForce’s perspective on global eLearning projects. At the
top of the figure are the macro challenges of working in a global environment:
• Culture. SmartForce’s eLearning offerings recognize that people’s needs and
expectations about learning experiences vary considerably by national culture. At a
recent Learning-on-Demand Program meeting in Dublin, Ireland, Bill Beamish,
executive vice president of Product Strategy at SmartForce, said that North Americans
are far more culturally predisposed to eLearning than Europeans. Even so, SmartForce
has a reasonably strong market presence in the United Kingdom and Germany and a
growing presence in most other European countries. In the past couple of years,
SmartForce has expanded its eLearning portfolio, moving beyond Web-based courses
to mentoring and collaborative-learning solutions, for example. As a result, the
company can now tailor eLearning solutions to different national cultures. More
important, SmartForce is increasingly active in the internal marketing of its systems.
This marketing process gives the company an opportunity to resolve cultural
differences by appealing to the various needs and preferences of national cultures.
• Language. Clearly, global eLearning needs to embrace a variety of languages.
SmartForce currently produces content in nine languages, and Overton reports that
demand for first-language material differs with the subject matter. For example,
learners using IT professional content are often more comfortable with Englishlanguage content (even if English is the learner’s second language) than are learners
who use more generic material that teaches them to use office software. This difference
may reflect the fact that IT professionals worldwide have learned to deal with
documentation and software that originally targeted the U.S. market.
• Legislation. Attention to legislative requirements is a key concern in implementing
learning-management systems that store employee information. Many countries restrict
the type of data that companies can store and dictate how, where, and why they store
information. Overton says that German legislation has been a particular challenge for
SmartForce. At one of the monthly eLearning Forum meetings at SRIC-BI’s Silicon
Valley headquarters in July, Saba’s director of International Business, who had just
returned from working in Germany, made a similar statement.
• Different stages of opportunity. Understanding a country’s or culture’s degree of
familiarity with corporate learning programs is important to deliver the right type of
eLearning. For example, countries in which knowledge management and corporate
universities are well-known need one type of solution; countries with less experience
with these practices need another.
• Technology adoption and costs. Significant differences in technology adoption exist
worldwide, even in the top multinational technology companies. Access to the Internet,
intranets, specification of local PCs, and bandwidth can all present problems. Cost is
also an important factor because it changes the eLearning value proposition. For
example, Overton says that classroom training for local students in Africa and India is
very cheap, making eLearning a much harder sell in these areas.
40
• Local learning opportunities. Opportunities to sell up a project often exist at the local
level. For example, the European Computer Driving License (ECDL) is becoming a
popular certification program in Europe, but no demand for this program exists in the
United States. When SmartForce works with a U.S. client with a European office, the
company may suggest some ECDL eLearning for the European office. SmartForce also
stays abreast of subjects or certifications that are specific to a country or region (such as
ECDL) so that it can offer additional eLearning opportunities for international clients.
At the next level of Figure 8 is the corporate environment in which the global client
works. In this arena, vendors must tackle the following issues and challenges:
• Corporate structure. A client’s degree of centralization or decentralization can make a
big difference in eLearning implementations. Centralized organizations tend to control
global eLearning projects from their corporate headquarters, but decentralized
organizations have many decision makers at the local level. This difference can affect
who in the organization commissions eLearning and how the company resolves
problems during the course of the project.
• Common technology platforms. SmartForce has found that global companies most
often do not have a common technology platform.
• Internal politics. Vendors will almost always encounter internal politics. For example,
SmartForce once encountered a European client that threatened to go to other vendors
because the client’s U.S. office had signed the contract.
• Internal communications. Some global companies have weak internal communication
strategies, creating a big problem for the internal marketing of an eLearning program.
SmartForce has faced the following presales challenges with global accounts:
• Local intelligence. Before a sale, SmartForce typically seeks information about
technical problems, cultural issues, and opportunities for additional local training.
Local intelligence sources may include local SmartForce staff, partners, resellers, or
members of the client’s project team.
• Preference for local vendors. Some customers prefer to work with local vendors.
Moreover, some countries, such as France, offer tax incentives for choosing local
suppliers. This preference may be organizationwide (a German company may prefer to
buy German) or hold sway at the division level (a Singapore division of a U.S.
company may prefer to buy Asian eLearning services and products). Of course,
exceptions exist: Some companies may seek out a different approach, perhaps wanting
to look at entrepreneurship from a Silicon Valley perspective or to analyze total quality
management from a Japanese perspective.
• Local competitive activity. SmartForce tries to gain a strong understanding of local
competitive activity and to develop differentiators that can help it overcome
preferences for local suppliers.
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Postsales challenges include the following:
• Development of local commitment. SmartForce has found that if the decision to
purchase an eLearning system does not involve the client company’s local office, the
office is likely to resist the implementation to some degree. This tendency increases if
the company encourages a degree of autonomy in local offices. In some companies,
local offices assert whatever autonomy they believe they have. Similarly, if a project
has central funding, local commitment is likely to be weak. SmartForce has found that
user companies are wise to fund at least part of an eLearning project from local
budgets.
• Differences in technical infrastructure. Global companies often lack global IT
platforms, even when the senior managers in the company believe otherwise.
• Coordination of the international SmartForce team. For global projects, SmartForce
puts together project teams of people from different international offices. For example,
a project team may include staff in the United States, Ireland, and Germany. The
company works hard to ensure that team members in different locations communicate
with each other frequently so that teams can meet the project objectives and milestones.
• Internal marketing. When possible, SmartForce participates actively in the internal
marketing of a new eLearning program in a client organization. This process can
include all types of publicity efforts, such as mail shots, competitions, and road shows.
The company has found that because of variations in cultural expectations, different
marketing strategies work in different regions. Tailoring an overall campaign in local
offices provides maximum effectiveness.
• Support for long-term agreements. SmartForce pursues long-term agreements with
global accounts. Thus, it works hard to develop and sustain relationships, identifying
and suggesting future opportunities. A good understanding of the global environment
that the client works in, as well as an understanding of the corporate culture and
priorities, enables a vendor to achieve more fruitful long-term agreements than it could
otherwise.
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PROTECTING EMPLOYEE DATA IN GERMANY
eLearning players working in Europe for the first time may be surprised by the restrictions that the recent European
Union Data Protection Directive places on the storage of data in learning-management systems (LMSs). Saba,
a leading LMS vendor, sees data regulation in Germany as a key barrier to working in that country.
The EU Directive—which the European Union (EU) implemented in 1998 but which member companies
only recently adopted—requires businesses to adopt national legislation to ensure adequate privacy protection,
particularly when transmitting data in and out of EU member countries. Member countries interpret the law in
different ways, with Italy and Germany adopting the most stringent guidelines. Problems arise for eLearning
systems if, for example, a multinational company wants to send an employee’s eLearning progress report back
to a manager in the United States without that employee’s full consent. Restrictions also determine how long
employers can store employee data, how they can use the information, where they can store the data, and how they
share information. For example, employees may give permission for the human-resources department to access
their eLearning records, but this permission does not entitle their managers to access their data.
Localizing eLearning
Vendors and users can satisfy some cultural expectations of learning by presenting and
marketing the same eLearning solution differently in different countries and regions. In
many cases, however, some aspects of the software itself (including content) may need to
change. If the vendor is ambitious, it may change the pedagogical structure to take
account of different expectations of learning experiences. In the future, these changes
may become possible with learning objects, although the issue is complex and some way
from resolution. Although such a project would push eLearning ahead and possibly
capture new markets, this sort of project will be the exception for the time being. For
now, particularly in multinational learning projects, vendors will likely market a core set
of content to emphasize different benefits—and limit the tailoring of software to avoid
pedagogical changes.
For many international learners, language, and the vast array of cultural nuances
within language, is a fundamental problem. Beyond language itself are problems with
pictures, video, or animations that depict unfamiliar scenes that are clearly from a foreign
country. In eLearning, such factors can be distracting and impede the main event of
learning. Some exceptions do exist—for example, business leaders with an international
outlook are often comfortable using eLearning in a foreign language—but for the vast
majority of users, learning in their native language is more practical and appealing.
Translation is a complex skill, and ensuring that a translation appears natural to a
foreign-language speaker requires an in-depth knowledge of both languages. Moreover,
translation alone is not enough for software products that contain all manner of
multimedia content. The software industry focuses not on translation but on localization.
Localization provider Ge.World Transware (Dublin, Ireland) defines localization as
follows: “Localization is the process of converting media products (generally developed
43
for the United States market) to a form where they are both linguistically and culturally
acceptable in countries outside the original target market. These media products take a
variety of different forms and include software, help, printed documentation, on-line
documentation, web-based documents or multimedia (audio, video, graphics).”
Localization involves a host of linguistic and nonlinguistic factors. When undertaking
a localization effort, Transware considers aspects of the product such as language, humor,
jargon, colloquialisms, slang, gestures, images, people, sounds, fashion, religion, values,
symbols, animals, history, education, law, color sense and sensitivity, political
correctness, and etiquette. According to Transware, the overall aim of localization is to
create a product that is, for example, “essentially French” rather than one that simply
translates words into French.
The concept of localization has been around for some time, and most localization
providers work with many types of software products. Localization began when Lotus
and Microsoft devised development methodologies to make generic products such as
Notes and Office acceptable to overseas markets. Much of this development took place in
Ireland, now the home of many of the world’s leading localization companies.
One or two localization companies have expertise in localizing eLearning. To my
knowledge, Transware is the only localization company that focuses exclusively on
eLearning. LionBridge (Waltham, Massachusetts) localizes eLearning alongside more
generic software products and Web content, focusing on the IT and telecommunications
sectors.
Figure 9 shows Transware’s process for localizing a typical eLearning module. The
process is far easier with the help of a localization partner that can point out potential
pitfalls from the outset.
44
Figure 9
TRANSWARE’S LOCALIZATION PROCESS
Evaluation
Create Kit*
Translate Audio Script
Localize Audio
Translate Art Text
Localize Graphics
Translate Sample Data
Create Localized
Screen Shots
Translate Main Text
Integration
Conduct Live Linguistic Review
Implement Graphic
Fixes
Implement Main Text
Formatting Fixes
Integration
Complete Project Manager Review
Ship to Client
* See the box on page 46.
Source: Transware
45
Implement Screen
Shots Fixes
The evaluation stage encompasses both linguistic and nonlinguistic factors. Among
the nonlinguistic factors that may impede learners’ understanding are complex image
metaphors (for example, an illustration of an adage) or images of people representing
socioeconomic types that are not prevalent or suitable in the destination country. For
example, an image of male and female business associates shaking hands is not culturally
correct in certain Arab nations. Other examples include sporting references or images of
buildings and locations. Transware replaces inappropriate images with other images that
convey the same message but with different visual content. Text for translation appears in
a variety of places outside the main text, which is usually in Hypertext Markup
Language. Text can also appear in audio format, be embedded in graphics, and
(particularly in IT courses) be embedded in screen shots from the product the learner is
learning to use.
LOCALIZING eLEARNING FOR THE ROYAL BANK OF CANADA AND
HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL
The following Transware case study highlights some of the issues that vendors can encounter during a localization
project. The case study illustrates the importance of addressing localization issues early in the design cycle and
of using experienced people.
Project Outline
Harvard Business School Publishing, the Royal Bank of Canada, and McGraw-Hill Ryerson jointly funded the
project.
• Harvard Business School Publishing (HBSP) developed and owned the rights to the titles.
• The Royal Bank of Canada purchased the titles from HBSP for internal end users.
• McGraw-Hill Ryerson (an HBSP distributor) distributed the titles throughout Canada.
Transware’s task was to localize two eLearning titles, which formed part of a master of business
administration program, adapting the U.S. English titles for use by French Canadians. The first title focused on
handling conflict, and the second focused on cross-functional teamwork. The structure of the titles differed and
was extremely complex. The titles did not follow a linear path, instead containing a series of links to audio, movies,
graphics, external and internal text files, and software.
Transware Experience and Lessons
Given that learners could navigate the content via a number of paths, Transware developed a map of all relevant
areas, effectively linking sections containing audio, movies, graphics, external and internal text files, and
software. Actors, graphic artists, engineers, technical integrators, and project managers used this map to
understand how the sections they were working on needed to link to other sections.
46
LOCALIZING eLEARNING FOR THE ROYAL BANK OF CANADA AND
HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL—Concluded
The client instructed Transware to use translation vendors from the Royal Bank of Canada. These vendors
were not familiar with “localization” and had no prior experience working with a multimedia title. To help these
translators through the localization process, Transware created “Localization Kits” that contained files for
translation, guidelines, maps, and other information. To ensure that the project ran smoothly, Transware also
provided support and technical assistance.
During Transware’s evaluation of the source data, the project team realized that the graphics files that the
client had supplied were not in the original graphics format and therefore were difficult to modify. Transware later
learned that no original files were available. As a result, Transware recreated a number of files and redesigned,
cleaned, and completed other files to facilitate successful translation. In addition, Transware encountered
difficulties with the original source code, so its technical teams rewrote some of the code. This extra work would
have been unnecessary if designers of the original product had addressed localization considerations.
According to Transware, almost all eLearning vendors recognize the need for
localization, but only a small number of companies are currently willing to commit the
necessary investment. The decision depends upon many factors, including the size of the
potential market, the resources available, the type of content (for example IT and soft
skills), and the value of the content.
In the next couple of years, successful eLearning vendors will likely increase their
localization investments as they move into international and global markets. Vendors
may have difficulty taking English-language products global: Most markets that are of
interest contain domestic competition that can supply eLearning in the domestic
language. Most buyers who face a choice between a product in their native language and
a foreign-language product will opt for the former because it will have a much greater
reach in their organizations and produce a greater depth of understanding.
Vendors contemplating localization investments should consider the following
factors:
• The intended audience and subject matter may partially determine the level of
localization necessary. IT professionals everywhere are more likely to accept Englishlanguage content than are IT users learning general office applications.
• Vendors should weigh localization investments against the potential return. The return
will depend on the size of potential markets and the stages of opportunity in those
markets.
• As the case study in the box just above indicates, localization is much cheaper to
implement if vendors address the issue early in the design cycle. Transware fosters
partnering relationships with its clients to help guide localization strategies in early
product design. When companies implement these strategies properly, they create a
base international version of the product from which they can create localized versions.
47
This method is easier and cheaper than is localizing after a product’s design and
delivery, at which point the loss of original files and hard-coded text can lead to costly
rewrites and redesigns.
Developing an Action Agenda
Vendors should consider the following action steps:
• Extend corporate cultural-alignment services to include the needs and preferences of
different national cultures. This offering would help position a vendor as an
international player both to investors (looking for companies able to expand globally)
and to overseas customers.
• To begin implementing national cultural-alignment services, consider using a
localization partner to ensure that content and software are suitable for different
nationalities. Vendors should also look beyond localization into possible value-added
consulting services, such as the addition of national-culture specialists to their “culture
teams.” National-culture specialists could help select items from the eLearning toolbox
to match a culture’s needs and help develop compelling internal marketing messages
for that culture. Corporate- and national-culture specialists need to work together to
balance the two layers of cultural influence.
• Develop local intelligence in the markets the company is likely to work in. Vendors
could perhaps gain such intelligence through the global network of vendors and users
that participate in SRIC-BI’s LoD program. Local intelligence can help vendors
develop eLearning for particular countries or regions. For example, content vendors can
work with local experts or “gurus” to create new eLearning for a country or region.
Local experts not only have knowledge about the market, but in some cases carry
“brand value” that can make the eLearning attractive to potential users.
Users should consider the following action steps:
• Avoid treating eLearning as a “quick fix” and rolling out the same eLearning solutions
worldwide. If eLearning does not meet the needs of different national cultures, and
indeed different corporate subcultures, an initiative could suffer a backlash and the
investment could go to waste. For multinational users, a tension will always exist
between the need for consistency in learning programs and the push to meet local needs
and expectations. As far as possible, users should involve branch offices in large
eLearning projects early on. If local offices are part of the decision-making process,
they are more likely to support the initiative as it moves forward.
• In developing or purchasing customized content, ensure that the company addresses
any localization requirements at the start of the design cycle.
48
• For Asian users, recognize that the use of eLearning to foster more entrepreneurial and
innovative behavior will face greater challenges than a similar initiative will face in
Western countries. Many Asians expect a traditional, structured form of learning that
takes place under the guidance of tutors. Users could “evolve” eLearning solutions,
moving learners from structured to unstructured material to encourage knowledge
sharing and experimentation. For example, a virtual classroom may, over time, shift
toward collaborative learning as the tutor builds up trust and steps back from guiding
the session.
• In selecting a vendor, ensure that candidates have experience (and success, with backup
by solid references) implementing eLearning in a variety of cultures.
• Examine, and learn from, the experience of eLearning early adopters in dealing with
corporate and national cultural issues.
IDENTIFYING INTERNATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES: THE ROLE OF
CULTURAL FACTORS
Adopting a Framework for Identifying Opportunities
In addition to assessing the possible impacts of national culture on eLearning
implementations, vendors that want to make a play for the global eLearning market need
also to consider the role of national culture in defining international eLearning
opportunities. When assessing an international opportunity, vendors need to consider how
closely their product or service matches the needs and expectations of a national culture.
If the product seems not to meet cultural needs, vendors can adapt the product or service,
create a new offering, or perhaps decide not to enter the market.
As Figure 10 shows, matching a product to a national culture is just one of several
“opportunity filters” that vendors need to consider. The figure also shows the opportunity
signals on the demand and supply sides that indicate that a country is ready for eLearning
adoption. From a cultural perspective, the most important opportunity signal is an
accelerating rate of change in the general business environment. Rapid change usually
brings a shift in some aspects of a national culture. Change can create demand for
eLearning, and eLearning can also help effect the change.
49
Figure 10
IDENTIFICATION OF INTERNATIONAL eLEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
Opportunity Signals
(Demand Side)
• Accelerating Rate of
Change in the General
Business Environment
and Shrinking Half Life
of Knowledge
Opportunity Signals
(Supply Side)
Ongoing Local
Intelligence
• Inadequacy of Current
Learning Models and
Need for Greater OnDemand Learning
• Corporate Recognition
of the Value of
Knowledge (Knowledge
Management and
Corporate Universities)
• Distributed and Mobile
Workforces
• High Cost of Traditional
Learning
• Shortage of Skilled
Workers
• Adoption of Electronic
Business
Match between
Product and
Culture
Channels
to Reach
Opportunity
Match
between
eLearning
Product and
Opportunity
Technology
Infrastructure
Compatibility
of Product
with
Legislation
Match between
Product and
Learning
Attitudes
Language/
Localization
Requirement
Opportunity
Filters
• Existing Regional
Network
Infrastructure
• Ubiquitous
Desktop
Computers with
Access to an
Intranet and/or
the Internet
• Decreasing Cost
of Computing
Equipment and
Network Access
• Presence of
KnowledgeManagement
and ElectronicBusiness
Vendors in the
Region
• Presence of
Local Vendors of
eLearning
Products and
Services (which
Raise
Awareness)
Potential
Opportunity
Source: SRIC-BI
50
Opportunity signals include some “hard” measures such as technical infrastructure,
the cost differential between traditional learning and eLearning, and skills shortages.
Softer factors include the rate at which companies are adopting electronic-business
practices, the strategic value that companies put on knowledge (perhaps evident in their
adoption of knowledge-management and corporate-university initiatives), and the level of
awareness of eLearning.
Opportunity signals only point toward a potential opportunity for an eLearning
vendor. After identifying a potential opportunity, vendors need to assess a company and
its product against the following opportunity filters:
• Ongoing local intelligence. Vendors need ongoing access to learning professionals in
the target country to stay abreast of local competitive activity and the changing needs
of companies in the region. Local intelligence can help vendors assess threats and
opportunities on a continual basis. Local intelligence also provides a good inside source
on a country’s culture.
• Channels to reach opportunity. Vendors clearly need a sales and distribution channel to
reach the target country, through a local office, reseller, or partner.
• Compatibility with legislation. Some vendors may encounter legislation that prevents
them from implementing their standard solutions. This issue is likely to be of particular
concern to providers of learning-management systems that store personal data.
• Language/localization requirement. Vendors need to consider whether their target
market will expect a localized eLearning product. If so, they need to evaluate the
potential return on any localization investment.
• The match between the product and the technical infrastructure. Vendors need to
consider the typical Internet/intranet infrastructure of companies in the target country,
including bandwidth and the specification of desktop computers. Simplification of
media-rich content may be necessary in some cases.
• The match between the product and learning attitudes. The typical attitudes of a region
help determine how advanced an eLearning solution can be and how difficult a sale
will be. For example, if knowledge management and corporate universities are rare, and
training generally occurs through ad hoc classroom courses, more-complex eLearning
solutions are likely to appear too radical for some users. The importance that
companies place on learning is also an important gauge of the potential size of the
opportunity; strategic learning projects are likely be of higher value than operational
learning projects. Vendors also need to ascertain the appropriate level to approach
within the organization for a sale, whether it be local training managers or the CEO.
• The match between product and culture. This report highlights the importance of
ensuring that an eLearning product is suitable for a particular culture and offers ideas
and analysis to help vendors assess the suitability of their products for a national
culture.
51
TAKING A GLOBAL POSITION: eLEARNING VENDORS AND
INTERNATIONAL EXPANSION
The Ireland-based start-up PrimeLearning.com has ignored its domestic European market and targeted North
America. CEO Terry O’Brien believes that the U.S. market is at least a year ahead of Europe in its awareness of
eLearning. O’Brien also believes that many U.S. companies are eager to experiment with eLearning and that this
level of experimentation is less common in most of Europe.
Starting with the North American market makes sense for a company that wants to grow quickly in today’s
eLearning industry. Though PrimeLearning.com is still small, its stated (and very ambitious) aim is to be one of
the top three providers of eLearning solutions within 18 months. O’Brien believes that neither Asia nor Europe
will catch up in this time frame, and he is probably right. Nevertheless, more competition exists in the United
States, so success is not a foregone conclusion.
According to O’Brien, PrimeLearning.com aims to be “perceived as an American company with an Irish
development center” rather than as an Irish company operating in the U.S. market. This focus has more to do with
investors than with customers. O’Brien believes that investors perceive U.S. dot-com companies as more likely
to succeed than their European counterparts. He also believes that this perception stems from the dynamic,
innovative culture often present in U.S. start-ups. O’Brien is keen to have his company “thinking and working
as an American company,” which he believes will give it the greatest chances of success. PrimeLearning.com’s
U.S. headquarters is in Stamford, Connecticut, and the company has another office in San Jose, California.
Another company taking up U.S. residence to reach a global market is Sweden-based Intermezzon.
Intermezzon has an established client base in the Nordic region but is now expanding into the United States in
preparation for a global push. CEO Patrik Malmberg says that contracts with the European arms of U.S.
companies—including Sun Microsystems, Cisco, and Autodesk—gave Intermezzon its entry to the U.S. market.
Intermezzon has been able to use these contracts as reference accounts to win the confidence of other U.S. firms.
Malmberg sees Swedish and European businesses beginning to make faster decisions. However, he believes that
this faster decision making is because of greater use of information technology, not because of a desire to emulate
North American business practices. Like PrimeLearning.com, Intermezzon will undertake all development
activity in Europe, primarily because of the costs of developing products in California’s Silicon Valley and
difficulties finding staff there. Malmberg does not see Sweden as “behind” the U.S. in eLearning; rather he sees
it as a different market.
52
Harnessing Change as a Driver for eLearning
Regions facing rapid change—in their overall economic, business, social, and cultural
environment—are promising new markets for eLearning. In the short term, these regions
will be wild, chaotic markets, but vendors that establish themselves early will reap the
rewards as the markets mature. Strategies for working in these new markets include
teaming with local private and public organizations to pilot eLearning, bundling
eLearning with existing products or services, and selling direct. Regions facing rapid
change will need learning tools to help equip and reskill their people for the new
environment:
• Rapid change will require companies to do things differently. “Business as usual” will
come to an end, companies will need new learning mechanisms to keep up with the
changes around them.
• To remain competitive in a fast-changing environment, companies will need to create
more cost-effective operations such as eLearning to replace classroom training.
• Individual workers will have difficulty keeping up with change and will find that they
need to learn more frequently (or even continuously). As a result, they will find
increasing value in eLearning.
• As economies open up and embrace leading technology, the use of computers and
mobile devices will become far more common, especially among young people. The
Internet will become an increasingly natural channel for learning, as an extension of
entertainment and communications media.
Table 5 highlights the countries that—through interviews with political scientists and
economists—the LoD program has identified as candidates for accelerated change, and
thus for accelerated eLearning adoption, in the next two to three years. As the table
shows, a variety of political, economic, and cultural factors are likely to drive accelerated
change.
53
Table 5
eLEARNING OPPORTUNITIES THROUGH ACCELERATED CHANGE
Country
China
Reasons for Accelerated Change
Implications for eLearning
• Political leaders’ growing recognition of
information-technology (IT) opportunities
• Growing interest by U.S. and European
eLearning companies in emerging Asian
markets, with partnerships between
foreign firms and private and public
organizations in China
• Government recognition that the country
will suffer competitively if policies
continue to prevent full exploitation of IT
and Internet technologies
• Emergence of a new business, social,
and cultural environment in response to
technology and business imperatives
and the needs and preferences of young
people
• Entry into the World Trade Organization
• Inability to meet rising demands for
education and training with traditional
means
Hungary/
Poland/
Czech
Republic
• Interest by overseas Chinese
entrepreneurs in participating in the
emerging eLearning growth market,
especially by serving as
inter(info)mediaries between Chinese
customers and foreign eLearning
vendors
• New interest in emerging opportunities in
Asia, particularly in China, by vendors
whose IT-focused eLearning markets in
North America and Europe are maturing
• Recognition that the eLearning cost per
learner declines significantly when
spread across a very large user group
• Opportunities for IT and Internet
companies in the United States and
Europe (such as Cisco, Hewlett-Packard,
and Autodesk) to bundle eLearning
services and products with their core
products for the Chinese market
• Entry into the European Union (EU), or
actions to meet entry requirements
• Greater embrace of eLearning by
schools and universities, partly following
lead of other EU institutions
• Reputation among foreign investors as
the most attractive and interesting
countries in Eastern Europe
• Growing integration with other EU
countries, leading to greater openness
• Spread of entrepreneurial culture and
use of IT and Internet (partly because
the telecommunications infrastructure is
improving, both in quality and in
affordability
54
• Increased use of eLearning content from
institutions in the EU and North America
• Companies’ recognition of the growing
need to train employees to stay
competitive, especially as labor costs
increase upon joining the EU
Table 5—Continued
Country
India
Reasons for Accelerated Change
• Growing recognition that old, rigid, and
bureaucratic ways are threatening the
country’s competitiveness
• Rapid growth of the IT sector and
entrepreneurial success by Indian
expatriates in Europe and North America
• Ability of the Indian Institutes of
Technology to produce highly skilled
engineers familiar with Western ways of
working
• Growth in available venture funding
worldwide to fuel start-ups in India
• Growing domestic use of IT and the
Internet to extend high-quality learning to
people who currently lack access to such
learning resources
Korea
Implications for eLearning
• Through assistance of the World Bank
and other organizations, greater access
by schools to quality learning resources
via the Internet
• Ability of highly skilled Indian expatriates
around the world to contribute
knowledge—in formal and/or informal
learning channels and communities—to
learners around India
• Ability of U.S. and other multinationals to
use eLearning programs to train workers
who can work remotely, from India, thus
avoiding the visa and immigration
problems that accompany the import of
foreign workers
• Existence of world-class educational
institutions
• Growth in alliances and joint-venture
arrangements between experienced U.S.
and European eLearning companies and
Indian organizations that can help
localize learning modules and participate
in sales and marketing
• Payoff of years of government efforts to
reduce the heavy dominance of the large
Korean conglomerates (chaebols)
• Greater awareness of eLearning
because of new eLearning start-ups in
the country
• A recent economic recession that forced
Korean chaebols to restructure and slim
down their operations, leaving room for
smaller, entrepreneurial firms
• Potential for chaebols, which now
struggle with costly old ways of training
(including large, physical training
centers), to recognize that eLearning can
serve them better
• A pool of young, well-educated Koreans
seeking new business opportunities in
the digital economy
• A significant increase in available
venture capital to help the society
modernize, make greater use of
technology, and open up to more foreign
companies
• Reduced political tension with North
Korea that would reduce the role of the
U.S. and Korean military in the country
and free up resources
• Rapid embrace of the Internet and
electronic commerce
55
• Steps by some chaebols to spin off
separate eLearning units, most of which
aim to deliver courses over the Internet
• A large number of U.S.-trained
managers and executives who are
strong candidates for U.S.-created
eLearning content from companies like
Pensare or Quisic, as well as Harvard
University and others that are now
targeting eLearning content at corporate
executives
Table 5—Concluded
Country
Mexico
Reasons for Accelerated Change
Implications for eLearning
• Potential for dramatic structural and
policy changes in the wake of the recent
presidential election
• Greater government support of
eLearning investments in schools and
universities and accelerated investment
in hardware and software
• Likelihood that political changes will lead
to a more open and competitive
economy, in which Mexican firms
globalize rapidly and foreign firms have
renewed interest in entering Mexico
• Liberalization that is likely to stimulate IT
investment and the embrace of the
Internet
• Mexican firms’ recognition that they must
follow their foreign competitors’ lead in
embracing eLearning, both to stay
competitive and to help their workers
keep up with change
• Growth of Internet service providers that
can make the investments necessary to
give firms and consumers Internet
access
• Lower-cost phone calls, which will
stimulate consumers’ use of the Internet
• Falling prices of other IT hardware and
software that will also stimulate
investments to encourage eLearning in
both firms and households
• Rise of young people with more technical
expertise and Internet comfort within
government and industry
Singapore
• Major government initiatives to
deregulate the economy and give “new
economy” entrepreneurs more freedom
to start new companies
• Recognition by the government that the
traditional school system and ways of
learning are insufficient in these new
times
• Country’s ambition to be the regional
“knowledge hub” of Southeast Asia,
which requires a well-educated and
knowledgeable workforce
• In this top-down economy, a major role
for government in pushing eLearning
• Government incentives for private-sector
firms to invest in IT and for individuals
and firms to take more risk, leading to
greater acceptance and use of the
Internet for electronic commerce and
eLearning
• Likelihood that affiliates of some
(especially U.S.) foreign firms—such as
financial services companies—have
used eLearning already but will now see
other institutions (including Japanese
local banks and brokerages) trying to
catch up
• Competitive pressure for firms to use
eLearning in their value chains and
intranets
Source: SRIC-BI
56
Developing an Action Agenda
Vendors should consider the following action steps:
• Find external networks of people inside and outside the eLearning industry who can
help the company monitor eLearning opportunity signals around the world. SRIC-BI’s
LoD program is building a global eLearning network that may help fulfill this function.
• Access networks of people and domain specialists who can help the company test its
products and services against the opportunity filters. Vendors that have national-culture
specialists on their culture teams will be at an advantage. (Again, the LoD network, as
well as the eLearningForum (see http://eLearningforum.com ), may help companies
find individuals with the relevant skills and expertise.)
• Adopt the framework for identifying international opportunities in this report (or a
variant of it) to demonstrate a clear methodology for international expansion to
investors and potential investors.
• Consider a variety of strategies, including partnerships, acquisitions, and the bundling
of eLearning with other products and services that are already on sale in a newly
targeted region (this approach is particularly useful for multinational vendors). Another
approach is to identify one of the “change catalysts” in the region and create a reference
account with that company or government. For example, in Singapore, the government
is the key change catalyst, so an eLearning project for the government would likely
open doors elsewhere as change in the region begins to accelerate.
Users in emergent eLearning countries should consider the following action steps:
• Determine where accelerating change is likely to have the greatest effect—in both
threats and opportunities—and examine how eLearning can either help cope with the
threat or exploit the new opportunities.
• Anticipate and plan for emergent changes, and try to align eLearning plans with
strategic business goals. Reaching these goals may be easier and faster through the use
of eLearning.
• Examine how companies in other countries have used eLearning to deal with similar
kinds of social, economic, political, and technological change.
• Build an eLearning culture team that can help ensure successful design and
implementation of future eLearning programs.
57
PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER
Linking Corporate and National Cultures
Although this report examines corporate culture and national culture in turn, users and
vendors working with eLearning will inevitably encounter both national and corporate
cultural issues at the same time during an eLearning project. Indeed, within an
organization, national culture and corporate culture are distinct yet overlapping forces. A
corporate culture may share some characteristics with a national culture, but it will also
have its own values and beliefs that differentiate it from other companies in the same
industry. When working within the corporate culture, the eLearning team will need to
recognize cultural issues that reflect the national culture as well as cultural issues that are
unique to the organization. In addition, the team may encounter one or more corporate
subcultures. Although these subcultures will share some of the main corporate culture’s
values and beliefs, they will also have values and beliefs of their own.
Large eLearning projects for multinationals are more complex than are those in
relatively homogeneous cultures. As Figure 11 shows, a multinational corporation is
likely to contain cultural values from several national cultures. National cultures may also
interact with corporate subcultures. Thus, a major eLearning project for a multinational
may need to work across multiple national cultures and multiple corporate subcultures.
eLearning vendors and users need to balance the priorities of the cultures they
encounter to arrive at a suitable and appealing eLearning solution. Corporate- and
national-culture analysts can help users and vendors understand and rank the varying
cultural demands that face an eLearning project. When an eLearning team understands
the needs and priorities of a specific project, it can use the tools and framework in this
report to choose a suitable solution from the eLearning toolbox and to tailor marketing
messages to meet cultural expectations. When cultural demands are particularly complex
(such as in major eLearning projects for multinationals), vendors and users should
consider offering learners a selection of eLearning tools to work with and “localize”
marketing campaigns to meet the needs and expectations of the cultures that are part of
the project.
58
Figure 11
INTERPLAY OF NATIONAL AND CORPORATE CULTURES IN A MULTINATIONAL eLEARNING PROJECT
Corporate
Culture
National Culture A
National Culture B
National Culture C
National Culture D
Corporate
Subculture A
Corporate
Subculture B
Corporate
Subculture C
National Culture E
= Scope of eLearning Project
Source: SRIC-BI
Exploring the Likelihood of Cultural Convergence
Are differences between corporate cultures shrinking because of globalization and
electronic business? If so, will understanding cultural differences matter less for future
eLearning?
Certainly, changes in the business environment are affecting many industries in many
countries. Globalization and the impact of the Internet are forcing many companies to
reassess their business practices and methodologies. One possible outcome is that
corporate cultures will begin to converge to cope with these changes.
In fact, the convergence of corporate cultures seems unlikely. In 1986, SRIC-BI’s
Business Intelligence Program (B-I-P) distinguished strategic corporate culture from
operational corporate culture (see Figure 12). A B-I-P report at the time demonstrated
that a company that behaves much like another in the external environment can behave
quite differently internally (the report contrasted the operational cultures of Coca-Cola
and Pepsi in the 1980s, despite similar outward behavior). In the past 15 years, this
picture has changed somewhat as more companies have focused outward and stripped
59
down or outsourced aspects of the business that do not have a direct impact on customers
or shareholders. But the core point remains: Similar external behavior in dealing with
specific business issues such as the Internet can mask differences in the corporate
cultures governing that behavior.
Figure 12
STRATEGIC AND OPERATIONAL CULTURES
Operational
Culture
Values and
Behavior Unique to
the Organization
Satisfaction of the
Needs of Internal
Stakeholders
Strategic
Culture
Values and
Behavior Subject
to the Influence of
the External
Environment
Human
Values
in
Action
Satisfaction of the
Needs of the
Marketplace
External
Environment
• Suppliers
• Partners
• Customers
• Competitors
• Investors
Source: SRIC-BI
Many organizations may try to adopt behaviors that are successful in other
companies, but few organizations will change their core underlying beliefs. As
companies try to transform their corporate cultures to meet the demands of the changing
business environment, most will change their statements about the values they believe in
(espoused values), some will manage to change some of their artifacts (their behavior),
but very few will manage to effect the corporate culture change necessary to change
underlying beliefs. By definition, core underlying beliefs are long-standing and slow to
change. One aspect of corporate change that will be important to watch will be the role of
eLearning in effecting and sustaining culture change.
Capturing Opportunities in eLearning and Culture
The two broad opportunities that have emerged from this report are:
• Aligning eLearning with culture
• Using eLearning to help create and sustain cultural change.
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Opportunities exist at both the national-culture and corporate-culture levels. This report
does not discuss the use of eLearning to create and sustain change in national cultures
because this task is domain of governments—not of the companies that sponsor the
Learning-on-Demand Program. However, interest in the area clearly exists: For example,
the government of Singapore is interested in eLearning that can promote more innovative
and entrepreneurial behavior. Games and simulations could well find application in such
projects. For example, eLearning designs could enable electronically based “learning by
doing” and thus help change behavior over time.
For eLearning vendors, cultural-alignment teams can provide value-added services
and help position them as solution providers—much in line with the level of service that
large and small organizations increasingly expect from their eLearning providers. These
solutions will more often take the form of fully hosted or outsourced solutions, especially
if the learning in question is not “high-level” learning that is close to the core competence
of the company.
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