Complexity of Cross-Cultural Management in Shanghai Calling

Performance criteria and goals are best established by combining the values and norms of each local environment with the home-office’s performance standards. An individual country profile should be developed and should take into account the foreign subsidiary’s environment. This profile should be used to review any factors that may have an effect on the expatriate employee’s performance. Such factors include language, culture, politics, labor relations, economy, government, control, and communication.

Cross Cultural management explains the behaviour of people in organizations worldwide, helping managers and firms to understand how to act in business matters dealing with the different cultures. (Adler, 2008)

It is critical to organizations because the employees are from different cultural backgrounds. These distinctions have to be considered when making decisions because they have an impact on formal work relationships and performance. This understanding is more paramount to multinational organizations because they have business operations right at the heart of different cultures in the various countries. The success of global firms depends on how well the management handles the cultural differences and uses them to the advantage of the

Managers are responsible for using resources, including personnel, to ensure a company’s success by meeting its overall goals and objectives. This alone can be a challenge, but when operations cross national borders, it can be particularly difficult. Mangers face unpredictable and sometimes hostile environments in areas they often know little about. In their book “Management Across Cultures,” Richard Steers, Carlos Sanchez-Runde, and Luciara Nardon discuss ten specific people related challenges managers face that can mean the difference between success and failure in the global market (Steers, Sanchez-Runde, & Nardon, 2010).

globalization is prevalent in the world business. Developing countries such as China and India have therefore, become appealing markets to foreign investors. It is anticipated that China and India will soon be the world’s biggest economies. Presently, eighty percent of the electronic goods globally are manufactured in china. This has resulted to more western companies wanting to invest in china as opposed to other countries. Unfortunately, there is intercultural management problem with the unprecedented increase in cooperation between the developing nations and the western counterparts which are culturally different.

This essay concluded various factors that may affect workplace behaviour in a cross-cultural environment such as diversity, multiculturalism, ethnocentrism, stereotypes, cultural differences, barriers and cultural intelligence will be discussed. Furthermore, analyse the differences in national cultures and differences in political, social and economic systems in order to help managers succeed in a foreign country. Moreover, the essay has investigated how Australian managers concentrate on decision-making and intercultural communication as a result of operating business successfully.

Brail can be classified into two cultures; the upper class and the non-westernized rural culture. The most prominent reason multinational businesses fail abroad is because they are unaware of the culture. Therefore, it is imperative that managers learn to adopt and implement distinct ways of working in this country. In addition to learning a new language, a manager should become a part of the cultural processes.

This essay will mainly talk about an article taken from The Australian titled, “Companies don’t understand China, says KPMG”. The main challenge faced by Australia in doing business with China is the cultural barrier, particularly the language difference. Additionally, Australia also has limited experience with and information on Chinese business customs, in comparison with other countries. Besides analysing the issues highlighted in the article, factors that also led to these issues will also be discussed. This essay will link some relevant theories learned from International Management subjects, such as Cross-Cultural Communications, Managing across Culture, and Conflicts of Cross-Cultural Communications. Strategies such as learning Chinese language and culture, joining the KPMG China Confidence program and increasing awareness of the ways China prefers to conduct business will also be discussed. In the last section of this essay, conclusion will be given.

Both the authors have taken descriptive approach to elaborate in detail their respective areas of cross cultural management. As per article, “Rethinking Cross Cultural Management in a Globalizing Business World” by Soderberg & Holden (2002), due to globalisation and its increasing trend, the organisations and its environment has gone through significant changes. Thus the traditional way of defining the cross cultural management needs amendments. Further the author has elaborated that in this commitment the authors are contending for a split far from the conventional method for considering and portraying diverse administration for two fundamental reasons. To begin with, the winning idea of society as-substance, which in this logical connection is vigorously connected with national societies (and, by augmentation, country states) is distant with the hypothetical improvements of conceptualization of society and character. Moreover a conceptualization of hierarchical and national society’s too characterized and homogeneous substances is out of stage with the new economy, with its accentuation on systems administration, hierarchical learning and information as the fundamental hierarchical asset, which rises above firm, industry, and national limits. Second, the new economy requires not simply new skills and 'worldwide education but also needs to adopt 'the worldwide attitude'. A globalizing business world too needs suitable calculated apparatuses and expository methodologies of advantage to both analysts besides, specialists. Consequently the article “Cross cultural Differences in Management” by Amman & Jordan (2012) has concluded that due to cross cultural environments, the managers can encounter different impact on different areas of management. These impacts can create many limitations and barriers on different areas of business. Therefore, managers of the

As we revel in the wake of Globalization, models of organizations and styles of management are becoming increasingly similar. However, this conversion has a limit. Some cross-cultural differences will not disappear so easily and managers will have to understand and appreciate these cultural ‘oddities' if they wish to run a successful business.

Managing a global business with offices in several countries requires excellent cross cultural management skills. The technological development of laptops, mobile phones and internet accessibility has made it near impossible to only interact with people from one culture; in fact it allows many to do business in various areas of the globe, interact and communicate with managers and employees in international offices, and develop a relationship with others through several behavioural etiquette recommendations. The topic of culture has been widely discussed in a variety of instances, and the idea of developing a ‘cultural identity’ for either an individual or a business can be a scary thought, however if accurate research into other cultures and behaviours is completed, organisations and employees should be able to develop empathy and self-confidence. The term ‘culture’ has been defined time and time again and has been vastly overused; however a solid definition has been created by Geert Hofstede, “Culture is the collective programming of the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category of people from others”. (Pieper, 1990) Working in teams of international origin can be rather difficult. The concept of a ‘team’ is usually defined as a number of people working together to achieve a common purpose and be jointly responsible for the work they do, including those working both inside and outside the organisation. (Browaeys et al 2011) Developing

Face to those options and wide resource, the managers in global enterprises have particular concern about the employees’ ability to disseminate knowledge and innovation throughout their global operations . The use of expatriates has seemed to be a logical choice for staffing, while the use of parent-country nations seems to be most appropriate in some specific situation . Some other global enterprises also prefer integrate the expatriates and local human resource. Nevertheless, each procedure has both advantage and disadvantage.

This paper is a report on cross-cultural management, with the issues related to cross-cultural management being discussed in the paper. Additionally, the report has produced the future way of cross-cultural management, including how it can be improved in offices relying much on this strategic approach.

According to the works of Chaney & Martin (2011) and Harris & Moran (2000), they agree that international management skills are in need for the increasing scope of international trades and investments. A large number of multinational companies have expanded their businesses through both developed and developing countries. Some of the business invest directly and others are partnership arrangements and strategic alliances with domestic operations. Their studies show that independent entrepreneurs and small businesses have started investing and competing in the world marketplace. Thus, to acquire corporations’ objectives, there is exceedingly a necessity for the development of strategic framework for cross-cultural management and communication in the current competitive global market. Chaney & Martin (2011) also noted that, cultural awareness and cultural differences are strongly important to the multinational corporations’ success. A good understanding of the culture where business is implemented can make international managers productive and effective.

There are also disadvantage associated to ethnocentric approach are adaptability problems because the key person(s) are not from the local country, they may not understand the differences of culture and environment between their home country and local. Conflicts with local employees, using expatriate employees to staff international subsidiaries can lead to an increase in the number of foreigners being employed at subsidiaries. The differing cultures between the expatriates employees and local employees may cause misunderstanding. Local companies may think that parent companies do not trust them and this may disincentive effect on local management morale and motivations. High costs, parent companies need to pay travel, residential, salaries, and other such expenses for expatriate employees and in most cases, the salaries for expatriate employees are much higher than salary for someone local. After assignments, normally a long-term oversea assignment is several years. The corporations need to have necessary arrangements on where the expatriates will go, and what they will do when they finish their assignments. Expatriate may not be able to adapt back