The purpose of this paper is to identify and to characterize the problems and their causes listed in the case of the Floundering Expatriate, also to recommend solutions to those problems. We see three major issues lying at the heart of the problems of the multicultural business organization according to The Case of Floundering Expatriate article. These are culture, communication, and leadership and motivation. Bert Donaldson’s resume is impressive: he was a professor of American studies in Cairo, Egypt for 5 years and while in the Unites States, Bert made major improvements to the organizational structure by implementing cross-functional teams, achieved considerable cost reductions, and much more. He also had very good personal characteristics: Bert was charismatic, very sharp, a hard worker, and a good leader within the US. But why Bert Donaldson didn`t have much success when he was transferred to work in Europe? Mr. Donaldson was a star performer in the States, but when he is trying to apply the same approach in Europe, he does not have much success and support, he feels anxious, confused and strained. It looks like in Europe Bert is experiencing a cultural shock. The cultural issues have come to a fore since the arrival of Donaldson who has struggled to come to terms with European culture. He is unable to adjust and as such he has not been as successful in transforming the European subsidiary like he had in Detroit. Cultural issues we see as the core
Not only the country are able to attract different varieties of professionals around the globe for which they can contribute towards a society, but also these professionals are able to consider the country as their home. It is such a win-win situation. In the society of multiculturalism, it will promote cultural awareness among the employees in the working environment and these employees who are exposed to the different views will tend to think creatively. An association with the occurrence of cultural experience can promote flexibility and create a strong team as they are able to provide empathy with each other as they interact with each other. Since the employees are well adapted to the multicultural environment, they are able to attract different types of customers in regards to their culture as the employees tend to be more flexible and communicative. As a result, businesses may benefit from the culturally diverse workforce as they will engage in a larger social network for which it can generate different products and services that is due to the creative and innovative thinking among the employees. Thus, it can be well reasoned that companies with a well diversified workforce is at an advantage because it will offer varieties products that has the ability to attract customers from several ethnic groups, thus it will lead to an increase in customer base that facilitates in capturing the global market and earn profits rather
This report in this section will be discussed about leadership of managing diversity. Since the industrial revolution, the world economy had been developed rapidly. Especially after the end of World War Two, there are many multinational companies, which puts forward new requirements for the development of management. As a organizational decision makers and leaders, they also have a new understanding of leadership and organizational problems in the new era. Therefore, managing diversity as an important part of the problem with leadership is more and more widely accepted. It
International assignments, or the act of sending employees to different countries on project assignments, are a growing trend. Because international assignments are typically very expensive, failure can have big impacts on the business. It is imperative to hire more reliable and effective international assignees. The following are criteria that should be used to select the appropriate candidate: 1-Use of a selection panel which consists of a manager from the function being recruited for, staff who have detailed knowledge of living working and conducting business in the intended
Multicultural teams have become more common in our organizations, and contemporary international management literature has identified that the management of multicultural teams is an
As the United States population continues to become more diverse, it is important for society to develop culture awareness; organizations need to especially embrace diversity. Thus, diversity is essential to an organization to market to all different cultural backgrounds. As it is also a vital factor towards an organization performance and success.
Yes, multiculturalism does contribute to the advantage of an organization in many ways, it will provide multiple opportunities, will cut company’s costs, and it exposes
The company should create and give information on cultural awareness, knowledge and training that allows the expatriates and Barracanians alike to see the entire picture and improves the quality of respect, trust and work outcomes. This cultural diversity dimensions should cover the information on race, education, age, thinking style, economic status, work experience, family status and values. The information may help bring together all the expatriates and the Barracanians to the organization so that they will appreciate each other cultural value. Respecting individual differences in the organizations can contribute cooperation, trust and respect for each
In the case “Managing a Global Team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems, Inc. Tsedal Neeley states that lack of inappropriate communication, leadership and decision-making is root of the crisis of HS Holdings. Overall, cultural diversity is based on the idea that cultural identities should not be discarded or ignored but rather maintained and valued. In view of this, diverse cultural differences can result in organizational problems. Firstly, identify your techniques to manage his global team and recognize the root of problems. Secondly, identify you should be responsible for the crisis of HS Holdings because of miscommunication and improper leadership. Thirdly, defining the important role of open work environment and diversity play in the case in order to focus on improvement of this two. Fourthly, finding out short-term development and long-term development for James to match solving organizational problem. At the end, summing all findings in a conclusion . Mentioning Greg, he is an unquestionable technical elites. After he earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from Stanford University, he chose to work for the Sun Inc. Within four years, he had risen in the Data Protection and Recovery Department. Five years later, he achieved the Sun outstanding Manager award. (Neeley and Delong 5) Now, James works on a global team management position where he is struggling with team management. Within the team there was a lot of stress being built up
When referring to multicultural management, communication issues are usually the first to be considered due to
The hospitality industry around the globe is characterized by the existence of diversified workforce. As a result, it requires highly skilled Human Resource Management (HRM). The research paper here tries to acknowledge the impact of diversified workforce and how management handles their employees from different cultural backgrounds. The paper gives a brief background of the story, followed by an extensive literature review. The literature review section focuses on various theories and models of eminent authors and research scholars. The theories aim at providing knowledge regarding the benefits, challenges and opportunities of having a diversified culture in the organizations. While some authors emphasize on adopting diversification in the companies, others point out the disadvantages related to having employees from different cultural backgrounds. They also offer practical recommendations to the HR managers to help them successfully deal with the cultural diversity issues. The main aim of the paper is to identify the research gap identified in the literature review section. The research methodology applied here is based on secondary data collection. Secondary data are such data which have been previously collected by some agency for a purpose and are merely compiled from the original source for use in diverse connection. The study has been assembled with the help of various journals, books, websites, etc. Theories have been used that focuses on how cultural
Culture is defined to the group of people which learned behavior that has already gave the instruction from previous generation through next generation by imitation and language (Adler 1983 citing Barnouw 1963). Also Schein (1990) describes that culture is a lesson that a group has been studied and solved the problem for internal integration and learnt to survive from external environment for over period of time. For example, behavior, cognition and emotion processes and in the deepest level which is included perception, language and thought processes such as attitudes and feelings. For most of organizations nowadays have to face with an increasing of a diversity of employees which are multicultural employees especially for multinational corporation (MNC) (Fitzsimmons 2013). To deal with different cultures and nationalities, the companies and managers have to learn and understand their employees such as common language, knowledge sharing and performance (Lauring & Selmer 2011) then see how multicultural individuals can help and contribute the organizations (Fitzsimmons, Miska & Stahl 2011) and set the policies or principles for employees could be followed (Demo et al. 2012).
With the above mentioned challenges it is clear that multicultural teams if not managed properly can often produce management dilemmas. A multicultural team is like a fruit salad bowl in which if a single bad fruit spoils all other fruits eventually in that bowl. If corrective actions are taken at right time the same multicultural team can come up with great outputs. The author of core article describe that the manager can utilise these corrective measures by implementing to 4 different strategies – Adaptation, Structural Intervention, Managerial Intervention and Exit.
As for 2006 and above, there are many problems regarding multicultural diverse team in global organization. Ironically, Presidents and CEO of the organization are willing to talk about diversity when their managers do not have much confidence in implementing diversity workforce in an organization. Managers are afraid that they may fail in terms of productivity when multicultural diverse team is applied.
Many opportunities are associated with a culturally diverse workplace and global expansion may have potential to provide just such a diverse work group. Cross-culturalism in business can provide leaders and employees with a wonderful opportunity to work with people from different backgrounds and cultures. In addition, “the more opportunities for business leaders to interact with people from different cultures, the more likely they will be to have positive attitudes from different cultures and identify, learn and apply diverse culturally-appropriate business behaviors” (Caligiuri & Tarique, 2012, p. 614). Culturally diverse environments offer a multitude of benefits including “the variety of perspectives, skills and personal attributes” (Matveeve & Nelson, 2004, p. 254). Moreover, multicultural teams have potential to “generate more ideas of higher quality in brainstorming tasks” (Matveeve &
Selmer (2005) argued that these are the certain aspects of expatriate adjustment. According to Lee & Sukoco (2010), these three aspects of expatriate adjustment is to examine expatriate performance and effectiveness. In contrast, two