As workforces become increasingly multicultural and businesses continue to expand overseas, the homogenous workforce has become a thing of the past. Managers today have to ensure that they are understanding and being understood across cultural boundaries. This situation implies that managers develop the skills necessary for effective cross-cultural interactions and daily operations in foreign subsidiaries. Moreover, domestic managers also need intercultural management skills because of increasing diversity in their own countries. Managers face such situations on a continuous basis, and they need to empower themselves with the various facets of managerial techniques. This paper will present the impact of the culture on the different roles of a manger such as: motivation, leadership, communication, negotiation and decision making. Then, we will discuss how to manage an intercultural workforce and avoid these cultural issues. Finally, we will study two intercultural management models, the Chinese and the French one, in order to anticipate how to effectively manage workforce in these countries and avoid cultural clashes.
[...] It influences managers' roles, team members' relationship Then, a good intercultural manager must manage cultural differences in order to minimize them and/or use them to be more efficient. However, another issue appears when we deal with management in an intercultural / international context: the virtual teams. Indeed, more and more companies are depending upon virtual teams to conduct business across borders. We can define the notion of virtual team as group of people who interact though independent tasks guided by common purpose and work across space, time and organizational boundaries [...]
[...] Time: the way of people regard and use time is influenced by the culture. There are two different time systems: monochronic and polychronic. In a monochronic time system, time is linear with a past, a present and a future. Time is treated as something to be spent, saved, made up and wasted. In contrast, polychronic time system tolerates many things occurring simultaneously. Furthermore, according to the culture, the communication styles can be different. Indeed, one way in which cultures vary in terms of communication style is the degree to which they use language itself to communicate the message; if they communicate the message implicitly or explicitly. [...]
[...] The leadership style differs according to the culture of the country from autocratic to participative. In this case, Hofstede's researches may also be useful to study leader-subordinates expectations and relationships. For example, in a high power distance country, the autocratic leadership style would be preferred because people are more comfortable with a clear distinction between managers and subordinates. In the other hand, countries with a low power distance index would prefer participative leadership style. However, the success of one or the other leadership style can also varies according to the country. [...]
[...] These notions have both an impact on the management in an international context. The manager should consider them in order to manage correctly and efficiently his or her teams Management The management is the process of planning, leading, organizing and controlling people within a group or an organization in order to achieve goals. Doing his job the manager has to play several roles: he has to be a leader, a motivator, a communicator, a negotiator and a decision maker. Moreover, in an international context, managing people is a challenge more difficult to achieve. [...]
[...] I decided to focus my research on two different cultures The Chinese model Relationships & Communication The Chinese don't like doing business with companies they don't know, so working through an intermediary is crucial. The Chinese often use intermediaries to ask questions that they would prefer not to make directly. Chinese want to know the person before building business relationships. The Chinese see foreigners as representatives of their company rather than as individuals. Hierarchy is extremely important in business relationships The Chinese prefer face-to-face meetings rather than written or telephonic communication. [...]
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