...Topic Review: General Management Effective cross-cultural management has to be grounded in a detailed knowledge of individual cultures. Discuss using examples from two multinational companies. I/ Introduction: In times of rapid globalisation and economic development growth, the environment of business has become more and more complicated as a huge number of firms want to globally expand their businesses. Subsequently, the managerial implications of cross-cultural management is the challenge of this development. As Abbe (2007) states, cross-cultural leadership has developed as a way to understand leaders who work in the global markets. Culture is the “software of mind” that can influence people’s patterns of thinking and behaving. (Hofstede, 1997). Referring to a work of He and Liu (2010), different characteristics of culture result in thinking, understanding and communication diversity. These diversities more or less make organisational development and management difficult. Therefore, multicultural managers should create cross-cultural training in their companies in order to increase effectiveness across culture. This essay will be discussing whether effective cross-cultural management has to be grounded in a detailed knowledge of individual cultures with examples of two multinational companies: Wal-Mart and Alfa Laval. II/ The Debate on Cross-Cultural Management: Globalisation has increased the awareness of consumers, and made nations more inter-dependent. In...
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...List the problems when east meet west may encounter and tell the way work out With the rapidly challging word, people throughout the world have found it increasingly necessary to minimize the rate of misunderstanding due to miscommunication in their contacts with another. In the oast most human beings were born, lived, and died within a limited geoographical area, never encountering people of other cultural backgrounds. It might be said that technological advances have been most effective in creating the borderless word, the global community. As our world shrinks and its inhabitants become interdependent, people from remot cultures increasingly come into contact on a daily basis. It is no longer hard to find situations in which membes of ince isolared groups of people. Now these people may live thousands of miles away or right next door to each other. So all the people are faced with the challenge of understand this world. So when the east meet west, there are many problems. Some problems are listed as follows. First of all, the way of eating. All huaman beings have certain basic needs. Our fundamental needs for things that keep us alive. This is the physioligical need. All individuals must eat in order to survive. But what people eat, when they eat, and the manners in which they eat are all patterned by culture. No society views everything in its environment that is edible and might provide nurishment as food. Americans eat oysters but not snail. The French eat snails but...
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...nonverbal cues is called a. encoding b. decoding c. feedback d. semantics 2. What three things can help improve your communication competence? a. Motivation, desire, and expertise b. Skills, context, and semantics c. Encoding, decoding, and feedback d. Motivation, knowledge, and skills The route used to transmit messages is known as a. encoding b. decoding c. feedback d. noise e. a channel Sarah and Stephen are meeting to talk about their class project, but Stephen is distracted, because he is worried abouian exam in another class. He asks Sarah to repeat herself several times. This conversation is 3. 4. most strongly influenced bY a. b. c. d. 5. physical context physical noise internal noise semantic noise - The cashier at the store greets you by saying, "How are you doing today?" Even though you're having a bad day, you say, "I'm fine, thank you." Your response is an example of a a. spontaneousexPression b. constructed message c. scripted message d. semantic message Competent communication depends on a. having a friendly personalitY b. learning how to give strong feedback c. being both effective and appropriate d. avoiding noise 6. Name: ID: A 7. According to scholar Brian Spitzberg, motivation is an imporfant aspect of communication competence because a. b. c. d. 8. _ we must know what is involved in communication we will only improve our cortununication if we want to motivations makes this more efficient along with incentives...
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...Culturally Competent Care Standards Lori Houde Nur/531 Gregory Friesz December 17, 2012 As more people immigrate to this country, the need for culturally competent nursing care becomes more important. Hospitals, clinics, and doctors offices are now emphasizing the need for nurses to be aware of the diverse needs of many differing cultures. Learning and understanding Leininger’s transcultural nursing theory can assist the nurse in incorprating culturally competent care into their practice. Nursing standards regarding cultural commpetence are changing as more immigrants are entering this country and the health care system. Statistics According the the US Census Bureau in 2000 30% of the US population was an ethnicity other than non-hispanic whites. The projection is that it will reach 50% by the year 2050, while currently 90% of all nurses are caucasian (Maier-Lorentz, 2008). Brought into working terms that means that if a nurse has a six patient assignment, approximately two of the six will be from another culture and have different needs and beliefs. Nursing care revolves around giving holistic care to each patient. In order to provide holistic care to patients the nurse must be aware of the individual needs of that patients. The patients cultural background will determine what those needs are. If a nurse is unaware of the cultural needs, there is no way to provide a plan of care to meet the individual needs. Leininger’s Cultural Care Theory Leininger’s culture care...
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...Running Head: DECISION MAKING STYLES AND CROSS CULTURE Decision Making Styles and Cross Cultural Misunderstanding Name: University: Course: Tutor: Date: Abstract In an organizational setting, the employees might be of different cultures and therefore have different values. This is likely to bring about a clash in the operations in an organization. Managers normally have difficulties in making decisions based on the fact that those decisions mar rub a certain culture the wrong way. This Essay looks at the ways in which cultural differences could impact decision making in an organizational setting. It also determines whether there are any ways in which this cultural difference can be exploited for the benefit of the organization. These cultural differences do affect the company’s decision making process and therefore slows down business activities that depend on decision making in order to run. This is a great challenge in a business environment and might bring the performance of a business to a halt. This essay therefore looks into ways in which this challenge can be minimized. The distinct cultural differences between employees of an organization play out in the day to day running of the organization. These cultural differences may be in the form of dressing, values upheld, punctuality, overtime working, teamwork, etc. For example, we look at the Russian managers and the Chinese managers. Chinese managers are...
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...Managing cross-cultural staff." ABSTRACT Cross-cultural communication in business is a feature of study that looks at how people from dissimilar backgrounds converse, in comparable and different ways among themselves, and how they handle to communicate crosswise with cultures. In this investigation we will try to find which are the problems and what ways can we find in order to manage better employees from around the world. The plan of the essay is to expand a better understanding of the key points that control cross-cultural communication and international staff managing . 1. INTRODUCTION Anthropology includes all aspects of human behaviors and ideas. Anthropologists study diverse cultures to be more compliant and accommodating, more appreciative and to improve our own culture. Culture influences the business setting and management practices of a country and helps appreciate the differences between countries, it is difficult to determine and shows significant dissimilarity inside a country .A cultural approach does not accommodate transform and tends towards stereotypes. Besides every country has its own position of competitive improvement in its politico-economic ,industrial relations ,training and other requirements for firms and workers in their dealings with the state and culture. The resultant 'varieties of capitalism in different countries mediate the influences of global economy and multinational practices (Armit and Shoemaker ,1993).There is a challenge...
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...Cross-Cultural Communication Matrix The Cross-Cultural Communication Matrix provides detailed information about various countries, in this assignment will find important elements that will be helpful for the acquisition of knowledge about different cultures around the world, countries that are spoken in this project are China, Ireland, and Argentina. Cross Cultural Communication | Country | Preferred communication style | Non-verbal communication practices | Business communication norms | Strategies to increase cross-cultural communication | China | In China, there are several languages and dialects, the most important are Mandarin and Cantonese, most of business people speak at least some English (Katz, 2008).Chinese is a family of closely related but mutually unintelligible languages. These languages are known variously as f¨¡ngy¨¢n (regional languages), dialects of Chinese or varieties of Chinese. In all over 1.2 billion people speak one or more varieties of Chinese. All varieties of Chinese belong to the Sino-Tibetan family of languages and each one has its own dialects and sub-dialects, which are more or less mutually intelligible (Kwintessential Ltd, 2010 ). | The Chinese converse while standing around three feet apart, gestures are usually very subtle, it is advisable to restrict the body language; non verbal communication is very important, touching , crossing legs should be avoid, and hand gestures while speaking can distract the audience, eye contact...
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...Introduction "Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships." -Michael Jordan When talking about accomplishing success in any type of organization, we must mind the essential role of team working. A team that provides high performance is one of the most important assets for a company. But even if an organization has the best talents in its field, it is not enough unless their aptitudes are incorporated into collectively performing unit. Turning an average performing into high performing team can be done by utilizing the strengths of each team member and the cultural diversity of the entire group. In the contemporary world we live, it is very common to work in multicultural teams. These teams are perceived as highly potential based on the perception that the greater the diversity, the greater the creativity and productivity of a team is. Yet, there are certain challenges that international teams encounter and that is why it is of great importance to be aware of the cultural diversity around the globe. Despite of how influential is our own culture on our beliefs and behaviours we must be aware that we are not coming from the one and only “valuable” culture in the world. People often tend to believe that their own values and beliefs are the only “right” ones as they are embedded in their particular cultures. We must be aware that each of us, each singular culture might shine in a different way, but that does not mean someone...
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...Intercultural Professional Communication Protocols Guide By: Kimberly J. Turigliatto Date: 5/16/11 Contents Introduction 3 Description of your Diverse Cultural Group 4 Evaluating Workplace Culture 5 Interaction of your Selected Culture with your Organization 6 Membership and Gender Challenges 7 Intercultural Conflict 8 Verbal and Nonverbal Challenges 9 Building Business Relationships 10 Conclusion 11 Introduction When considering forming a business relationship or when working with people from a Hispanic culture there are many things that one should consider in order to have a successful relationship. Over the last several weeks we have studied many topics to enhance our ability to work with other cultures. In the first topic we chose a culture to learn about that would benefit our organization in learning how to enhance our communication skills in with. My chosen culture was the Hispanic culture as we have many suppliers and co-workers within our facility that we could enhance our working relationships with. In Module two we evaluated our own workplace cultures in and learning if we had a collectivistic or individualistic culture we work within. As we look at module three we begin to focus on just how our chosen culture interacts with our organization. In this area we have learned about the pitfalls that can befall us when we stereo type a group. In module...
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...Abstract Intercultural communications is often marked by the impact of cultural differences on communication, commonly resulting in miscommunication or misunderstanding. This paper examines the challenges influencing intercultural communications between the Japanese and the Americans. In its conclusion, it emphasizes on the sensitivity to the mentioned cultural differences in order to create harmony and understanding amongst people with different ethnic backgrounds. Intercultural Communications between the United States and Japan Introduction According to Dima (1990), intercultural communication refers to the exchange of ideas between people belonging to different cultures, in spite of them using the same language. Intercultural communication plays an important role, in that cultural differences can often lead to miscommunication and misunderstanding. This is increasingly becoming important in today’s multicultural society such as in the US (Inoue, 2007). What are the common challenges of intercultural communications between America and Japan? How do cultural differences play part in shaping the Japan-American intercultural communication? As defined by Peace (2002), culture is a "system of beliefs, values, and assumptions about life that guides behavior and is shared by a group of people; and these are transmitted from generation to generation, rarely with explicit instructions," (p.14). There are a variety of cultures that...
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...Article 2: Communication in international business- to- business marketing channels Does culture matter? This article deals with the question if and how cultural variations influence channel communication . Finding show that there is a relationship between culture and channel communications in international channels. The autor , Bert Rosenbloom, described Hall’s (1976) proposed high-contex versus low- contex dichotomy to explain the different cultural orientations. It is a simple two category basis for grouping the cultures of many different countries to help understand the hidden codes in communication, stemming from „cultural distance“. The expressions "high context" and "low context" are labels which shows the cultural differences between societies. High-context and low-context communication refers to how much speakers rely on things other than words to convey meaning. First, Hofstede's cultural model and the model approaches Hall presented, where the main cultural differences are described. The cultural model of Hofstede with its five dimensions and the corresponding index values provides information about cultural differences and their possible impact in intercultural cooperation. The five dimensions in Hofstede's cultural model, "power distance", "collectivism versus individualism," "femininity versus masculinity," "uncertainty avoidance" and "long-term versus short-term orientation". Together, the five dimensions of a cultural model in which differences can be measured...
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...We are living in a world where business is evolving the advancement in technology has seen companies expand there client base to a global level. This paper will discuss the standardized marketing strategy of IKEA and evaluate the issues surrounding standardized marketing on a global scale by relating it to multinational corporations alike. Using Hofstede’s Culture theory, it will also discuss whether our cultures of the world are becoming similar, or are we seeing a direct reflection of clever marketing. What standardization (and adaption) could be considered to be: the offering of identical product lines at identical prices through identical distribution systems supported by identical promotional programs in several different countries. (Buzzell, 1968 p 103) Although IKEA practice a standardized marketing strategy in some aspects of the marketing mix such as product, price and place they are certainly not entirely standardized when it comes to their promotion strategy, this is evident when looking at the move into China where they were forced to adapt to Chinese cultural differences. IKEA’s target market has always been ‘everyone’ in other countries however the target market was extremely different in China, the main target is women as they are considered the decision makers and were born in the ‘one child policy’ generation. This group was identified as being impulsive, easy to influence and committed to leading foreign consumer brands (Johannson 2009 p. 44). Due to the...
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...Management Summary The goal of this bachelor thesis is to answer to following problem statement: Which firm and country characteristics influence fully owned subsidiaries and contractual agreements given different cultural dimensions between host and home country? This thesis is based on secondary data which consists of papers published in several journals Culture is extremely hard to define, in this thesis, Hofstede’s(1980) definition will be used: ‘Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another... Culture, in this sense, includes systems of values; and values are among the building blocks of culture’. The cultural dimensions measure the cultural distance between a home and a host country. The dimensions that influence entry mode decision making are ‘power distance’ and ‘uncertainty avoidance’. The firm and country characteristics influence entry mode decision making and they are divided in 5 groups: Internal factors, product, desired more characteristics, transaction-specific factors and external factors. While entry modes can be distinguished in 3 groups of which this study only focuses on contractual agreements and fully owned subsidiaries. The conclusion drawn from this literature review states that internal factors such as firm size and international experience determine the resource commitment of a firm. High resource commitments are needed to establish fully owned subsidiaries. ‘ Control’ is a factor...
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...Media in Cross Cultural Marketing Studying the Case of Cross-Cultural Management Shaima Alwardi Table of Contents 1. Title ........................................................................................................................................ 3 2. Background ............................................................................................................................ 4 3. Presentation and Critical Review of the Literature and Theories used .................................... 6 4. Project Proposal and Objectives ...........................................................................................11 5. Research Plan and Methodology ..........................................................................................13 6. Empirical Facts and Finding ..................................................................................................17 7. Analysis and Discussion........................................................................................................18 8. Overall Conclusion ................................................................................................................21 Reference .................................................................................................................................23 Appendix ...................................................................................................................................25 Effects of Social Medua in Cross Culturl...
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...to hold and form it. Therefore, definition of “Multiculturalism promotes the integration of ethnic acceptance and respect for cultural diversity, community harmony and inclusion.” is true. Skilled labour is any worker who has acquired certain skill in their job or may have attended a college or technical school. An example of a skilled labour job is carpenters. Unskilled worker is a worker who has not acquired special skill or proficiency. If there is a shortage of migrant skills, the immigration restores the difference among labour supply and demand with no affect on local pay (Shah & Burke, 2005). The purpose of this report provides the reader a better understanding on the impact of multicultural environment to business communication practices in Australia. The outlines of this report are the three factors that affect the migrants settling in Australia that is economic,...
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