Cross-Cultural Management.

Cross-Cultural Management

Objective: understanding what « culture » is to do business (manage, negotiate) efficiently in a global environment.

Part 1: What is culture? Is the world flat? Am I racist? What is ethnocentrism?

Part 2: Culture and business. How does culture influence the way we do business?

Part 3: Communication across cultures.

PART 1: WHAT IS CULTURE FOR YOU?

Key components of cultural intelligence

• Ways to understand other cultures
• Strategies to work efficiently in a globalized way
• Importance of seeing through “multiple lens”

• “The world is round indeed, but in fact it is flat”

• New technologies + the global market place = the playing ground is being leveled
• Rich and poor / Northern and southern countries have access to the same type of information.
• Today “culture counts”: in the 60-70’s, the industrialized world imposed its views and how to do things. NOT true ANYMORE!
• Today, understanding the environment in which we are going to work is paramount → keeping a competitive advantage.

Key events that impacted our lives in the 2000’s

• SARS: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
• EU: 27 countries
• Hong Kong returned to the people’s Republic of China
• Good Friday Peace Accords signed in Northern Ireland
• North Korea retarded its nuclear program

Key Events

• AIDS
• EBOLA
• Irak & death of Saddam Hussain
• Darfour crisis
• H5N1 from Southern Asia
• Terrorist attacks in Madrid (railway station), Russia (school), London…...
• Hurricane Katrina (category 5)
• Call for Jihad
• Indian Ocean Tsunami
• The Prophet Mohammad cartoon parody controversy sparked riots
• Hamas won 76 of 132 seats in the Palestinian legislative elections
• Proliferation of the nuclear technologies (Iran)

• All of these events have had an impact on the rest of the world & we can even say that some happened ONLY because the world was flat.

Questions for Thursday:

1. Why are “intercultural skills” critical/important to a company? (§3)

Those intercultural skills refer to the capability of a manager to communicate and deal effectively with people from different cultures. Obviously, communication is essential, but “intercultural communication” is now an increasingly critical term.

1. What is a “competitive advantage”? (§3)

A competitive advantage is one aspect of the market that a company masters more than the competition.

1. What is “intercultural communication”? (§3&4)

Intercultural communication is defined as situated communication between individuals or groups of different linguistic and cultural origins.

1. What is the role of an intercultural manager? (§4&5)

The intercultural manager deals with the international development strategy of the firm (choosing new markets + entry modes), and the negotiation with its customers/suppliers.

To do so, he needs to master intercultural skills, like communication, negotiation in an international environment.

1. What is “flexibility” and why is it important in intercultural management? (§6)

Being flexible means accepting that other people are different. It means understanding that several visions are acceptable at the same time. It means being open-minded/seeing through multiple lenses.

Entry mode: this is how you will distribute your product on a market.

Culture Definition:

• A human means (way) of adapting to circumstances and transmitting these skills and knowledge to subsequent generations.

It gives people a sense of:

• Who they are
• Belonging
• How they should behave (Do’s/Don’ts)
• What they should be doing or not

• Culture impacts your behavior

Culture impacts:

• Behavior
• Morale
• Productivity at work

Culture:

• Includes values
• Is dynamic (it evolves/changes)
• Is the context which explains:

• Politics
• Economics
• Progress
• Failures

Assumptions = Suppositions

Self-perception & others’ perception of you

How would you describe yourself culturally?

Environment: easy-going, very external, respect, love cars, don’t like money, education is important for me, ….

Time: time is continuous, but life is inconstant.

Action: Love action, can’t stay in place.

Communication: Strongly open-minded.

Space: I need a private space, don’t like to be restrained

Power: Need power

Individualism: don’t know

Competitiveness: love it

Structure: I am prudent; I always think before the action.

Thinking: I believe in dinosaurs, I think time is important, so I don’t like to be late.

Food: Like all sort of things, except vegetables.

Even if there are many cultural differences among the people of a group, there are also many similarities. These differences and similarities can be explained by education, but also by subjectivity.

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