Respond to the below statement with a min of 150 words also include a direct question
Culture has a huge impact on management practices across the world. Ideally, management practices should develop in response to the local culture. For example, the GLOBE project team identified nine cultural dimensions that impact management practices: assertiveness, future orientation, humane orientation, gender differentiation, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, institutional collectivism versus individualism, and in-group collectivism (Deresky, 2014, p. 81).
Assertiveness, for example, "refers to how much people in a society are expected to be tough, confrontational, and competitive versus modest and tender" (Deresky, 2014, p. 81). This has implications for a manager because a society that is highly assertive, such as Germany and the United States, may value competition more than a society with a low value on assertiveness. Japan is an example of a less assertive society where they value harmony and cooperation and would not respond well to assertive behavior from a manager.
It is important to note that cultural training may be necessary to help prepare and teach a manager about the culture of a society. One study found that students' cultural intelligence was significantly higher after cross-cultural management courses than their peers in the control group who worked in multicultural settings but did not take cross-cultural management courses (Eisenberg, et al., 2013, p. 603). This is significant because it shows that cultural intelligence can be taught and it may improve a managers ability to succeed in a foreign assignment.
Communicating across cultures can also be difficult and require training. "Cross-cultural communication describes the ability to successfully form, foster, and improve relationship with members of a culture different from one's own culture" (Gore, 2013, p. 61). There are many variables that may affect communication across cultures, including: attitudes, social organization, thought patterns, roles, language, nonverbal communication, and time (Deresky, 2014, p. 115).
Language is an obvious offender for causing miscommunication across cultures. It is often difficult for non-native speakers to understand idioms and colloquial phrases. My mother-in-law is from the Philippines and English is her second language. She is a case manager for a hospital and is responsible for communicating with doctors and patients regarding their medical care and programs. She recently had an exchange over the phone with a doctor who told her to "just wing it." In an effort to avoid sounding 'dumb,' she acted like she understood what the doctor meant with his colloquial expression. As soon as she hung up the phone she called me to ask what he meant. Fortunately, she then understood and was able to perform her duties. Unfortunately, the doctor never received feedback about reducing his use of colloquial phrases and speaking with more clarity.
An excellent example of nonverbal communication can be seen with the hand gesture that we see in the United States to signify 'ok.' This gesture can mean very different things around the world: Russia sees 'zero,' Japan sees 'money,' Brazil sees 'insult,' and India sees 'beautiful' (Gore, 2013, p. 60). These two examples demonstrate the importance of understanding the variables of cross-cultural communication.
References
Deresky, H. (2014). International management: Managing across borders and cultures (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
Eisenberg, J., Hyun-Jung, L., Bruck, F., Brenner, B., Claes, M., Mironski, J., et al. (2013). Can business schools make students culturally competent? Effects of cross-cultural management courses on cultural intelligence. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 12(4), 603-621.
Gore, V. (2013). The importance of cross-cultural communication. IUP Journal of Soft Skills, 7(1), 59-65.