Cross Cultural Management Assignments

Running head: CROSS CULTURAL MANAGEMENT
Cross Cultural Management
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note:

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CROSS CULTURAL MANAGEMENT
Option 2.
Part 1. Identifying a cross-cultural management question:
The 34th page of the book titled, ‘International management behavior: Leading with a
global mindset.’ mentions that ‘The location of globalization drivers such as technology, cost
structures, growth rates, population trends, and consumers appears to be shifting away from the
North Atlantic region (Europe and the USA) to an Asian one (China, India.’1. This statement
clearly brings out the importance of cross cultural management to global companies operating in
diverse markets. The question pertaining to cross cultural management which can be put forward
to be further explored in the research would be, ‘Why is it important for business
organizations to adopt cross cultural management while marketing products in the global
market?’
Part 2. Conducting further research into the cross cultural management question:
Cross cultural management has emerged as one of the main aspects of the multinational
business organizations. This is because multinational business organizations today need to
operate in different countries having diverse cultures across the globe. They have to employ
employees and acquire customers in those markets. Thus, it has become a necessity for these
companies to exhibit cross-cultural communication competences while managing their
employees as well as customers2. Ibrahim supported this view of the previous authors and shed
1 Lane, Henry W., Martha Maznevski, Joerg Deetz, and Joseph DiStefano. International management behavior:
Leading with a global mindset. John Wiley & Sons, 2009.
2 Abugre, James B., and Yaw A. Debrah. "Assessing the impact of cross-cultural communication competence on
expatriate business operations in multinational corporations of a Sub-Saharan African context." International
Journal of Cross Cultural Management 19, no. 1 (2019): 85-104.

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CROSS CULTURAL MANAGEMENT
more light on the matter by mentioning that, ‘The cross-cultural diversity within the
organisation’s workforce is one of the important factors that may have negative or positive
impact on the global business operations according to the environmental circumstances
and the strategy adopted by the organisation.’ 3 This means that multinational business
organizations operating in different host market should have knowledge about the cultural
backgrounds and perceptions of the employees they employ in their different host markets.
Failure to acknowledge these cultural perceptions can result in misunderstanding as well as
communication gap between the employees based in the concerned host market and the
management of the company. This communication gap between the management of the MNCs
and their regional employees result in lower productivity. The issue may also result in conflicts
between the employees in the host country and the management of the company, ultimately
hampering the very market operations of the company. For example, Nike is a global sportswear
and sports goods manufacturing company based in the United States. The company enjoys a very
strong presence in China and employs employees from the country to support its Chinese
operations4. The two countries namely, the United States of America and China have diverse
cultural aspects as shown the Hofstede’s tool below. For example, the power distance in the
American society is extremely low compared to the Chinese society. One can apply this fact in
terms of Nike Inc. to point out that, in the operational divisions of the company based in the
United States, employees of lower designations could approach the employees of higher
3 Ibrahim, Emad Abdalla Atwa. "in supporting the Global Business Operations." (2016).
4 "Sec.Gov". 2020. Sec.Gov. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320187/000032018719000051/nke-
531201910k.htm.