International Management: Cross Cultural Management Style

Running Head: International Management
International Management
Cross Cultural Management Style

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International Management
Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Background and Problem............................................................................................................................2
Problem...................................................................................................................................................2
Reason of the Issue Occurrence...................................................................................................................3
Is the issue typical across international borders?.........................................................................................4
Prevention of the Issues in Cross Cultural Management.............................................................................4
Lessons Learned..........................................................................................................................................6
Advice for the manager to solve the Issue...................................................................................................6
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................7
References...................................................................................................................................................8

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International Management
Introduction
As the world is moving forward with the technologies and new strategies for making the firm
grow, there are new management styles also developing so that the management of the
employees can be done in the effective manner. Cross cultural management occurs when the
manager manages the employees from the foreign land from different cultures then his own
(Greblikaite & Daugeliene, 2010). It also happens when the staff members from the other
countries in the native land of the manager. It is very significant for the manager to have the right
experience for managing the cross culture employees in the firm. There are firms across the
world which operates in different countries and all the branches are managed by different
managers (Gerhart, 2008). For this management to be efficient, managers should be able to
identify and acknowledge the difference in the culture and new practices of the employees. This
report discusses about John Thomson who was earlier the manager in the Shonteur Inc. in USA.
Now he has to manage the firm in France where the employees are from France, German,
Portugal etc. Further this report analyzes the issue in the management style of Thompson and
talks about the prevention of such issues.
Background and Problem
John Thompson who an executive in the firm was named Shonteur Inc. USA was given the
chance to work in the France in Shonteur France which was the subsidiary firm of the same firm
in USA. The subsidiary was actually incepted for the procurement of the wines in Europe for the
US market. The firm has approximately 179 employees and there were people who were from
very different backgrounds like France, Portugal etc. But majorly there were people from France.
Thompson started his managerial style which was participative as he learnt that this style would
do wonders in the firm. He then started to work anticipatively with all the employees.
Problem

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International Management
While working with the employees of different cultures, Thompson thought that everything is
going well and he had this aim to grow fast in the company by increasing the productivity of the
employees. For increasing the productivity of the employees, he started including the employees
in taking any decision. He majorly left the decisions on the employees and in case of some
decision taken by him; he took advice from the employees. Due to managing the employees this
way, he thought that his employees would have high morale and hence, they would give good
productivity. Later down the road, he started understanding that his employees were not satisfied
and had low morale too.
The issue which generated low morale and dissatisfaction in the employees was related to his
management style. Thompson did not have any experiences in the field of managing the people
who are from different cultures (Andreassi, 2014). He took the job so that he would be able to
grow soon without thinking once about managing the people from the different cultures.
Reason of the Issue Occurrence
There are some of the reasons which could have been the issue in the ineffective management of
the employees from different cultures. They are as follows:
 Values: The behavior that the manager has is linked with the values and the beliefs that
he or she is brought up in. When a manager is working with the people from different
cultures, he comes across different norms and beliefs and hence different behaviors. For
example: a manager might react in a way having his own values in mind but it is
considered as being cruel in various cultures (EIloy & Smith, 2003).
 Performance as Manager: Most of the managers sometimes find it tough to manage the
cross management style as it sometimes becomes annoying to work with people of
different cultures. This can also hamper the decision making an issue as taking decision
in this management style takes more time than usual.
 Communication Style: When people are from different cultures, they definitely speak
various languages which might or might not be understood by the managers. Thompson
might not have had an effective communication style which is easy and flexible for the
employees to understand (Kawar, 2012).