Intercultural Business Competencies: Working in International Teams and Managing Diversity

This report analyzes the importance and functioning of intercultural business competencies, working in international teams, and managing diversity in the organization. It covers the significance of quality management, the 4 player model, collective versus individualist national culture, and theories in practice such as Hofstede Model and Tuckman's Theory.

Intercultural Business
Competencies

Contents

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Summary of quality management ...................................................................................................1
Summary of 4 player model.............................................................................................................2
Summary of Collective Versus Individualist National Culture.......................................................3
Working in International Teams......................................................................................................4
Working in teams and successful team building..........................................................................4
Working across cultures in international teams...........................................................................5
Theories in practice......................................................................................................................6
Hofstede Model of organisational culture....................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The report aims to analyse the importance and functioning of intercultural business
competencies. Intercultural management is necessary in the organisation in order to promote
communication and diversity in the company (Aggarwal, Aeran, and Rathee, 2019). Intercultural
aspects of the communication matter a lot on the company to move from one country to another.
It showcases the understanding towards the benefits of promoting team learning, cultural
background, values and ethics for the company. This report is going to analyse the significance
of working in teams, cultural segmentation and theoretical aspects to manage diversity in the
organisation. there is demonstration of various cross cultural factors which is going to present in
the report.
Summary of quality management
As per the perspective of the Alessandra Vecchi and Louis Brennan, the diversity must be
incorporate in almost every country, People have different values and beliefs in different regions
and 28 countries. Due to the increase in the international competition and highly complex
business environment, the quality of the company must be improved. Effective management
practices are necessary to promote better working standards and performance of the organisation.
It shows that, there is key requirement of adopting essential behaviour in terms of quality check
and monitoring. The India, China and, Mexico are the developing nations who have the highest
employment rates and workforce (Nurzannah, Ginting, and Setiawan, 2020). The quality
improvements must be considered very well to enhance the process management and teamwork
in the organisation. There is key requirement of presenting well equipped information and factors
which needs to be regulate in the overall organisation. the quality management consist better
goals towards six sigma stages and Hofstede model of diversification. It ensures to get
responsible for the quality standards in order to enhance the multifunctional areas of
organisation. it will be easy to ascertain the individual practices for analysing the roles and
responsibilities of the leaders and managers. Every business function is different from other
countries to avoid any malpractices and decision making. When the low uncertainty index has
shown within the country, it shows that avoidance can be neglected which is effective in TQM
(Abbas, 2020). It ensures that the power distance and avoidance should be considered as the best
performance. Quality management can be affected through the better strategies and effectiveness
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of the organisation function. It has summarised that, quality practices have to be perform in
national cultures.
Summary of 4 player model
Team plays an significant role for the success of the organisations. By making collective
efforts the organisations are able to create innovative and unique products. With this,
organisations are able to make continuous growth and make expansion in its business operations
by establishing new ventures at global level (Pikhart, 2018). Deborah Ancona, William Isaacs
and faculty director of MIT leadership Center states that by making team efforts it gives positive
output. They give positive responds to the team theory which was given by William Lehr and
David Kantor in 1975. They both have given this theory in relation to family system but Isaacs
and Ancona transforms this concept towards organisational context. As per the Research
Foundation, the organisation can be successful when they select right or correct people for a
team and make sure that they are capable to taking effective decision making. Ancona and Isaacs
believes that by making team efforts they are capable to creating an extraordinary result. They
are being expected to work in such a way that it should be creative, unique and they produce new
ideas though which organisation can achieve success. The Kantor Model was being adopted by
Ancona and Isaacs for putting structural balance within team. This model of Kantor is majorly
divided into four pillars which are essential to build an healthy team behaviour. The first one is
'Move', which states that the team should be framed in such a way that they focus to prepare
particular idea and work upon it. The second pillar is 'Follow', which states that the action which
provides support to work that is crucial for accomplish the task should be followed. The third
pillar is 'Oppose', which states that the if the provided data does not support the claims then it is
not possible to accomplish the task, so its better to questions wherever hurdle are being faced.
The last and fourth pillar is 'Bystand', which invites the whole team to become more creative, as
the organisation is not able to get benefit form the existing idea which they are using. Thus, they
wants their team to become more productive (Corner, Liu and Bird, 2021). With the help of these
four factors the organisation is able to get direction, connection, correction, reflection, energy,
momentum and openness to work among the team members. These factors helps in keeping
proper balance within the team through which organisations are able to achieve success. The
team should be capable enough to evaluate the impact of the action that they are going to
perform. There are ample to benefits of having a balanced team such as Inclusiveness, which
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means that the opinion of single person can not dominate others decision. The other benefits are
Repair, Adaptation and Differentiation. They states that they team will not oppose or become
rigid against the changes made by the organisation. With this, each and every individual within
team have equal right to make their individual contribution for every decision. So, it can be
summarised that with the help of four player model the organisation will be able to create and
build heathy team in its working culture.
Summary of Collective Versus Individualist National Culture
The business have started operating its operations within different countries. It is not easy
to establish the new venture unit at global level (Koc, 2021). The organisations have to have
certain challenges in order to start its operations effectively. There are ample of opportunities
available in the global market but it is difficulty to identify them and make use of it at
appropriate time. With the help of business environment it made easy for the business to start its
business operations at global level. The attitude of individuals towards other and towards the
work performed by them showcase the amount of success that an organisation could achieve. To
shape the attitude and perception of large citizens concept of 'Socialization' has introduced,
where large number of customer base come together having same sort of behaviour and attitude
towards others. Different people belonging to different nation follows various cultural activities
which affects their decision making power. It requires deeper understanding for the organisations
to understand different culture and behaviour of individuals. The culture shows the history of the
society. The culture values within the individuals are crucial to make ethical decision making.
The ethical decision making also varies from culture to culture and nation to nation. By
understanding the culture, organisations are able to produce the output desired by the citizens.
This is how they get competitive advantages and can lead the market. It is quite difficult for the
organisations to evaluate the culture of customers belonging to global level. With this, it is also
difficult to predict the future market trend, so its an challenging task for the organisations. To
overcome form this fear the can make effective research in order to evaluate the market trend and
perception of customers (Yang, Cheung and Li, 2022). Culture is considered as the group of
people who are have same or collective interest towards the participate thing. With the help of
culture values the organisations are able to make ethical decision making. The chances of
conflicts can also be avoided when the cultural values are being followed by everyone. With this,
when an individual is self oriented and focuses towards own interest then they will become
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dishonest and will take wrong decision. Whereas, the individuals who follows the cultural values
will oppose the wrong decisions. This is who the culture values creates a positive impact in the
working of organisation. The methods which are being used by the organisations to evaluate the
culture values are participants, procedures and measures. The study states that the by taking
unethical decisions the organisations have to face huge loss. The organisations should make use
of different approaches to understand the perception of customers. By practising ethical
behaviour it is easy to understand different culture. The employees working within the
organisation also have different cultural values. Thus, its important for the organisation to
understand attitude and behaviour of employees in order to have an successful organisational
relationship.
Working in International Teams
Working in teams and successful team building
Team building is a technique through which an individual is capable of improving the
performance of themselves and of the team. With the help of effective team building an
individual is capable to conducting its operations smoothly (Petrovskaya and Shaposhnikov,
2020). This is because each and every individual will be involved in performing the work. The
person belonging to higher level of management is responsible for maintaining team building
within the organisation. When collective efforts are being made then the productivity of work
enhances. With this, the ideas are also shared with each other through which they are capable of
producing the desired output with lot of innovation and creativity within the product. The
effective team is only responsible behind the success of the organisation.
The attributes to have an effective team building are stated below -
 Clear goal – The goals of organisation should be clearly defined among all the
employees or the team members. This is how they all will be able to work on one
participant direction through which goals of the organisation could be achieved (Bolten,
2020).
 Effective communication – The team members are able to product effective output when
they are do clear and effective communication with each other. By doing so they will be
able to share the challenges or the opportunities that is going to arise. Thus, the
productivity and efficiency of organisation enhances.
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 Managing stress – An individual is not at all capable of producing the desired output
when they work under stress. So its crucial to manage the stress and work freely with the
aim of achieving organisational goals. Flexible – There are certain challenges which might occurred, which can only be
declined when an individual have the capacity to adopt it. Hence, the team who have the
capacity to be flexible and adopt changes quickly can lead to an effective team.
Working across cultures in international teams
The employees belonging to different nations and cultures come together and started
working together to achieve organisations goals is considered as Cross culture team (Nardon,
2019). The reputation of organisation enhances when they make recruiting of candidates
belonging to different nations. The organisation are able to get to learn about different cultures
with the help of cross culture. They will be able to share the challenges or problems which are
being faced in their nations and act upon it as an opportunity. With the help of team efforts they
will work upon it and generate a new and unique idea though which problem can be resolved. On
the other hand, the employees belonging to different culture have different behaviour and
attitude. They does not feel comfortable while communicating with each other. This is how the
performance of organisation keeps on declining. At the time of recruiting candidates belonging
to different nations or culture it is quite difficult for the organisations to manage them properly
so they they can product the desired output. The chances of conflicts increases when they are not
being managed properly. All this situations arises due to different behaviour and characteristics
of employees. The gap is bridged due to certain reasons such as Psychological barriers, language
barriers and many more. The language spoke at different places varies so it finds difficult for
others to understand their languages. This is why they are not able to make effective
communication with each other (Li, 2020). The employees may even mislead the information
provided with each other. The thinking capacity and perception to look things are also different
of employees belonging to different culture. This is how the productivity, efficiency and brand
value of the organisation keeps on declining, if the management is not able to manage conflicts
and guide team properly.
Theories in practice
To overcome form the problems or the challenges which are being faced by the
organisation due to cross culture can be resolved by using Tuckman's Theory (Savicki, 2020).
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The theory of Tuckman is being used by the organisations in order to build an effective team,
with whom smooth working of organisation could take place. This theory comprises of five
major steps which are stated below -
 Forming – The team is not know to each other, each and every individual belonging to
this stage are the one who have newly joined the team. They takes help of managers in
taking decisions (Lantz-Deaton and Golubeva, 2020). So, the management can put efforts
in direction to create bonding among the team members. This is how they will feel free to
interact with each other and can enhance its productivity. When I worked at me
workplace I have noticed that at forming state no one was talking or interacting with each
other as we are hesitating with each other.
 Storming – After reaching at storming stage the team members are being know to each
other and they starts developing ego themselves. The leaders are capable to develop
bonding so that employees made collective efforts. The team is at learning stage so they
can be model as per the requirement of organisation. After reaching at this stage my team
members stared communicating with each other, as our manager take initiation in order to
build relationship with each other.
 Norming – The chances of conflicts among the employees keeps on declining as the
team started connecting with each other. This is why they share opinions with each other.
Further, the changes of overlapping of work also declines as team members makes
effective communication and divides the roles and responsibilities among each other. The
higher level of management put efforts to assign the task through which team interest
could be developed. I started getting comfortable with my team members after reaching
at norming stage, we keeps free to share ideas and thoughts which enhances our
productivity. Performing – The team member are families with each other after reaching at this stage.
This is why they makes collective efforts and tries to achieve the gaols of organisation by
moving on common direction. The level of confidence of team member keeps on
improving as they are able to produce new idea and also their productive is enhanced.
This was the final stage of team building where me and my team members have started
doing formal as well as informal communication. We were involved in producing
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effective output due to which we are praised by our management. All this helps in
enhancing our confidence level.
Hofstede Model of organisational culture
 Power distance – The power distance states that as per the designation or position of
employees, they have different power. This power should be used in a positive manner
through which development of organisation could takes place. At our workplace as per
out post we were allotted with the powers, but any kind of discrimination is not made
among employees even they are at lower position.
 Masculinity vs Feminity – The equal treatment should be given to males as well as
female. At our workplace the management provides equal growth opportunities for both
genders due to which their performance enhances. The working culture of organisation
also becomes positive.
 Individualism – The employees belonging to common interest comes together in order to
frame an effective team. At my workplace by creating such groups we feels free to share
our ideas. The positive and healthy working environment is being created within our
organisation, as we are able to share our problems without any hesitation.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that, quality management, four player model
and the Collective Versus Individualist National Culture are the three summaries which are being
mentioned in the report. Further the importance of team building have being discussed as by
making team efforts the individual is capable of generating new ideas. The organisations prefers
to use Tuckman Model for team building in order to build effective team.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Abbas, J., 2020. Impact of total quality management on corporate sustainability through the
mediating effect of knowledge management. Journal of Cleaner Production, 244,
p.118806.
Aggarwal, A., Aeran, H. and Rathee, M., 2019. Quality management in healthcare: The pivotal
desideratum. Journal of Oral Biology and Craniofacial Research, 9(2), pp.180-182.
Bolten, J., 2020. Intercultural business communication: An interactive approach. In Exploring the
rhetoric of international professional communication (pp. 139-155). Routledge.
Corner, A.J., Liu, L.A. and Bird, A., 2021. Intercultural competencies for emerging markets: A
contextualized approach. International Business Review, 30(3), p.101792.
Koc, E., 2021. Intercultural competence in tourism and hospitality: Self-efficacy beliefs and the
Dunning Kruger Effect. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 82, pp.175-184.
Lantz-Deaton, C. and Golubeva, I., 2020. Intercultural competence for college and university
students: a global guide for employability and social change. Springer Nature.
Li, M., 2020. An examination of two major constructs of cross-cultural competence: Cultural
intelligence and intercultural competence. Personality and individual differences, 164,
p.110105.
Nardon, L., 2019. Reflection and intercultural competence development. In Oxford Research
Encyclopedia of Business and Management.
Nurzannah, N., Ginting, N. and Setiawan, H.R., 2020, January. Implementation Of Integrated
Quality Management In The Islamic Education System. In Proceeding International
Seminar Of Islamic Studies (Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 1-9).
Petrovskaya, I. and Shaposhnikov, S., 2020. Enhancing intercultural effectiveness in
international virtual student teams: an exploratory study. Educational Research for
Policy and Practice, 19(3), pp.345-361.
Pikhart, M., 2018, August. Technology enhanced learning experience in intercultural business
communication course: a case study. In International Symposium on Emerging
Technologies for Education (pp. 41-45). Springer, Cham.
Savicki, V. ed., 2020. Developing intercultural competence and transformation: Theory,
research, and application in international education. Stylus Publishing, LLC.
Yang, H., Cheung, C. and Li, W., 2022. Intercultural communication competency practices in the
hotel industry. Journal of China Tourism Research, 18(1), pp.162-184.
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