BUS6001: Apple's International Management Challenges Report

This report delves into the international management practices of Apple, a multinational corporation operating worldwide. It identifies key challenges, including navigating diverse cultures, fostering effective communication, and managing global virtual teams. The report analyzes the leadership skills required to address these challenges, emphasizing the importance of transactional, situational, and transformational leadership approaches. It also highlights the need for comprehensive employee training programs, focusing on technological proficiency and cross-cultural understanding. The study examines issues such as communication gaps, lack of trust, time zone differences, and cultural diversity within virtual teams, offering insights into how to mitigate these challenges. The report suggests strategies for building strong virtual teams, improving employee morale, and ensuring the smooth functioning of international business operations.

INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................1
a) Challenges faced by leadership, leadership required to face these challenges and training
required by the employees......................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
International Management of business is defined as the process of managing the affairs of
the business internationally. For this, it requires huge level of knowledge and skills and business
expertise and should be familiar with the rules and regulations for carrying its business across the
different countries (Deresky, 2017). A company should be familiar about country's local
customs, laws, culture etc in order to carry out their business across different countries. In this
report Apple is taken as organisation, Apple is a multinational company operating its business
across the world. This report discusses about the challenges Apple faces in operating its business
in various countries, leadership skills and challenges it faces in its leadership and what type of
training is required for its employees in order to carry out its business smoothly across the world.
TASK 2
a) Challenges faced by leadership, leadership required to face these challenges and training
required by the employees.
As companies keeps on expanding there will be rise of cross cultural and multinational
teams so the culture plays an important role in managing international business. A effective
communication is very important for the success of any international business. This kind of
culture is very important when there is high risk of getting loss of translation of the messages.
But effective communication culture will fill this gap by making the use of non verbal
communication which might prove crucial for multinational businesses. Work place etiquettes in
the organisation also plays an important role in improving the business internationally like
punctuality, proper working hours, positive attitudes etc can help in making the international
business effective. Another role of organisational culture is establishing proper organisational
hierarchy and the positive attitude about the management roles also varies in different cultures.
Key organisational and national cultural characteristic includes an organisation should set
effective goals setting and effective sharing of goals, building a team work within an
organisation, boosting employees morale, providing training and development programs, proper
and strong leadership should be implemented for the healthy organisation, a company is ready to
take risks, a company should be capable to adapt the changes and opportunities available in
market.
1

Global virtual teams is a type of a team which helps a company in engaging its team
members and also helps in the delivering the projects of the company with making no or limited
interaction with other members of the team physically. This helps a multinational company to
make use of the capable and most efficient talent available in their global base of employees. In
global virtual teams, different teams and members may not meet each other face to face but carry
out their operations of the projects through a technology called VOIP (Voice Over Internet
Protocol) and also through other virtual meetings and Sharepoint(Coates and et.al, 2015). In
present, economical issues have forced many companies to select various project teams across
the globe by doing so this help in saving company's time as well money like using mobile
phones, mails, video conferences etc, this has resulted in the rise of global virtual teams across
the globe. Global virtual team have proved to be beneficial for Apple in carrying out their
business across the world. It has helped the company in minimizing the expenses such as utilities
and other expenses (International Management, 2018). It has also helped the company to reduce
costs due to which it has reduce the operational expenses, cost of raw materials, salaries etc.
With the help of global virtual teams a company has been able make use of talent across the
globe. This has also helped in the training of the capable employees who can deliver their tasks
consistently which helps a company in achieving its gaols at the global level. This will increase
the level of production of the company. It brings flexibility in the company. With the help of
global virtual teams, it make the teams available 24 hours and are working continuously. It has
increased speed of specific projects and also resulted in the development of the projects in short
period of time, this has directly helped company in meeting the requirements of local as well as
the requirements of international markets that too efficiently(Bilezikian and et.al., 2014). It
provides employee opportunities of growth and development. It also brings satisfaction for those
employees who are not willing to shift their families from one place to another place at national
level or international level. They can easily take up the projects and work on it without getting
relocated. Global virtual teams helps in saving the cost and improve the environmental savings,
as there will no requirement to travel from one place to another, it also helps in saving other
expenses like water, carbon emissions in travelling, heating, gas etc as employees space are
reduced with the help of global virtual teams.
Leaders have to face a number of challenges in managing the team effectively that too
when the team members of the company are scattered across the world this will definitely bring a
2

major challenges for virtual teams of the company in the smooth functioning of the business. The
challenges and opportunities of managing diverse global workforce
Communication gap: A virtual teams communicate with each other at distinct places I.e.
they do not meet each other physically this brings as a great challenge of the communication gap
among the team members. There is a lack of informal, face to face communication this may
result in the miscommunication and lack of information which builds a communication gap
among the team members who communicate virtually(Goetsch and Davis., 2014). A team
members may go without a proper communication for days or even weeks which develops a
sense of isolation among the teams. Result poor communication may lead to the lack of
performance, innovations, commitments, and also in creates problems in decision-makings
which is the important factor of business.
Lack of trust: Teams working virtually often leads to lack of trust and this is one of the
biggest challenges to be faced by the team members of global virtual-teams. As the members do
not work frequently with each or at the same time, they not make any kind of physical
interactions, and don't get any kind of response quickly this develops a lack of trust among the
virtual-teams. Thus is a big problem which needs to be addressed properly in order to overcome
this issue.
Time zone differences: It is an obvious challenge faced by the virtual-teams, as they
keep working in different time zones of different locations. This brings the challenge of time
overlapping(Baum, 2016). This brings problems in collaboration of the team members which
will decrease their performance and efficiency of the virtual-teams.
Lack of team spirit and employee morale: Virtual-teams have often face troubles
regarding their morale and team spirits. They face the problems in keeping the team spirits and
morale high. Virtual-teams feels like they are some globally disturbed and dispersed employees
working with the same type of projects. This also is challenge to be addressed in building a
virtual-teams.
Routine: virtual-teams have to work on the continuous basis, this reduces the motivation
level and this especially happens with virtual-teams. They normally feel exhausted for staying on
their systems for very long time and this results in the lack of motivation and fatigue for the team
members(Luftman and et.al., 2015). This also serves as a challenge in virtual-teams.
3

Diverse cultural teams: A virtual-team mostly consists of different people of different
cultures and different ethnic groups etc this give the rise of challenges in virtual-teams like
conflicting values, habits, customs, religious beliefs, etc. So it is a challenge that a virtual-teams
have to face and has to face the problems in overcoming from it. teams may also face the
challenge of lack of directions, clarity, and other priorities.
Factors that contribute to notion of globalised economy and Practical application of cultural
awareness
Transactional approach: A leader should focus on the hoe the tasks are to be executed and
how can these tasks be achieved properly within as given timeline. A leader should establish a
regular communication with the virtual teams. It should establish external as well as internal
communications with the team members. To fill a communication gap a leader should use
various sources of media available as per the need(Pollitt and Bouckaert., 2017). A leader should
make clear about the objective and the goals to be achieved by the teams and teams should
understand and agree on the these terms. A leader should give accountability for each and very
task assigned to the teams. Progress report of the project should be shared on the regular basis
with the team members. A leader defines virtual-teams roles and responsibilities what is needed
from them. A continuous feed back should be given and also members should be appreciated for
Situational Approach: This approach of leadership will benefit the employees at any kind
of situation in hand. By applying this approach it will increase the flexibility, as well the
adaptability and also the capability to understand the situation present in front of them. This will
increase the performance, team work, collaboration within the virtual-teams(International
Management, 2018).
Transformational approach: with the help of this approach a leader uses different procedure
in order to motivate, increase employees morale, build team spirit and inspire them. For this
purpose a leader should take care of employees, support them, entertain them so they feel that
they are not isolated from the rest of the world. This approach requires high knowledge and skills
of sharing and to create the employee engagement and team engagement. A leader has to: a
leader has to foster the team identities during the first stage of building virtual-teams. a leader
has build a trust among the employees in order to make a successful virtual-team. This can done
by expressing employees feelings and frustrations and addressing them properly which builds a
trust and also a leader should talk about trust for building a trust within the virtual-teams help the
4

virtual-team members to connected to each other and build relations in order to overcome their
diverse cultural differences. A leader should lead to the encouragement of collaboration and
cohesion by providing different shared platform. All of these leadership approaches will help in
overcoming the challenges in the virtual-teams and will increase their performances and
effectiveness all over the globe for Apple.
Training required for the global virtual-teams:
Technological trainings: as the virtual-teams depend on the technology and different
digital tools for their interactions. A well furnished training should be provided on various
formats like electronic media which is used for sharing the information like video-conferencing,
social media, web conferencing and other electronic media. The training on the technologies
involves providing knowledge, guidance and coaching for the virtual-team members which helps
in choosing best form of electronic media available to them and also hoe to make use of it in
better way at different situations. This type of training helps a team members in choosing the
type of media required as per their tasks. Some times a company may use of advance
technologies like software’s for the growth of its business globally, proper training should be
provide regarding these advancements which result in effective management of virtual-
teams(International Management,2018).
This type of training will reduce the communication gaps and also will increase the level
of communication within the virtual-team members.
Cross cultural training: As virtual environment tends to bring people of different cultures
and different level of knowledge and also people of different regions together on a particular
project. So it is must to provide these type of trainings in order to over barriers of cross culture.
Training should be given on the various cultural issues that are faced in virtual-teams. This will
increase the efficiency of the organisation and will improve the performance of the team
members(Adams, Smart and Huff., 2017).
Group Processing training: This type of training is the best, as it provides the training on
the various challenges faced by the virtual-teams at different stages. This type of training
includes goal setting process, problem-solving regarding various issues related to tasks, groups,
grievances etc, trust building, collaborations etc this type of training will enhance the
performance of the of the virtual-teams. Virtual-team members are need to discuss their training
performances and about the training notes with each other and also discuss about the area of
5

improvements this exercise will develop a work culture and enhance the relationships among the
team members.
Training programs should be designed and implemented properly because it has the
impact on the virtual-team performances.
Global Human Resource Management: Global HRM includes all the aspects of an
organisation at the global level such as hiring, payroll and other management processes. But with
the help of technology HR team can manage their global virtual team easily across the world.
With the help of Global HRM leaders can useHRM software in order to ensure that employees
remain active and work in collaboration and can engage the employees contributing towards
organization.
EPRG Framework
By using the EPRG farme work leader can develop their organizations general strategic
profile in order to maintain the business internationally.
Ethnocentric: with the help of this approach HR can recruit right person for the right job in
order to operate the business internationally.
Polycentric: with the help of this approach HR can hire and recruit the employees who are the
citizens of the particular country at the managerial positions in order to improve the efficiency of
the global virtual-teams.
Regiocentric: with the help of this HR can recruit the mangers from different countries lying
within the a particular geographic region of business.
Geocentric: HR can can hire most suitable candidates for the job irrespective of their
nationality. This approach will help in attracting more and more talents at a global level.
Effective cross culture leadership will help to understand how the individual belonging to
different cultures can interact with each other. Effective cross cultural leadership has developed a
various ways to understand the leaders how to work in a global market. It is important for the
leaders to understand the forms of communication which dominating the culture in order to
understand the behaviours while communicating. There are two types of cultures such as Mono-
chromic and poly-chronic cultures. Mono-chromic is a culture where people are involved in one
event at a time and in extreme mono-chromic cultures people focuses on the single task only. But
in Poly-chronic cultures people are involved in more than two or more events at the same time.
So it will be help for the leaders to understand what type of culture exists within the country and
6

can make their communication effective and improve the level of motivation to motivate
employees across the world.
Leader can apply various theories of leadership in order to meet the challenges such as
Great man theory of leadership which suggest that lead are born not made i.e. capacity for
leadership is inborn with the help this theory leaders can the hire the employees which are in
born leaders and can select the best employees for a team. Leaders can also use Trait theory of
leadership to determine certain patterns of behaviours and to determine the consistency of
patterns across different situations. This style will help the leaders to identify different
personality traits of the employees needed to perform the job at different situations.
7

CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the report that a global virtual-team helps in the expansion of the
business of the company across the globe but a company has to face different challenges while
setting a global virtual-team , like cultural challenges, communication gap, lack of trust etc. but
these challenges can be overcome by adopting a proper leadership approaches which helps in
addressing these issues faced by virtual-teams. This report also discusses about the type of
training to be provided to virtual-team members in order increase their performances without any
restrictions faced by them so that a company can carry out its business across the world
effectively.
8

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Adams, R. J., Smart, P. and Huff, A. S., 2017. Shades of grey: guidelines for working with the
grey literature in systematic reviews for management and organizational
studies. International Journal of Management Reviews. 19(4). pp.432-454.
Baum, T., 2016. Human resource issues in international tourism. Elsevier.
Bilezikian, J. P and et.al., 2014. Guidelines for the management of asymptomatic primary
hyperparathyroidism: summary statement from the Fourth International Workshop. The
Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. 99(10). pp.3561-3569.
Coates, A. S and et.al., 2015. Tailoring therapies—improving the management of early breast
cancer: St Gallen International Expert Consensus on the Primary Therapy of Early
Breast Cancer 2015. Annals of oncology. 26(8). pp.1533-1546.
Deresky, H., 2017. International management: Managing across borders and cultures. Pearson
Education India.
Goetsch, D. L. and Davis, S. B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Luftman, J and et.al., 2015. Influential IT management trends: an international study. Journal of
Information Technology. 30(3). pp.293-305.
Pollitt, C. and Bouckaert, G., 2017. Public management reform: a comparative analysis-into the
age of austerity. Oxford University Press.
Online
International Management. 2018 [online]. Available through <https://www.leadership-
central.com/situational-leadership-theory.html>
9