Cross-Cultural Management: Leadership and Organizational Growth

This report delves into the critical role of cross-cultural management in fostering successful leadership and organizational growth within a globalized business environment. The paper examines the significance of cultural dimensions, such as power distance and individualism, in shaping organizational culture and influencing management practices. It emphasizes the need for multinational companies (MNCs) to develop international strategies and human resources that facilitate effective communication, cooperation, and expatriate adjustment. The report highlights the importance of a global mindset, intercultural communication, and strategic thinking for leaders to navigate diverse cultural contexts and drive organizational success. Furthermore, it underscores the necessity of creating a negotiated culture within MNCs that promotes shared values, effective communication, and the ability to conduct successful business across different cultural boundaries. The paper supports its claims with various theories and empirical evidence, providing a comprehensive analysis of cross-cultural management and its implications for building competent global leaders.

Running head: CROSS CULTURAL MANAGEMENT IN BUSINESS
Cross Cultural Management in Business
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The literature review aims to deal with the concept of culture and its
usefulness in a business organization. An organized concept or definition of culture
mainly denotes the work environment within which the organization is operating in
and carrying out its various activities. In this respect G. Hofstede asserts that culture
can be comprehended with the help of various dimensions such as control of
uncertainties intense/reduced, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, and
Hierarchic distance large/small(Bakir et al. 2015). A thorough analysis of these four
dimensions is necessary to study culture in a business organization from close
quarters. Power distance is the extent to which the subordinate or less powerful
members which influence their belief that power is distributed unequally, uncertainty
avoidance details on how the dominant roles are enumerated in a society in order to
cope up with uncertainties or the ambivalent (Alvesson and Sveningsson 2015).
Uncertainty and avoidance centers round institutional and social rule which are
agreed upon codes of conduct and written laws that dominates communication and
behaviors. Individualism versus Collectivism entails a situation where people are
supposed to decide on his own implying that he is a separate entity and is solely
responsible for his thoughts and actions. In case of collectivism the group values are
highlighted and more dominating and share a collective set of thoughts and views.
Collectivism and its incorporation is favored by most of the MNCs since it stands for
an unified mode of representation of shared values, beliefs and interests. According
to Tocqueville is better than individualism which severe an individual from another
due to cultural differences (Bakir et al. 2015).
Within the organization the culture can be perceived as the systematic sharing
of values and beliefs, understanding which furthermore get adequate manifestation
in the different individuals working for that organization. From the perspective of

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Hofstede organization values forms the center of an organization. Hofstede has
identified four essential element of organizational culture which are value, rituals,
heroes and symbols which form the core and overt elements of organizational
culture and identifies one culture from the other (Bolman and Deal 2017).
Literature Review
According to Bird and Mendenhall (2016) the phenomenon of globalization
has made it imperative that within the peripheries of business organization
maintaenance of a smooth communication between the managers and subordinates
of multi-national firms. The thesis statement: cross cultural management in any
organization is a pre-requisite to build successful leadership that would facilitate
growth within the organization. The authors support their claims with a number of
theories like Hall, Schwartz and Hofstede that helped them to further validate their
points. For the best application of cross cultural management the paper argues in an
organized manner that firms need to develop and implement international strategies
and human resources. The paper opens up with a historical context of World War II
in order to demonstrate the change in the organizational management at a time
when companies were looking for opportunities overseas. It also provides details on
different research studies based on rise of the noble idea of culture and
management within organization. Many organizations found themselves in need of
leading and supervising global leaders, teams, projects taking into consideration
different viewpoints and form working environment based on the dominant values of
the home and host countries. At this juncture, the paper elaborates development of a
set of cultural beliefs and practices that were required to manage business and
operation with different countries that took part in globalization. The matter of
expatriate adjustment which included work environment adjustment, communication

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and cooperation strategy, and general adjustment was necessitated attention for
expatriate productivity and effectiveness. It was therefore that a broader perspective
was needed to amalgamate different perspectives and achieve best productivity.
MNC or multi-national companies should understand the term “global” to
formulate leadership strategies that would be in sync with the long-term goals and
values of the organization. In this context it is relevant to understand the concept of
expatriate adjustment in which case the individual leaves his familiar culture and
practices in order to encounter a different environment. In this case as stated by
Cleveland et al. (2016) the MNCs should build an organizational culture to assure
that the expatriates are being able to ingratiate him-self with the other members of
the organization psychologically, socially and culturally. Both the papers Bird and
Mendenhall (2016) and Jiang et al. (2016) state that general adjustment and
interaction adjustment that the expatriate is adapting have primary roles to play in
giving birth to his experience that is a product of his contact with the different culture.
The individual can only become a successful leader in a leading MNC only if the
process is endowed with better communication facility as the first step towards the
adaptation of crucial elements that are needed for an individual to acquire in a MNC.
According to Tung (2016) it is necessary to acquire a global mindset for an individual
working in a MNC, which should be composed of knowledge and intelligence,
psychological capacity for showing a keenness in diversity. The individual should
aslso possess the social capacity to work in collaboration with employees belonging
from different parts of world and emotionally connect with them to establish a
harmonious work environment. In a cross-cultural environment within a MNC the
leaders should be provided with the scope for the capacity to remain open to new
perspectives and opinions as well as information. As stated in Bird and Mendenhall

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(2016) in any MNC, the managers in order to implement successful cross-cultural
management should be well-equipped with the employees’ ethnic background. The
management style followed in their countries and cultural beliefs to impose a culture
that would foster an environment for leaders to communicate with their team
members with a global mindset. Global mindset as held in the opinion of Bird and
Mendenhall (2016) is the ability to consider and weigh a number of varied
perspectives and opinions to take decisions in an unbiased and candid manner. This
denotes to the tolerance to ambivalent atmosphere is fundamental to the complete
integration of the individual within the working environment of a MNC. In a nutshell
the leaders should be adept to stretch the boundary of their learning to include the
newly added elements as received from the host country. With the help of cross
cultural management therefore, a successful MNC will be able to remove cross
cultural barrier and help the leaders to explore their utmost leadership competencies.
The paper connects the logic of developing intercultural competence within an
individual working in a MNC which demands not merely the efficiency to establish an
effective mode of communication with co-workers belonging from different
background but maintaining the dynamics of such a communication. MNCs should
be careful in adhering to all pervasive communication method that represents them
as a globalized sector and would be influential in their branding, advertising,
marketing, selling and communicating that is taking place amongst multiple
countries. The views of Bird and Mendenhall (2016) are justifiable and in utter
coherence withIslam, Jasimuddinand Hasan (2015) in stating that the ability for
intercultural communication also acts as a catalyst in promoting a sense of
confidence within the employees and competency to flourish in a new culture
delivering the best. In this way, the paper hints at the construction of a platform of

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low context communication where employees and can be encouraged to express
their ideas and opinions which are preferred by most of the MNCs in their operation.
The paper provides a commendable commentary on global leadership and it
can be therefore deductable that organizational culture plays an important role in
building global leadership that requires the development of cognitive abilities,
motivation to learn and improve on one’s tenacity for delivering the best to an
organization. In a business organization in order to achieve the best performance
and output the managers should assure for a defined set of values and practices that
should lead the way for a better synchronization and integration of different values
and beliefs in an organization. The newly acquired set of practices within the
organization should be prudent enough to support the flux and inter-mixed values of
the different countries from which representatives are joining the MNCs or
organizations. Under the context of globalization and inter-change of cultural values
and tenets, the paper provides a lucid account on why the mangers need to let go of
their tight grasp on stereotypical notions of power and express their beliefs in shared
valued and beliefs which different workers represent.
The authors take into account three sets of studies in the domain of cross-
cultural management, unilateral, intercultural and comparative. Schwartz cultural
dimension which held that the dominant cultural traits and beliefs should be
recognized as the most predominant and central has been applied in the paper to
convey the usefulness of the theory in real lifeBeugelsdijk, Kostova and Roth (2017).
According to Schwartz MNCs need to address the three primary issues fundamental
to organization culture. It must first identify the relation between different groups and
individuals, then establish norms to protect social tissue and lastly to identify the
nature of human relationship with their social and natural environment. The paper

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Bird and Mendenhall (2016) lastly enumerates on the necessity of creating a
negotiated culture in MNCs, which is also held true in Beugelsdijk,Kostova and Roth
(2017) stating the significance of MNCs in adopting a pattern of shared values,
effective communication and negotiation that would induce within the people
capabilities to conduct successful business.
The paper with clarity and evidence shows the functioning of different components
within the environment of a MNC that would propel the development of a global
leader. It justifies the tag line “ think global act global” in a precise manner along with
the qualities that would generate this within an individual. The paper in an organized
manner concludes why strategic thinking, intercultural communication is necessary
to build competent global leaders who would be able to give way to rapid and swift
communication in the operational process and encouraging a work environment for
the employees build upon collaboration and harmony. The paper substantiates its
claim with theories and evidences which have been elaborated in a linear order with
the help of cultural dimension models and coherent syllogistic arguments regarding
the context of leadership and personality development. Related skills which are
needed to be harbored for a successful coordination within the structure of MNC are
also stated in the paper. In the opinions of Bird and Mendenhall (2016) the ability of
a selected leader in a global organization to provide superior quality performance is
based on intercultural communication, their previous cross-cultural experiences,
adjustment capacity, appreciation and comprehensibility of cultural diversity, and
global strategicthinking.
An in-depth analysis of the paper makes the reader understand that it is not always
feasible to write down a set of clear-cut definition regarding the various core
competencies and their relationship in giving birth to a successful global leader.

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However, the paper formulates a number of assumptions to give evidence to some
of their claims and is successful in stating how global leaders can collaborate in
MNC. Cross cultural management therefore allocates the leaders to develop a
mindset that would help the leader to evolve his essential being and incorporate into
his self essential elements chosen from dominant cultural trends within the
organization. In the opinion of Jiang et al. (2016) global mindset will provide an
interest towards exploring the versatility of culture and norms within the market the
MNC is operating that would expand the leader’s personal experiences and opinions.
Arguments presented in the paper are reliable since they are deduced after carrying
forth an empirical study in the field of global leadership in order to pinpoint the
competencies and qualities that leaders need to acquire in major MNCs of a
globalized world.The paper is very relevant in the scope of knowing extensively
about the subject of cross-cultural relationship and development of leadership
qualities because of the wealth of journals that have been cited in the paper.
Perspectives that the papers allows of a number of research scholars to the readers
has been adequate for a complete understanding of each of the theories like
leadership theories ad their function against the backdrop of cross-cultural
management in business organizations.

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Journals Cited:
Beugelsdijk, S., Kostova, T. and Roth, K., 2017. An overview of Hofstede-inspired
country-level culture research in international business since 2006. Journal of
International Business Studies, 48(1), pp.30-47.
Bird, A. and Mendenhall, M.E., 2016. From cross-cultural management to global
leadership: Evolution and adaptation. Journal of World Business, 51(1), pp.115-126.
Cleveland, M., Rojas-Méndez, J.I., Laroche, M. and Papadopoulos, N., 2016.
Identity, culture, dispositions and behavior: A cross-national examination of
globalization and culture change. Journal of Business Research, 69(3), pp.1090-
1102.
Islam, M.Z., Jasimuddin, S.M. and Hasan, I., 2015. Organizational culture, structure,
technology infrastructure and knowledge sharing: Empirical evidence from MNCs
based in Malaysia. Vine, 45(1), pp.67-88.
Jiang, X., Flores, H.R., Leelawong, R. and Manz, C.C., 2016. The effect of team
empowerment on team performance: A cross-cultural perspective on the mediating
roles of knowledge sharing and intra-group conflict. International Journal of Conflict
Management, 27(1), pp.62-87.
Tung, R.L., 2016. New perspectives on human resource management in a global
context. Journal of World Business, 51(1), pp.142-152.

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Reference List:
Alvesson, M. and Sveningsson, S., 2015. Changing organizational culture: Cultural
change work in progress. Routledge.
Bakir, A., Blodgett, J.G., Vitell, S.J. and Rose, G.M., 2015. A preliminary
investigation of the reliability and validity of Hofstede’s cross cultural dimensions.
In Proceedings of the 2000 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual
Conference (pp. 226-232). Springer, Cham.
Beugelsdijk, S., Kostova, T. and Roth, K., 2017. An overview of Hofstede-inspired
country-level culture research in international business since 2006. Journal of
International Business Studies, 48(1), pp.30-47.
Bolman, L.G. and Deal, T.E., 2017. Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and
leadership. John Wiley & Sons.