Reflective Journal on Cross-Cultural Management: Analysis and Insights

This reflective journal examines a student's experience with a group project focused on cross-cultural management, specifically the creation of a podcast analyzing a case study about a manager in Tanzania. The journal details the student's reflections using Gibbs' reflective cycle, covering descriptions of the project's challenges and successes, feelings about the learning process, evaluations of team dynamics, and analyses of the application of management theories like Hofstede's cultural dimensions and House's leadership theory. The student reflects on communication skills, team harmony, and the importance of adapting to cultural differences. The journal also includes a future action plan for improving team-working and podcasting skills, as well as a conclusion summarizing the key learnings and the importance of reflecting on experiences for personal and professional development.

Running Head: REFLECTIVE JOURNAL
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Reflective Journal
Reflection: Cross-Cultural Management
(Student details :)
3/19/2019

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Reflection over Cross-Cultural Management.............................................................................2
Description.............................................................................................................................3
Feelings..................................................................................................................................3
Evaluation..............................................................................................................................4
Analysis..................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion..............................................................................................................................4
Future Action Plan.................................................................................................................4
Theory Application....................................................................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
This reflective report is to identify the significant sources utilised for supporting the argument
of the podcast we made. This reflective journal will also include a brief analysis of whatever
went well in our group task along with what could be upgraded if I would be involved in a
same task in the upcoming future. To do so, with the help of reflecting upon theory
application I will evaluate the effectiveness of all of the theories utilised during the group
task. In addition, my reflection will contain the reasons and supportive arguments about why
we all used those particular theories over other ones. Hence, both theory application and self-
reflection through Gibb’s model will be covered in this paper.
Besides, the paper will first reflect upon the second issue, my team faced while creating
podcast. Besides, this paper will explore the above with the help of examples. Furthermore,
paper will reflect upon the feelings and learning, which I have acquired while creating the
podcast with the help of reflective model proposed by Gibbs (Potratz, 2018). Finally, post
reflecting upon the above two parts, my reflective writing will contain my future action plan
in order to improve the second part of the reflection in near future.
Source: (Gibbs, 2016)

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Reflection over Cross-Cultural Management
Professor Graham Gibbs proposed Reflective Cycle in the year 1988. This reflective cycle is
majorly useful for assisting people while learning from experiences and situations which they
face regularly within personal and professional context. Hence, I am utilising this model to
reflect upon my three major incidents during the module.
Description
My team completed the group project over a case study focused on cross-cultural
management. Post analysing the case study we also created podcast. Here, I would like to
describe what the second issue of the podcast was as the second issue involved was the
additional fees offered to tribal leaders, which were increasing the project cost. I observed
that due to a western viewpoint Brett was paying extra fees for the project which was already
signed as well as sealed. My team saw that a long-term orientation score could be able to
impact tradition while the individualism mark was relating better to Halls low-context and
high-context communication theories (Thomas et al., 2008).
Feelings
After creating the group podcast over the case study, my team and I gained a lot of
knowledge as well as transferable skills which made me feel good. In terms of knowledge, I
am now able to understand the nature along with the impacts of cultural differences at a
business and personal level. I learnt about cross-cultural differences and their management at
an organization level. I am able to implement many cross-cultural management techniques
for the varied range of problems. Besides, after creating that podcast I developed mindfulness
of myself and my team for operating sensitively and effectively within cross-cultural groups
(French, 2015). I felt like a critical thinker when I responded to a wide range of cross-cultural
management issues during creating group podcast and written script over single case study
(Kim & McKay-Semmler, 2013). The best part of the creating podcast exercise was that, our
group addressed key problems through relating them with the topics which have effectively
been covered within our lectures (Miller et al., 2015).
Evaluation
Moreover, while creating podcast with the team I collected positive experiences about the
events which went well include:

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 Positive and intellectual conversations: I got an opportunity to interact with all of my
team-members who are the persons dedicated to their professional lives.
 Positive Feedback: I got a chance to know about the power of positive feedback. For
an example, while I received the positive feedbacks from my team members then I
felt happy about my personality, skills and knowledge (Tung, 2008).
 One more positive aspect of this exercise was that with the help of critical and
analytical thinking of my team, we all identified the problems prior application of the
topics discussed in the lectures by our tutor.
The challenging factors while I was creating podcast over the Tanzania case study include:
 We the team-members faced a glitch or challenges while maintaining harmony in the
group in the beginning phase if the team-building.
 I also realized that effective communication plays an important role while managing
cross-cultures as well as group tasks with my soft communication skills (Potratz,
2018).
Analysis
I played an important role while completing the group project successfully, as professional
communication skills of mine assisted me to maintain team harmony within my team. I acted
as the communication link amid all of the team-members with the help of my great soft skills.
Team-work experiences offered me a life-learning that working in a team always include
issues like power and influence, conflicts, hurdles and miscommunication, yet great teams
overcome all of the above issues with the help of their team-working skills.
Conclusion
In whole, I read, studied, researched and learnt from group task experiences that society is
built from 3 major stages include:
 Foundations of knowledge in daily life
 Objective Reality: Society
 Subjective Reality: Society (Thomos & Peterson, 2017).
Future Action Plan
This step of reflective model is all about how I can improve things in future. In this final part
of my reflective writing, I am reflecting upon which skills I should upgrade for improving the

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second part of this reflective writing. In addition, I learnt some life-long teachings while
creating podcast over the given case study and based on that my future action plan is as
follows:
 I will help my team-members to be an expert while addressing the issues relevant to
the case in future.
 I will take care of the target audience and tell my team to be more engaged, effective
listener, as well as enthusiastic.
 I will plan ahead for the launching of any future podcast.
 My team and I will set some future goals for effective team-working skills and
podcasting skills as well.
 I will prepare a formal outline first, and then plan, put it in the market and promote
with the right process which I have learnt after working on this task with my team.
Theory Application
As per my views about the theories we applied during the group assignment, we selected all
of them for strong supportive reasons like GLOBE nine-dimension theory effectively
identifies leadership being a capability to allow people for contributing towards
organisational success. We used Hofstede’s high-context culture theory as they define the
cultures which can communicate in many implicit ways include and hence they rely hugely
on context (Eisenberg et al., 2013). On the other hand, low-context cultures depend upon an
explicit verbal communication. Besides, high-context cultures are communist, provide value
to inter-personal relations, as well as own members which can form stable and close relations
(Browaeys & Price, 2011). Furthermore, House’s 9-dimension leadership theory also
demonstrate links with the Hofstede’s power distance theory showing followers are expected
to obey the leaders without any questions. Therefore, it explained us why focus to authorities
as opposed to villagers might be more effective while gaining regional support for our
project. Moreover, to identify the reason behind the occurrence of the issue we accessed
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory as Tanzanian individualism score was at 25. This score
individualism was indicating a shared society having loyalty as paramount while over-riding
rest societal rules and regulations. In addition, theory given by Berger and Luckman was also
utilised by my team to find the solutions of this issue. In addition, Herzberg’s two factor
theory used by my team which derives that motivator factors offer satisfaction whereas

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hygiene factors avert dissatisfactions. Furthermore, Halls high-context and low-context
communication was utilized for the assistance to address the issue effectively. We used this
theory while analysing the case study, as it signalled that hygiene factors offer societies
motivations thus we understood that why Brett jones utilises bribery as well as nepotism for
achieving better productivity of our project (Gelfand et al., 2007).
Conclusion
In conclusion, this reflective writing has successfully highlighted the three main areas of the
task process. My team and I analysed the given case study of Tanzania from the perspective
of cross-cultural management. In addition, with the help of this reflective journal I learnt the
importance of reflecting, and extracting the main learning from it. I learnt that reflecting upon
the past experiences typically help while evolving future relevant action plans from the
perspective of personal and professional development. Finally, I observed, evaluated,
assessed, learnt, as well as reflected upon various issues during the group project of creating
podcast.
References
Browaeys, M. & Price, R., 2011. Understanding Cross-Cultural Management. Harlow:
Pearson Education Ltd.
Eisenberg, J., Lee, H.J., Bruck, F. & Brenner, B., 2013. Effects of cross-cultural management
courses on cultural intelligence. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 12(4),
pp.603-21.
French, R., 2015. Cross-cultural management in work organisations. UK: Kogan Page
Publishers.
Gelfand, M.J., Erez, M. & Aycan, Z., 2007. Cross-cultural organizational behavior. Annu.
Rev. Psychol, 58, pp.479-514.
Kim, Y.Y. & McKay-Semmler, K., 2013. Social engagement and cross-cultural adaptation:
An examination of direct-and mediated interpersonal communication activities of educated
non-natives in the United States. International Journal of Intellectual Relations, 37(1), pp.99-
112.

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Miller, B.L., Agnich, L.E., Posick, C. & Gould, L.A., 2015. Cheating Around the World: A
Cross-national Analysis of Principal Reported Cheating. Journal of Criminial Justice, 26(2),
pp.211-32.
Potratz, P., 2018. Want To Be Heard? 11 Crucial Tips For Starting A Podcast. [Online]
Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulpotratz/2018/07/12/want-to-be-heard-heres-
11-necessary-tips-for-starting-a-podcast/#13a7fbc95290 [Accessed 19 March 2019].
Thomas, D.C. et al., 2008. Cultural intelligence: Domain and assessment. International
Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 8(2), pp.123-43.
Thomos, D.C. & Peterson, M.F., 2017. Cross-cultural management: Essential concepts.
England: Sage Publications.
Tung, R.L., 2008. The cross-cultural research imperative: The need to balance cross-national
and intra-national diversity. Journal of International Business Studies, 39(1), pp.41-46.