Identifying Common Challenges

 Can cause arrogance and cultural ignorance

 Potential to overshadow creative ideas of employees from other countries

 Global trends are at the heart of human resource policy

The shift from the parent-subsidiary model with branches in many countries to multinational corporations and global companies has helped reduce the need for parent company managers or local directors to oversee the operations of branches. Therefore, the Global-centric policy will not be limited to the framework of the parent country or the host country. Instead, human resource managers applying this trend will look for talent everywhere, regardless of nationality.

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This policy is relatively complex, because when applying it, it is necessary to consider economic factors, decision-making practices, and legal uncertainties and contingencies.

The advantages of this policy are:

 This is a sophisticated way to deal with people from different countries and cultures.

 Leverage creativity and strong capabilities on a global scale

 Open up valuable learning opportunities

However, the application of this policy is not without limitations, specifically

could be:

 Complex to deploy, costly and labor intensive to maintain

 May contain conflicts with development plans of individual country branches

 It is very difficult to find qualified expatriate staff.

In short, being aware of the pros and cons of staffing trends will help companies find policies that fit their business model.

operating environment, context and development plans. In practice, companies may use a combination of factors in different policies, but one trend still holds the dominant role.

2.3.3. Training and development

Orientation : provide training programs to enhance employee capacity in managing cultural diversity , but cannot ignore training in business and professional skills .

Training and development programs can address many of the challenges that arise from cultural diversity. Training to enhance cultural awareness and cultural competencies can be considered essential to foster and enhance intercultural relationships. Training in business skills is also helpful.

a. Training to improve awareness and cultural qualities

Perhaps most strikingly, cultural awareness and competency training programs can quickly teach employees about cultural similarities and differences, and reduce their reliance on inaccurate stereotypes and stereotypes. Although stereotypes are difficult to change, they can be modified with adequate evidence and counterexamples.

As mentioned above, within a multicultural alliance, there are many forms of cultural diversity. Therefore, cultural awareness training programs should not be limited to understanding national cultures. Employees can also benefit from information about similarities and differences due to geographic location, industry, etc. In addition to imparting knowledge, effective training sessions provide employees with opportunities to practice and hone their interpersonal skills. Awareness training should also not be viewed as a one-time event. Educational instruction can be useful.

initially beneficial, but as the alliance grows, intense team-building workshops and joint problem-solving exercises may become necessary, as employees recognize and experience the effects of cultural diversity evident in their daily lives.

b. Business skills training

The potential benefits of cultural awareness training are clear, but business skills training can also help strengthen an organization’s ability to manage cross-culturally. Business training can help create two of the conditions that enable multicultural teams to take advantage of diversity: an understanding of shared goals, and mutual respect. If alliance members do not truly believe that they share common interests, they are likely to perceive a competitive relationship between alliance partners. Furthermore, unless they understand why each partner’s capabilities and resources are necessary for mutual success, they will perceive one partner’s contributions as more important, more valuable, and therefore more deserving of respect. Through business skills training, employees in multinational corporations can develop an appreciation and appreciation of each party’s contribution of their capabilities and resources to a common goal. For example, if partners in a joint venture enter into a relationship that is not based on a 50-50 equity basis, employees in the joint venture may assume that the more capitalized company will ultimately have more influence and control, placing the less capitalized partner in a position of lower status. The problem is that in such joint ventures, it is more likely that the intangible resources (besides money, facilities) of the less capitalized partner are more important to the success of the organization. Therefore, educating employees about the equal value of capital (money) and intangible resources

Another form will provide them with a solid foundation to foster mutual respect.

2.3.4. Operational management

For any organization, performance appraisal is a critical and complex aspect of human resource management. For mergers and acquisitions, creating a performance appraisal and management system is perhaps the most difficult challenge an organization faces when attempting to blend two distinct cultures. For joint ventures, a major challenge is creating a system that aligns the interests of managers in the joint venture and those of the parent and subsidiary companies. In addition to contributing to the technical aspects of employees' work, performance management systems also help enhance cross-cultural relationships by ensuring that employees' efforts are aligned toward common goals, providing them with feedback that provides insight into how people from different cultures interpret their behavior, and rewarding efforts to develop the traits needed to function effectively in a multicultural environment.

Orientation : Using the performance management system as a communication tool

to convey instructions and direction to achieve common goals .

Training programs can inform employees about the alliance partners’ shared goals, but the performance management system must convince employees that the statements are also true. Ideally, at each stage, all involved employees will understand how their performance is evaluated and how and why performance evaluations relate to the alliance’s overall goals. Rewards and recognition for contributions to organizational success will reinforce this message.

Orientation : Use feedback in a way that is accessible to the standards of each feedback recipient .

There are significant differences in the norms for giving and receiving feedback across cultures. In any culture, listening to and accepting feedback is essential to maintaining productive relationships. Cultural differences make it easy for feedback to be misunderstood and misinterpreted. One way to avoid this problem is to refrain from giving feedback to people from other cultures. Well-designed performance management rules will ensure that employees receive the necessary feedback in a culturally appropriate manner.

Orientation : Use rewards and recognition to motivate employees to maximize their cultural qualities .

Organizations often provide training, but they don’t require full attendance or reward employees for putting the knowledge and skills they learn into practice. According to a study of hundreds of organizations in the United States, the success of internal diversity interventions is enhanced when rewards are applied at the right time and place. Requiring people to attend cultural awareness and competency training sends a message about its importance, and actually rewards employees for making progress.

2.3.5. Development and reform

Orientation : When developing management rules in a formal organization , consider the consequences for informal organizations , and then monitor those consequences systematically .

Organizational development and change activities can serve a variety of purposes during the formation and management of a multicultural alliance. Both research and anecdotal evidence point to the important role that interpersonal friendships play in the success of

cross-cultural alliances. For example, when explaining what factors contributed to the success of a joint venture between Italy and the United States, managers cited the strong friendship between the chairmen of the two parent companies. In contrast, the lack of interpersonal friendships within FESA, a joint venture between Japan’s Fujitsu and Spain’s Banesto, made it difficult to develop the level of trust needed to transfer knowledge and learn.

Because of the different forms of cultural diversity that exist in multicultural alliances, employees often find it more difficult than usual to develop personal relationships with colleagues from other cultures. However, the positive feelings associated with a close friendship with an “outsider” (e.g., someone from the partner side) have the potential to simplify the complexity of the group. Thus, organizational development activities that help employees cultivate even a few close personal relationships can benefit the entire alliance. This is true for all human resource management disciplines, but a major challenge is designing activities that have the desired effects in all segments of the organization. As we have described above, organizational development measures are most effective when the ideas guiding the organizational development activities are consistent with cultural assumptions. Within culturally diverse organizations, this condition is particularly difficult to achieve. While the ideas within an organization's development efforts may be compatible with the cultural backgrounds of several countries, unless there is very little cultural diversity, common perceptions will not be shared by all employees.

2.4. MULTICULTURAL MANAGEMENT AT THE WORKGROUP LEVEL

2.4.1. Identify common challenges

Working groups consisting of members from different countries and territories often want managers with specific skills, especially when conflicts arise within the group that require managers.

must be resolved smoothly. Below are some examples and suggestions to help team leaders and managers feel more comfortable when running multicultural teams.

A multinational software development company needed to launch a new product quickly, and the project manager wanted to create a team that included people from India and the United States. Early on, the team members disagreed about the delivery date. The Americans thought the work would be completed in two or three weeks, but the Indians thought it would take two or three months. As time went on, the Indians were reluctant to report any difficulties in the product, while the Americans felt they needed to do so only when the work was complete. Of course, these types of conflicts can affect any team. In this case, they stemmed from cultural differences. When tensions rise, and disagreements about deadlines and feedback spill over into daily interactions and become interpersonal conflicts, the problem becomes serious. At this point, the project manager had to step in. He decided that every member of the team, American or Indian, had to wait for him to issue detailed instructions to proceed, something the team had previously decided and done on their own. The manager then became bogged down in the day-to-day minutiae of the project, which made progress very slow and increasingly hopeless, and the team never learned how to work together effectively.

Multicultural work teams often create difficult management situations. Cultural differences are always a potential factor affecting overall work efficiency, but are often difficult to recognize until the problem becomes serious. In the above case, it is clear that the intervention of superiors

only adds to the problem, not solves it. The challenge is to identify the sources of conflict that stem from cultural differences, and to figure out how to get the team back on track, while also helping team members learn how to handle similar issues that may arise in the future.

Jeanne Brett, Kristin Behfar, and Mary C. Kern interviewed managers and members of multicultural work teams from companies around the world and concluded that the wrong types of managerial interventions only increase conflict and worsen performance, and even cause resistance. We are talking about groups of people working with different business minds, and the daily clashes that occur are mainly due to differences in knowledge of product markets, customer service, and sometimes even the concept of working hours.

Cultural challenges are entirely manageable, if managers and team members choose the right solutions, avoiding a “monocultural” approach to solving cross-cultural problems.

People often think that challenges in multicultural teams come from different communication styles. In fact, it is only one of four causes that create barriers to the ultimate success of the team . These are : i . Differences in communication culture ( direct – indirect ) , ii . Problems with pronunciation and fluency , iii . Different views on hierarchy and authority ; and iv . Opposing norms in decision - making .

a. Differences in communication culture

In Western culture, the typical communication style is direct and straightforward. This means that everything must be

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