Main thesis
Discuss about the International Encyclopedia Of Social And Behavioral Sciences.
Cross cultural management is considered to be an effective tool to extract more efficiency and innovation from the employees. The practice of cross cultural management is very significant in the context of organisational set up of a business organisation. It can be argued that with the elapse of time, the perception and understanding regarding cross cultural practice is going to be transformed dynamically (Ang and Van Dyne 2015). However, there is a historical background of this shift in understanding. In fact, there is an array of definition about cross-cultural management. Nevertheless, the general definition popular among the scholars identifies the broadest classification of this kind of management with an ample reflection on international strategy and international human resource. It can be referred as the difference of cultural practice based on a comparative study of the people from different countries (Reiche et al. 2016). It can also be argued that the cross cultural management is also defined as international management (Calvin, Beale and Moore 2017). The cross cultural management system expands the genre of working dynamic of a country and in respect to this it is able to develop a universal working system irrespective of nation, ethnicity and gender. At the individual level as well as in organisational aspect the cross cultural management encompasses psychology, sociology and anthropology (Moran, Abramson and Moran 2014). In addition to this, the cross cultural management also comprises the facets of uni-cultural, comparative and intercultural. Unicultural research focuses on organisational management in a single country where as comparative cross cultural study reflects a relation between two or more countries. In case of the multi-culture paradigm, it symbolises the idea of intercultural study is associated with the interaction among organisational members from two or more countries (Tjosvold 2017). In course of the discussion it can be attributed that the core concept of a global leadership is attributed by the understanding, competency, traits and skills related to maintain a diverse work culture.
Besides this, the cross cultural management is closely linked with the global leadership. It can be articulated that the nature of the cross cultural leadership is purely focused on the association of a number of people from two or more countries. Therefore, it requires an effective and efficient leader to control the diverse workforce. In this context, the leader must have possessed the notion and perception of international aspects and it is imperative for him to get a clear idea about the pros and cons of enjoying a multicultural workforce (Lisak and Erez 2015). As the definition of cross cultural management has been transformed a lot with the growing nature of globalisation. In response to this the function of the leader has also been changed its course with the transformation. However, after 2000 with a strong presence of globalisation the leadership becomes global and ushered a new paradigm in the name of Global leadership (Tuleja 2014). There are a number of factors that can help to establish a good global leadership. In this context, communicating with the employees and procure some norms and regulations in order to make it successful are pivotal for the global leader to maintain.
Argument of the book
In this regards, the book is going to underline the important aspects of the global leadership and find out the interrelation between cross cultural management and global leadership. Before highlighting the core concepts of global leadership and employee diversity management the article illustrates the development of the concepts and describes the transformation of perception about each concept. For instance, in the aftermath of the Second World War Untied States was considered as the pinnacle of management approaches and introduced a new concept in the name of technological imperative. This notion of technological imperative in return solidifies the way of cross cultural practice. However, from the 1960s onwards the presence of cross culture could be witnessed in the study of organisational behaviour and management system. In due course, the very idea was shifted with the advent of the idea of multi-domestic, regional and matrix organisational structures of the multi-national corporations. Globalisation further supplies an impetus for understanding the multi faced activities of cross cultural management. In this, context the article identifies different types of cross cultural ideas such as bicultural, comparative and intercultural. In addition to this, global culture fosters an important aspect in the discussion. There is a sharp change in practice related to the cross cultural idea. In its early phase, the internationalisation had to deal with people with other countries in both parallel and unilateral manner. However, with the coming of the 21st century the cross cultural notion reshapes itself and changes its discourses entirely. In the present case scenario, managers and leaders of different organisations maintain a great deal of interaction which turns out less linear and becomes non-linear in nature.
In this context, the idea of global leadership increases the significance of the discussion. The article discussed about the research of global leadership and defined that the process of global leadership research is multifaceted with an assimilation of intercultural communication and global management. In this regards, it describes the nature of global leadership research and categorised it. The first part deals with expatriation. In this part the process of expansion of the business orientation further facilitated not only the process of transfer the employees from his or her home country to the host country but also from a part of the business organisation to the global set up.
While establishing the magnitude of works done by the global leaders or in case of the business organisation the global managers Thomas and Peterson (2017) pointed out that in the 21st century with the dynamic orientation of business the business managers have to deal with the cross cultural workforce. As a result of that it is essential for the managers to set some key planning about managing this diverse workforce (Mittal 2015). They also argued that the impact of globalisation is considered to be the protagonist of this cross cultural practice. The increasing habit of incorporating an interconnectedness of economics and organisations the working environment also becomes very complex. In fact, the perception of managerial functions also transforms from the traditional plan, organise and coordinate to interpersonal, informational and decisional categories (Van Dyn, Ang and Tan 2017).
External academic researches
Furthermore, the attributes of the global managers are depicted more complexly in the writings of Binder (2016). The author tried to create an understanding of the various roles of a global manager while conducting a business project. Culture plays a pivotal part in the success of the project. However, for a multi-national company due to its diverse employees there is always a possibility of communication gap (Reiche et al. 2017). It is the responsibility of the global managers to identify the loopholes of the gapping and connect the employees through implementing a good communication. The communication can be build upon interpersonal relations or any other better communication mechanism (Whitaker and Greenleaf 2017). It should be the key concern of the global manager to take adequate steps for assimilating the cultural diversities and produce an effective and skilled workforce.
The argument of Henson (2016) was quite fascinating because he mentioned some instances where global leaders in terms of expatriate managers are performing successfully despite of difference in cultures. In his book Henson (2016) also corroborated the fact that through good communication and interpersonal mechanism global managers can achieve their goals and lead the company on the pinnacle of success. However, there are some challenges that the global managers can face in procuring any decision. The common obstacle is the cultural diversity (Ang, Rockstuhl and Tan 2015). Therefore, the definition of leadership also changes in course of time. Now, it can be defined as a process of influence to guide other in order to get the successful outcomes. In fact, the global leaders possess some unique and distinct features which differentiate them from general leadership. The distinctiveness is based on some major components like behaviour, culture, structure and demography (Biermeier-Hanson, Liu and Dickson 2015).
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be inferred that the definition and idea of leadership has gone through a significant change from its traditional approach. It is evident that globalisation plays significantly in shaping the concept of global leaders but the impact of culture cannot be overlooked. As a matter of fact, culture is seemed to be an impetus in this new feature of global managers. Hence, the elements of cross cultural practice enhance the importance of global managers in the present case scenario of corporate organisational management. The article truly and devotedly amplified the same way by identifying the connection between the global leaders and cross cultural management. However, the author did not try to highlight any present case scenario from which the readers can get a glimpse of different activities of the global managers. Despite of this underlying constraint it can be concluded that the article is very helpful to understand the transformation of both cross cultural management and global leadership and shared a clear perception about the relevance and importance of these two elements in global business occupation.
Reference
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Binder, J., 2016. Global project management: communication, collaboration and management across borders. Routledge.
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