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Power Distance

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MANAGING PEOPLE

CROSS-CULTURAL CHALLENGES IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

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Cross-cultural Challenges in International Business

Management has been one of the key elements of companies in most cases. A major responsibility of managers at all levels is to encourage organization members to perform to the best of their abilities in ways that help the organization achieve its goals (George & Jones 2002). In order to do so, managers need to first have an understanding of their subordinates. The better managers perceive subordinates, the more they are capable to motivate them. In addition, it is the same situation for manager and customer relations. A manager cannot satisfy his customer unless he has a very good sense of perception. Globalization is a very popular term recently. In a way, this term represents the shortening of distances and disappearance of borders (Friedman 2007). Borders within Europe, at the present, are almost forgotten. As the regulations on FDI were loosened in China with her accession to World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001, the three continents America, Europe and Asia are much closer to each other than they have ever been. Multinational corporations (MNC) have spread all over the world. Collaboration with many companies independent of national borders became a must for MNCs to survive.

Collaboration with companies all around the world cannot be managed without a multicultural workforce and cultural differences in it. Having a multicultural workforce has some advantages such as deeper knowledge of different product markets, culturally sensitive customer service, 24-hour work rotations (Brett et al. 2006), and promotion of creativity. On the other hand, the disadvantages of multicultural workforce cannot be ignored and managers are confronted with cross-cultural challenges making it hard to

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