Cross Cultural Management - Essay Example

Cross Cultural Management CROSS CULTURAL MANAGEMENT The world we live in has different people who have embraced different culturesas they see fit. This paper seeks to compare and contrast the Malaysian culture with western culture.The Malaysians have a unique culture that they have embraced. This culture has many differences if compared with the culture that is found in the west. In the western culture, people go in at the business meeting and start talking business immediately. However, in Malaysia, if one did that it would be considered rude.

They expect to get familiar with the person first, before embarking on to their business. Business in most cases is usually discussed at the second or third meeting (Goodwin et al, 1999 p267).In the Malaysian culture, trust is more important than governance while in the western culture; governance comes first then followed by trust. Malaysians tend to have a much stronger view on trust than governance. In Malaysia, if one enters their culture; they do not try meet one halfway. However, in the western culture, when they try to interact with someone from another culture, they tend to meet the other person halfway (Hofstede, 1983 p46).

These two cultures depict strong differences on how they perceive and react to certain factors. The two cultures are different in terms of business and social ethics. The Malaysians tend to be stricter in trust basis while the wests mostly base their business ethics along the terms of profit (Niikura, 1999 p690).This paper has shown the differences between two cultures by using a case example of the western culture and the Malaysian culture. ReferencesGoodwin, J & Goodwin D 1999, ‘Ethical Judgments Across Cultures: A Comparison between Business Students from Malaysia and New Zealand’, Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 18, pp. 267-81.

Hofstede G 1983, ‘National Cultures in Four Dimensions: A Research-Based Theory of Cultural Differences among Nations’, Cross-Cultural Management: II. Empirical Studies, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 46-74.Niikura R 1999, ‘Assertiveness among Japanese, Malaysian, Filipino, and U.S. white-collar workers’, The Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 139, no. 6, pp. 690-99.