Global Business Environment - Report Example

Task and Task 2 Contents Executive Summary 4 Introduction 4 Methodology 5 Task 5 Individual Orientation 6 Competition 6 Task Orientation 6 Equality 7 Problem tolerance 7 Entrepreneurial spirit 8 Timeliness 8 Task 2 10 Leadership 10 Communication 12 Team-working 13 Diversity Management 14 Conclusion 16 References 18 Executive Summary Global business environment is highly volatile in nature. In this changing business scenario business practices and management practices of the organization is significantly interrelated with the culture of the organization. But in cases of transnational companies business and management practices of the organization varies with the changing scenarios. Here in this report a detailed discussion will be done. It will be a step by step approach. Introduction United States of America is being considered as the world’s leader in their management and business practices. Cultural nature of the country significantly impacts the organizations and business practices. Culture is all about rules, techniques, artefacts, behaviour, attitude and beliefs that symbolise individual nature. All of these cultural factors vary from region to region. American culture is significantly different from many other cultures. American culture gives strong emphasis on task orientation and individualism. These cultural aspects trickle down to the business practices of the American organizations. This results in to business behaviours that are exemplary for other different cultures. Transnational companies are generally large multinational companies that have divisions around the world. Companies like Google and Wal-Mart over the years have managed advanced feedback systems where employees of the organizations have able to share their positive and negative comments. All these organizations follow global culture. Coca Cola is a transnational company and has presence in every continent apart from Antarctica (Swanson, 2014). Coca Cola is an American company which has transnational presence across the world. The organization has presence across more than 200 countries in the world. Fair competition is a dominant American culture which has deep rooted relationship with their businesses. Methodology This paper deals with extended research on two research question and in-depth analysis of collected data. The two research objectives are evaluation of the impact of culture of a nation on management practices and identification of cultural approach of transnational company. These two research objectives are highly qualitative in nature which involved individual and institutional behaviour in terms of national, business and social culture. Therefore, secondary research method and qualitative analysis method will be most appropriate for this study. Secondary research is termed as desk research. The required information will be collected from reliable online and offline sources such as books and journals from libraries, articles from online libraries and other reliable online sources like government publications, industry reports by big four consulting firms, research reports by reputed research companies like McKinney and Companies, international conference reports etc. As both of the research questions of this study is qualitative in nature, the data collected from these secondary sources will analysed in-depth through logical justification and explanation. Task 1 There are certain characteristics of American cultural which are deeply interrelated with their business and management practices (Halliwell, 2007). All those cultural aspects which impact the American business and management practices will be discussed below. Individual Orientation Individual orientation is an integral part of the American culture that impacts their business substantially. Basic characteristic of American culture is self reliance. People of the country have significant believes in their own skills. Companies like Apple and Coca Cola often encourage self dependency of their employees which is a clear reflection of the American culture in their business practices. Believing on individual capacity is a corner stone of American culture and it is highly taken care of by different US companies (Hackett, 2003). Independence and freedom of individual human being is the backbone of American culture. These cultural characteristics over the years have secured their places in the American businesses. Competition Fair competition is an inseparable part of the American culture. People of the country believe in free and fair competitions. It has impacted American businesses proficiently. An environment of balanced competition has always able to bring the best out of the American businesses (Brown, Gudis and Moskowitz, 2006). In the different business sectors the nation is known to be one of the major innovative and creative countries in the world. All these innovations and creativity are significantly backed up by the air of fair competitions in their business practices. Team work is one of the fundamental factors of American business and an environment of balanced competition has inculcated this aspect in to the DNA of American business. Task Orientation Task orientation is another cultural aspect of the country which has great presence in their business practices. Punctuality and structured scheduling is a key attribute of American people and they follow it in their work places also (Caprar, 2007). They don’t believe in biting around the bush. Wasting of time and resources is highly condemned in their culture; all these factors have impacted their business practices also. Companies like PepsiCo and General Motors over the years have given significant stress on task orientation. These cultural facets have enabled different organizations to increase their productivities and efficiencies of their business operations. Supreme task orientation have made different organizations of the country exemplary and internationally recognized brands. Equality Equality is a core cultural aspect of the nation. Equal right of all American people is an integral part of the American culture, famously known as “American Dream”. After the African-American Civil Rights Movement, the country has welcomed equal opportunity for all American people without any scope of biasness. According to the culture every American irrespective of gender and race are equally qualified for any work. This cultural attribute is strictly followed by the different organizations as they give significant focuses towards workforce diversifications and ignore any kind social or cultural discrimination. A good example of equality in business practices is, Donald Thompson is the current CEO of Macdonald’s and his colour of skin is black but one of the most important persons of the world’s largest food chain. Problem tolerance Facing the challenge and contingency tolerance is deep rooted in the American culture. People of the country are open to face different challenges and these sorts of tolerances are being reflected in their business and management practices as well. The ability to tolerate and handle adverse business situations has transformed different organizations as learning organizations. Continuous learning’s from different situations are very much prominent in their business decisions. For example after the global financial recession of 2008, the Federal reserve of America came up with different stimulus packages to bailout different organizations. But recently the central bank of the country is slowly revoking all those packages because the economy is on the recovery mode. It is a great example of their ambiguity tolerance, which is the basic of American culture. Entrepreneurial spirit Risk taking ability or Entrepreneurial spirit is also an important cultural aspect of America. Freedom, individual consideration and self reliance are some prominent characteristics of American culture which motivate people to create something of their own. All those factors increase risk taking abilities of the American people and which are generally reflected in their business or their management practices. Persons like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren buffet and Bill gates are the glorious examples of Entrepreneurial spirit who have taken their organizations to an enviable height with the help of their indomitable risk taking abilities. In companies like Apple, Google and Facebook employees are highly appreciated for their entrepreneurial thought process (Fitzroy and Herbert, 2007). It is often being noticed that within these companies the way employees are thinking new ideas are given importance not the end result. Timeliness It is another cultural factor that influences different business and management practices of the organizations in the country. Time is money for American business organizations and for that they never believe in wasting of time. As it is one of the most basic elements related with American culture they strictly follow timeliness in their business practices. American managers always maintain the sanctity of the timliness in their business meetings and workers often perform their business operations within stipulated time frame and in this way they maintain efficiency and productivity in their businesses. Management practices can be defined as the techniques or methods which are used in an effective way to achieve the objectives of an organization. A firm can use its resources in an optimum way by adopting the above mentioned techniques. Different countries are applied these methods in different way in their business practices (Davila and Elvira, 2009). Here, the selected country is US. Most of the US companies want to improve the productivity of every employee. So the management of every company is structured their management practices in such a way which will be helpful to increase the productivity of employees (Thompson and Martin, 2010). Few major steps are followed by the management which are as follows. Companies are designing economic benefit structure in an efficient way so that employees at all level of organization will be benefitted from the structure of incentives (Drucker, 2012). There is a natural tendency of the organizations to focus on the senior level economic benefits only but the US based companies have taken different steps than this traditional procedure and they are focusing on economic benefits for the lower level staffs also. Again they are giving concentration on getting the feedback from the lower level employees. Here this can be mentioned that most of the companies are following two way communication systems within the organizational culture (Kreitner and Cassidy, 2012). Management is giving importance on the feedback and suggestions from the lower level staffs and these feedbacks are very important to take corrective steps in the business procedure. Problems are highlighted within very short span of time by using this communication system (Griffin, 2012). If higher management has decided to implement any stringent rule in the operational procedure but in the practical field works cannot be done after following that mentioned rule then that will be resolved very quickly as the staffs are informed to the management about the problem of implementation. Therefore, continuity in case of product and service supply can be maintained by that company in a smooth way (Andersen, 2013). Respect is one of the powerful motivator which is used by the US based companies in their management practices. When employees feel that they are genuinely respected in the organization then they will give extra efficiency in their work even if not demanding any extra benefit (Samson and Daft 2012). Management of these companies are also providing valued support at each and every step to the employees of the organization. Again US based companies are very much concerned for providing required trainings to all the managers of the organization and most of the trainings are related to the leadership skill (Drucker, 2010). More training and development opportunities will help to enhance the career path of an employee. Recruitment procedure in these organizations has been done on the basis of merit, experience and previous performance in the relevant field (Davila and Elvira, 2008). Organizations develop management practice scoring card for monitoring performance, setting targets and mange people of the company. (Armstrong, 2012). Task 2 Leadership Being a transnational organization the company’s leadership approach is directly related with the different cultural facets. The organization has presence across the world. In different countries cultural scenarios are different from each other (Jenster, Hayes and Smith, 2005). But the basic leadership approaches of the organizations are similar for every country. The leaders of the organizations believe in the inclusive growths of the employees across the world. According to Therese Gearhart the president of Southern Africa division of Coca Cola, in their company leadership is all about leading from the front and setting exemplary standard for the followers. In the organization leaders believe in deep connections between the employees and the management. It helps the organization to maintain a close relationship between the management and the workers. Universalism means looking the world through the global filter is another cultural leadership approach of the organization (Isdell and Beasley, 2011). With the help of this leadership approach the organization leads large and well diversified global workforces effectively. Leadership approaches in the Coca Cola follows transformational leadership styles as the people working in the organization get significant opportunities to transform their passions into actions. The leadership culture of the organization motivates its employees across the globe to contribute significantly for achieving their common goal. Due to the transnational leadership culture in the company employees across the world feel that their future growths are interconnected with the growth of the organization. According to the recent survey, 52% of the totally employee strength of the organization have categorically stated that they are satisfied with leadership approaches of the company. Fundamental culture of the company’s leadership style is Utilitarianism i.e. maximizing the benefit for the largest possible segment of workforces. Workforce development and training is also a significant cultural aspect of their leadership style. The organization over the years has come up with different development programs which are the back bone of their leadership style (Stahl, 2007). Programs like Coca-Cola University, Short-term Assignments, Peak Performance rewards and functional development have motivated large employee base across the world. Leadership of the organization believe in growing from within. Due to this culture great performing employees of the organization often get lucrative opportunities for future growth. Communication In 1976 the organization partnered with FIFA. The partnership was all about development of football globally. The communication activity took place in almost 100 countries across the world. During that activity the organization came up with different communication strategies to address the local customers (Bell and Smith, 2010). With this approach the organization wanted glocalization of their brand. The communication was totally in line with the cultural perspective of the company. The organization believes in multidirectional internal communication. It includes team ethos, communication with all employees, bidirectional communication, participation in different CSR activities and different business initiatives for supporting business objectives. Communication is a significant part of the organization through which the company informs their all strategic decisions across their different operational divisions. The organization has given significant importance towards their communication (Walker, 2014). The organization has come up with an idea that communicates with individuals with disabilities. The whole communication process has been designed according to the disabilities of the individuals. Face to face interactions, telephone calls and electronic communication systems are the primary communication mediums for the organizations through which the company communicate internally and externally across their global operations (Tripathi, 2009). The organization clearly shows their task orientation with the help their communication systems which are project specific. The organization is currently using SAP Wave 2 for critical business project. Workplace rights policy is also an important factor related with the communication within the organization. Being a transnational company Workplace Rights policy of the organization is aligned with international human rights standards. The standard has included Universal declaration related with human rights, declaration of international labour organization and the regulations of United Nations. According to this communication the company allows its workforces the right of joining or not joining in the labour union. In 2014 the organization has invested US$5 billion for the sustainable growth of Africa, this CSR activity is clearly communicating that the sustainable culture of the organization. Team-working Team work is an important cultural factor for the organization. Sharing work together is deep rooted into the culture of the organization. The organization firmly believes that in this modern world of acute uncertainties team building is significantly important for the long term sustainable growth of the organization. The company in different parts of the worlds often arrange different team building activities for strengthening the internal fabric of the organization. In 2010 more than 40 officials of Coca Cola went for a team building adventurous trip in Koh Samui. After the activity the organization took feedback about each and every participant and how they responded with the other team members during the activity. In 2007 Coca Cola China’s SMU team went to Hong Kong for their team building activities. The purpose of this team building activity was to make the employees aware about the importance of mutual communication and cooperation. The trip was combination of training, team building activities and leisure (Lopez, 2013). The main idea behind their team building activities is to provide different training and development programs through the environment of fun. Promoting team work in the organization is an inseparable part of the organizational culture. The culture of team work is deep rooted into the organization. The organization not only does team work activities internally but also promote external team work. The organization maintains very close relationship with different bottlers in different countries. In 2014 the organization teamed up with a reputed soccer player DaMarcus Beasley for promoting the passion of soccer in the mind of the African youth. With their different team building activities the organization tries to create supreme employee engagement in to the organization (Bell, 2003). Diversity Management Diversity management is a significant challenging task and managers of the different organizations are facing significant challenges for managing this cultural aspect. Being a transnational organization the Coca Cola is related with different diverse activities and diverse workforces (Mor Barak, 2010). Over the years the organization has managed their diversity significantly. The organization has come up with global diversity mission which reflects about the diverse market place under which the corporation is operating. Diversity is the nerve centre of the organization as far as their transnational business operations are concerned (Schlanert, 2011). The organization has managed diversity by providing inclusive environment in their work place where employees from different back grounds get similar opportunities to contribute for the betterment of the organization. The organization has a Vision for 2020 (Bodden, 2008). The vision is known as People goals. The above picture indicates that the organization is professionally managing their work force diversity in their US operations (Hays, 2010). The picture is further indicating that 55% of the total American workforces are Native American or American Indian and rest of the 45% is very well diversified. The above picture justifies that the gender diversity in the US business operation. 18% of total US employees are female, which is not very much encouraging but the organization is trying to improve the situation (Pendergrast, 2013). In 2014 the organization has been ranked at 33 in the list of DiversityInc’s Top 50 Companies where as in 2013 this 38. In 2014 the organization has secured the place in this premium list for the 12 consecutive times (Ozbilgin and Tatli, 2008). According to the Diversity Officer of the Coca Cola John Lewis, over the years the company has focused on diversity management and it will continue to do well in the near future. Conclusion From the detailed analysis above it has been justified that management practice in US is also related with product market competition. Management of the companies is planning strategies which will be helpful for getting maximum competitive advantages than the competitors in the market. The analysis justifies that Coca Cola is transnational company and it has professionally managed their transnational presence in all the countries where it operates. In their business practices different cultural aspects have been taken care of by the organization. Different dimensions like leadership, communication, team working and diversity management are deeply related with the cultures of the operating countries. Both employee and customer centricity is the main objective of the organization. Employee satisfaction is an important part of the organization culture. Over the years the organization has used its different team working activities as a successful tool to maintain this culture effectively. All the facts and figures provided in the discussion clearly indicating that the management of the organization are paying significant attentions towards this important cultural aspect of the company. The company always distances itself from the concept of forced labour. The organization maintains schedule work hours and minimum wages rate for their employees. It has been identified from analysis that culture of the company clearly has direct impacts in their leadership. References Andersen, T. 2013. Short Introduction to Strategic Management. 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