Cross Cultural Managment - Essay Example

Globalization has led to progressive diversification where the organizations are filled with diverse workforce belonging to different culture and countries (Dong and Liu 1352-1706). The impact of the cultural diversity is unclear and not unidirectional. The impact of diversified cultural workforce on the team productivity can be rewarding only if the organizational culture and climate is positive and congenial. Culture is an important element which acts as an external source of deep influence on the employee behavior.

The impact of culture on an individual creates a change within the organization itself. Members of the organization are coping with uncertainty and ambiguity collectively and individually based on the strategies and attitudes that have a deep influence on the culture. Culture is a collective programming of mind which distinguishes one category of people from another. The type of cultural values and importance given to these values varies from one culture to another and is deeply influenced by the historical, current socio political and ecological context.

The cultural values play an important role in shaping the organizational customs and practices that in turn help in shaping the organizational culture. . For example, the management in Volvo imparts training workshops to the employees regarding their technical skills and soft skills which are also known as “People Skills”. This workshop lays emphasis on enhancing the non technical skills, which can help in the achievement of the objectives in unification. Presently, the multinational corporations are spreading their business units across the globe for the expansion of activities and achieving economies of scale.

The cultural gaps and distance between the host and home country have a significant impact on the selection process, training, development and performance management systems. Companies find the cross cultural networks to be rewarding and equally challenging. The cross cultural management is found to be equally challenging because of the potential rising conflicts which pose as barriers for the development of strategies. Moreover, multinational corporations hire employees from a diverse workforce who all wish to achieve the organizational goals in unification.

With employees belonging to another culture training is imparted to them with a unique training curriculum that covers all the aspects required for achievement of the organizational objectives. The cross cultural management usually depends upon variables like the ethnicity and culture variations among the employees and thus a systematic approach is required for categorization of various organizational groups, teams and individual levels. Cross cultural management focuses on the difference between the diverse groups and signifies a nineteenth century anthropological perspective of the culture (Fontaine 125-135).

Knowledge management approach which lays emphasis on the fact that knowledge is the most valuable asset and methods on how the management can