Globalization and Internationalization as Means of Enlarging the Business

 

Introduction

The new business world has been focusing on globalization and internationalization as means of enlarging the business and achieving more success, this lead to business environments that is including people from different cultures around the world. Multicultural business environments may present challenges and problems that managers face in the workplace. Mangers who manage across cultures are in need for high awareness for the needs of people from different cultures and how to communicate with them, motivate them and encourage them to communicate with each other better in the workplace. Many business organizations today are realizing the importance of training the managers to make the best of employees from different cultural backgrounds and making them able to choose the most suitable leadership style that can make communication better within a multicultural business environment. The current paper is discussing managing across cultural environments and workplaces. It also tries to analyze how managers can choose a suitable leadership style for facing the conflicts resulting from cultural diversity in the business organization. It also investigates how managers can be trained to do this task effectively. 

Discussion

Many authors have discussed cultural diversity in the workplace, Panda, (2010) referred to cultures existence in the workplace as a good merit that managers should make use of it and consider it as encouraging factor for employees to be motivated and urged for work. He explained that managers should have strategies for the organizational success especially when there is cultural diversity as there can be differences in the customs, traditions, religions, behaviors of employees and other related issues. This means that there should be a type of mutual understanding for these differences by managers who should focus on confidence building, enhanced relationships and counseling opportunities. Neves and Mele, (2013) discussed cultural diversity with reference to the influence it leaves on the work environment and confirmed that it can be either positive or negative based on the way management is dealing with the cultural diversity as in some organization, it can cause much stress, conflicts and misunderstanding as a result of lack of awareness and communication between employees. These conflicts and stress can reduce the efficiency of the work and lead employees to low employees' performance and when they are well managed and controlled by a good manager, the employees can present their best in cooperation with people without consideration to their cultural backgrounds.

Related to the influence left by culture over the different working styles, there are many views such as those of Mazur, (2010) who discussed the difference in the performance of employees based on their cultures as the time used in doing tasks, ways of thinking, reactions and systematic methods, it is apparent that people react in different ways and culture has a role in this regard as culture dimensions such as time management and adequacy for example may differ from a culture to another and here appears the role of the manager who can set rules for all employees to follow at the beginning of their work without regard to their past work in their countries. Vangen and Winchester, (2013) Mentioned another influence is the communication influence as for example, languages may lead to time waste and misunderstanding so the manger can for example suggest using English in meetings or Arabic or any other one language that can be used by all employees freely. Another influence is a good one which is the high competition that occurs among employees as each employee can try to show that he comes from a culture that respects time and work and the manager here should use motivation techniques that can raise cooperation and enthusiasm with employees. 

According to Leveson, (2009) cross cultural conflicts that occur in business organizations result from the differences in values, traditions, systems and values as they may affect the way employees do the different tasks assigned to them. Management style can affect the way things are done in the business organization, a manager can choose a more flexible management style in order to manage conflicts and specify more time for communication with employees and making them more cooperated and communicating with each other and with their managers. Hunt, (2007) also discussed the management style and how it can be very helpful in managing conflicts and reducing stress resulting from the cultural diversity in the workplace, he referred to the need for applying management styles that include intensive analysis for the work styles employees follow and their relation to the cultures they are belonging to and how to make them more flexible in working according to the organizational goals. The management of the business organization should choose a suitable management style that can help in solving problems related to cultural diversity or any delays caused by it. According to Bell et al, (2006) when a manager chooses a management style, he has to choose that one that focuses on intercultural communication with employees and should regard issues related to cultures such as masculinity and feminism and how they are regarded in employees' cultures as equality should be applied and employees accept this in order to be cooperative but in some cultures masculinity is preferred in management for example. Another issue that should be considered in management style is legislations and state requirements as employees should be aware of the laws and differences in rules and legislations in the country they are working in and their home countries. Another important issue management style should focus on is identifying goals for diversity and creating changes that can achieve them such as gaining more knowledge about global business systems and finding techniques for applying best practices within such work environment such as different team work activities and cooperative projects where all employees have to cooperate and share information with each other.    

As discussed  by Kawar, (2012) A manager should chose a management style that can properly deal with issues related to cultures and this can be by choosing specific frameworks and models to deal with management systems related to space and power, action and competition, structure and communication and others. He also stated that openness is highly needed in the management styles that deal with work environments with different cultural backgrounds as openness can provide a bigger space for communication and can motivate employees and make them closer to each other and to their managers. Gallant, (2013) confirmed this and added that there are other issues such as individualism versus collectivism and power distance that need to be well tackled by a manager in a workplace that is full of different people from different cultural backgrounds. He added that this depends on the flexibility of the chosen management style and if it is able to apply changes or not. 

According to Kumar and Patrick, (2012) managers should be trained on dealing with different issues related to cultural diversity in their business organizations, they have to be part of different training courses and programs with the aim of improving their performance and then the performance of employees. Managers are in need for being able to face the different challenges that face them during working in a work environment that is full of different cultural backgrounds. Change and deep analysis can be tools that are used by managers to solve and face the problems relevant to cultural diversity in the working place, this can be given to managers in specific workshops and frameworks that are helping them communicate better with employees, engage them better and being able to make open discussions with them to realize their needs and motivate them and make it clear for all employees that equality and fairness are emphasized by management. They referred to certain diversity communication programs can train managers on accepting others and their cultures and as a result being able to make all employees accept each other and stop considering issues such as language, race, religion and customs in dealing with other employees, this can help make the business flow better and can solve different problems related with culture in the workplace which improves the employees' performance and then profitability. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is important to focus on the influence left by cultural diversity within a business environment and that it can be either positive or negative and this is all depending on the management style followed and the way culture is regarded by a manager. A manager should choose a suitable management style that can be effective in making communication better between employees and their mangers or their colleagues from different cultures. The good management style can be flexible enough to create new communication methods and apply certain models and frameworks for ensuring equality among employees. Managers should be trained in order to face different challenges that may result from cultural diversity in the workplace and to be able to find creative methods for communication with employees from different cultures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

1. Bell, R. Falls, T. Tilloston, G. Thibeaux, S. (2006). 'The Imposition of Diversity- Training through Top Down Management Communication.' Journal of Diversity Management-2006. Volume1, Numb2. 

2.         Gallant, M. (2013). 'The Business of Culture: How Culture Affects Management Around the World.' http://www.halogensoftware.com/blog/the-business-of-culture-how-culture-affects-management-around-the-world.

3.         Hunt, B. (2007). 'Managing Equality and Cultural Diversity in the Health Workforce.' NCBI. United States National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. 

4.         Kawar, T. (2012). 'Cross Cultural Differences in Management.' International Journal of Business and Social Science Vol. 3 No. 6; [Special Issue -March 2012]

5.         Kumar, V. Patrick, H. (2012). 'Managing Workplace Diversity: Issues and Challenges.' SAGE. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244012444615

6. Lynne Leveson, Therese A. Joiner, Steve Bakalis, (2009) "Managing cultural diversity and perceived organizational support: Evidence from Australia", International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 30 Issue: 4, pp.377-392, https://doi.org/10.1108/01437720910973061

7. Mazur, B. (2010). 'Cultural Diversity in Organizational Theory and Practice.' Journal of Intercultural Management Vol 2. No 2.

8. Neves, J. Mele, D. (2013). ' Managing Ethically Cultural Diversity: Learning from Thomas Aquinas.' Journal of Business Ethics. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-013-1820-1

9. Panda, S. (2010). 'Managing Cultural Diversity Strategies for Organizational Success.' Journal of Contemporary Research in Management. 

10. Vangen, S. Winchester, N. (2013). ' MANAGING CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN COLLABORATIONS: A FOCUS ON MANAGEMENT TENSIONS.' http://oro.open.ac.uk/34810/1/Managing%20cultural%20diversity.pdf