Examples of cross-cultural knowledge in the following topics:
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- Strong global management skills, intercultural competence, and a sensitivity to cultural issues are necessities for global managers.
- Through identifying the necessary global skill set and effectively implementing these global managers within the business structure, multinational corporations can attain competitive advantage through cross-cultural knowledge.
- Global management skills are largely based in developing cultural intelligence, or a high cultural quotient (CQ), which delineates an individual's general understanding and adaptability of foreign cultures.
- It is also critical in cross-cultural endeavors to maintain one's own sense of values and ethics, particularly as differences in standards of living, GDP per capita, economic growth rates, and political environments come into play.
- With lower standards of livings in certain regions, as well as differences in capitalistic philosophies and legalities, sensitivity to cultural differences is absolutely crucial in sidestepping the pitfalls of merging cultures that contradict one another.
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- Cultural intelligence is the ability to display intercultural competence within a given group through adaptability and knowledge.
- The concept of cultural intelligence is exactly what it sounds like—the ability to display intercultural competence within a given group through adaptability and knowledge.
- An interesting perspective on cultural intelligence is well represented in the intercultural-competence diagram, which highlights the way that each segment of cultural knowledge can create synergy when applied to the whole of cultural intelligence, where overlapping generates the highest potential CQ.
- Hofstede's theory was designed in the 1960s and 1970s, and has remained a relevant perspective in international business, international politics, and cross-cultural psychology.
- This diagram illustrates the three factors that constitute an effectively intercultural understanding for management: Regional Expertise, Language Proficiency, and Cross-Cultural Competence.
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- The following figure highlights the three building blocks of one intercultural approach: cross-cultural competence, language proficiency, and regional expertise.
- Still, cross-cultural competence is a relatively vague concept.
- Knowledge – Acquiring a thorough understanding of history, cultural norms, basic language, and religion is valuable.
- This chart illustrates the three factors that constitute an effectively intercultural understanding for management: Regional Expertise, Language Proficiency, and Cross-Cultural Competence
- Employ cross-cultural competence to ensure interactions between diverse individuals create optimal results
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- Denison - Similar to Hofsede, Denison studied organizational culture in pursuit of idenitfying critical dimensions affecting internal culture.
- Cross-cultural management requires cultural intelligence (sometimes referred to as 'CQ') along with an open-minded and empathetic mindset.
- Observing the cultural tendencies of an organization and finding ways to accommodate them, and their interaction with other cultural predispositions, requires experience, motivation and self-awareness (of one's own cultural predispositions).
- CQ Knowledge - An individual's ability to understand the differing cultures represented (particularly the economic, socio-linguistic, interpersonal and political frames).
- It provides a strong platform for cross-cultural managers to be insightful decision makers.
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- A cross-functional team comprises people from different departments and with special areas of expertise working to achieve a common goal.
- Cross-functional teams include members who bring different types of knowledge and experience from areas such as finance, engineering, human resources, and marketing.
- Many business activities require cross-functional collaboration to achieve successful outcomes.
- Even though diversity of knowledge and perspective is the big advantage of cross-functional teams, it can also be a source of problems.
- This can make communication between members of a cross-functional team difficult and subject to misunderstanding.
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- Outlining the way culture is assessed, the pros and cons of multiculturalism and how culture is transmitted is central to management.
- The merging of differing cultures presents a variety of implications, and requires extensive assessment and cross-cultural competencies for both individuals and businesses.
- Cultural assessment begins with awareness.
- Cultural transmission, or cultural learning, is the tendency of a society or culture to pass on new information and generate new norms.
- Through understanding the pros and cons of multiculturalism in conjunction with the way in which culture is assessed and transmitted, cross-cultural managers can create competency as it pertains to diversity and diversity management.
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- Through combining decision-making models with cultural deviations, meaningful correlations can be identified and considered.
- As a result, the decision-making process is inherently differentiated across cultural groups, and these cross-cultural deviations are critical to understanding negotiations, conflicts, influences and motivations.
- The Dynamic Model - Those who adhere to this perspective also recognize cross-culture differences in decision-making, but not as universally applicable as the dispositional model.
- The antithesis is essentially 'counter-culture' culture, which dictates the opposite decision-making influence.
- Tolerance for Ambiguity - A high tolerance for ambiguity or risk taking is 'counter-culture' culture, which dictates a high level of tolerance for going against the grain.
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- Culture has evolved drastically as a term and a concept since inception.
- With this evolution and malleability of culture as a modern idea in mind, it is important to explore the various aspects of culture in society today.
- As culture is such a central component of human identity, the recognition of the role that culture plays in our daily lives is a critical context which we must be consistently aware:
- As cultures continue to interact and cross paths with one another, understanding one another via culture minimizes cultural friction while maximizing on the potential synergies inherent in diversity.
- Outline the various perspectives on the definition and aspects of culture.
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- In analyzing persuasion and influence, we will explore both the theories of persuasion and the 'weapons' of persuasion in the context of business and cross-cultural management.
- Examples of this include ego defensiveness where individual elect beliefs that protect their ego, knowledge functions where individuals ascribe to what aligns with their understanding and level of control, and adjustment functions where individuals are apt to minimize costs and maximize rewards in expressing their beliefs.
- This method requires knowledge, evidence, understanding, and sound conclusions.
- Utilizing the above theories in conjunction with the above methods, cross-cultural managers can attain a high degree of awareness, both of themselves and the people they are persuading, to effectively maximize positive influence.
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- Depending on its needs and goals, a company can use a project team, a virtual team, or a cross-functional team.
- Still other projects depend on people with a broad and diverse range of knowledge and expertise.
- Common types of teams found in organizations include project teams, virtual teams, and cross-functional teams.
- Cross-functional teams combine people from different areas, such as marketing and engineering, to solve a problem or achieve a goal.