CHALLENGES IN MANAGING CULTURAL DIVERSITY A MANAGERS PERSPECTIVE
Multicultural management is a result of globalization and the movement of people around the globe. As the international trade worldwide increases more and more companies will go global. Going global is equal to establishing local offices and coming into contact with individuals who have different national and corporate cultures. The challenge for managers is how do we create a performing mix out of all those different people with different languages and different opinions, perceptions, and biases. The goal of this research was to find out what has been written about Multicultural Management, how it is managed, taught and what are interesting approaches to managing a team of culturally diversified individualists. Some examples of Multicultural issues out of own experience are also given as to complement the theory of sharing in managing multicultural teams. Looking through articles the main issue noticed and mentioned by several Authors is that there is no sufficient research done to enable a manager to study on the best in class methods to manage a multicultural environment. Therefore any sharing of experiences with other managers is a key to creating a management force able to cope with managing multicultural corporations.
Multicultural management is a result of globalization and the movement of people around the globe. As the international trade worldwide increases more and more companies will go global. Going global is equal to establishing local offices and coming into contact with individuals who have different national and corporate cultures. The challenge for managers is how do we create a performing mix out of all those different people with different languages and different opinions, perceptions, and biases.
The goal of this research was to find out what has been written about Multicultural Management, how it is managed, taught and what are interesting approaches to managing a team of culturally diversified individualists. Some examples of Multicultural issues out of own experience are also given as to complement the theory of sharing in managing multicultural teams.
Looking through articles the main issue noticed and mentioned by several Authors is that there is no sufficient research done to enable a manager to study on the best in class methods to manage a multicultural environment. Therefore any sharing of experiences with other managers is a key to creating a management force able to cope with managing multicultural corporations.
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2 PERSONAL EXPERIENCE ON MANAGEMENT <strong>IN</strong><br />
MULTI-<strong>CULTURAL</strong> ORGANISATIONS<br />
The examples described over the next pages are some extracts of personal experience<br />
gathered while working in and with different corporate and national cultures. During this time<br />
I have worked in 5 different regions. The cultures exposed to, range from American to<br />
European to Asian cultures. The main thing learned has been that even though there are many<br />
differences between people and nations the one thing they have all shared was a passion for<br />
what they do.<br />
2.1 The Baltics<br />
A first example of a multicultural exercise was in an advertising Agency in Estonia.<br />
My first position was Account Director foreign accounts. During this period a foreigner was<br />
an exception in an Estonian agency and anybody with a degree was manager.<br />
One of the first problems was my own perception of the Baltic States being three<br />
countries in close cooperation. Being the Account Director responsible for managing the pan<br />
Baltic accounts from a lead office in Tallinn was a major frustration as what Latvia did<br />
Estonia and Lithuania did not want and every single other version that you can find did not<br />
work. It was completely impossible to coordinate anything over three Baltic States and every<br />
single campaign idea failed.<br />
As failing was no option I had to find out and see what was so different. Discussions<br />
followed with all team members and the management of the agencies. In short the result was<br />
that the management teams favourite statement was: “we are different then the other countries<br />
and we know better what is needed for our market”. The creative teams had only one goal in<br />
mind and that is to avoid anything from other countries no matter what it was because “what<br />
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