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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3 RECOMMENDATIONS TO HANDLE <strong>CULTURAL</strong> ISSUES<br />
Managers in a multicultural environment are dealing with so many factors and it is<br />
impossible to solve every single problem that you encounter. The most important is the<br />
attitude to the problems.<br />
My biggest asset was I am a very good listener and I think before I speak. Female<br />
characteristics tend to work better when dealing with Cultural diversity at any level in an<br />
organisation being it Senior Management or Team management.<br />
Working in a multicultural environment means that you need to be sensitive to<br />
perceptions for the most part as you are not dealing with cultures in the form of clothing and<br />
dancing but your are dealing with opinions, characters, influences given forward through<br />
generations and corporate cultures often build up over many years.<br />
Even though these perceptions are changing due to education and internationalization<br />
of people, as more and more people work and live outside of their home countries, you will<br />
still find that a lot of the old biases are existing. You cannot go around this but you can deal<br />
with it by listening and trying to find a way to get everybody to work together.<br />
In managing teams there are some basic truths that will fit to any team wherever in the<br />
world. A team is a mix of individuals with different skills but they all share the same two<br />
things and that is a passion for what they do and the wish to get it done.<br />
The basic principles of doing business are not different from country to country. A<br />
company makes a product and must sell this, financial documentation is worldwide pretty<br />
similar and a company that handles its cash flow sloppy will end up in bankruptcy or<br />
reorganizations no matter how good the product is, the people are or the position on the<br />
market or what the product is.<br />
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