International Management Competencies - Essay Example

International management competencies Table of contents 1. Introduction 2 2. Self evaluation: cultural intelligence, learning style 3 and cultural awareness 2.1. Cultural intelligence 3 2.2. Learning style 3 2.3. Cultural awareness 4 2.4. Communication across cultures 7 2.5. Negotiation across cultures 8 2.6. Working in multicultural teams 9 2.7. Cross-cultural leadership 10 2.8. Motivating across cultures 11 2.9. Ethical perspectives across cultures 12 3. Development plan to enhance cultural intelligence 13 4. Conclusions 14 Bibliography 1. Introduction: Cultural intelligence has become inevitable for global managers and employees that have to constantly interact with people from other countries and cultures. Cultural intelligence comprises of certain key competencies that allow effective interaction with people from other cultural backgrounds, such as knowledge about attitudes, behaviours, beliefs and values of different cultures; the ability to adapt and accept these differences and lead everyone effectively. A low score of cultural intelligence (CQ) based on self assessment indicates the need for development of cultural intelligence and cross-cultural leadership competencies in order to be an effective global manager. A leader’s role involves various functions such as leading, controlling, communicating, decision-making, negotiating, motivating etc (Daft, Kendrick & Vershinina, 2010). All of these functions require interaction with others. Therefore, it becomes necessary for leaders/managers to understand the impact of culture on people’s behaviour, attitudes, expectations etc in order to be effective in cross-cultural situations. In this paper, an effort will be made to understand cultural intelligence and cross-cultural perspectives that can impact leadership activities, while reflecting on score achieved on self-assessment of cultural intelligence and learning style identified before chalking out a self-development plan based on the score and depending upon the learning style. Efforts to link theoretical learning with experiences while working as a team leader in the past will be made in addition to observations from other leaders/contexts, wherever relevant. 2. Self evaluation: cultural intelligence, learning style and cultural awareness 2.1. Cultural intelligence: Self-assessment of cultural intelligence had arrived at a score of 5, this meant low cultural intelligence. Understanding different cultures and possessing the ability to adapt to other cultures is important to thrive and perform in the globalized world. Low score of cultural intelligence corresponds with certain past experiences at work and outside workplace during certain interactions with people from different cultures. These interactions more often resulted in confusion, misunderstanding and also conflict. Learning related to various cultural dimensions, intercultural communication, and cultural attributes have been fruitful in assessing certain situations and experiences that had left undesirable memories and feelings in the form of confusion, low self-esteem, and underachievement. A self-analysis of cultural intelligence and self-reflection thereupon has helped in understanding these situations and experiences better. The self-analysis indicated a high motivational drive to learn about other cultures; however, low scores on the knowledge, understandings and behavioural aspects contributed to the low cultural intelligence score. Cross-cultural competencies for leadership include the abilities and attitudes to learn and accept other cultures’ values and belief systems; interpersonal skills; and the required technical expertise (Conger & Riggio, 2012), which need to be acquired in order to become effective leader in cross-cultural settings. 2.2 Learning style: Learning style assessment based on Kolb’s (1984) model arrived at the reflective style of learning, which indicated learning from experience and observation, thus categorizing as ‘Diverger’ (cited Lum, 2006). Most of the learning related to cross-cultural liaison has been context-based and hence behaviour was also modified accordingly. However, this learning provided little effectiveness considering the confusions, conflicts and misunderstandings that continued to emerge. The cultural intelligence score and learning style necessitate a better understanding of cross-cultural leadership through a systematized learning and development plan, which will be determined by the end of this evaluation based on theory and reflections from experiences. 2.3 Cultural awareness: Cultural awareness refers to the concept of identifying, acknowledging and accepting cultural differences that exist in a group of people that come from various ethnic backgrounds, countries and cultures (Quappe & Cantalore, 2005). Low cultural intelligence score in this case is indicative of low cultural awareness. Globalization has resulted in bringing people from different geographical areas closer for various reasons such as business, education, research etc; nevertheless, globalization has increased the need for understanding and adapting to various cultures that concern the business or individuals. However, cultural awareness that identifies the basic ways of learning and behaving along with thinking and perceiving are acquired from cultural upbringing and the cultural environment (Samover, Porter & McDaniel, 2007). A number of organisations today are multinational requiring employees at all levels to liaise and collaborate across different geographical locations, which necessitate intercultural liaisons and communication. Mostly, organisational cultures are influenced by national cultures. National culture constitutes the culture of a particular nation, which is in turn influenced by the values, habits, beliefs, behaviours and expectations; in total, as Hofstede (1980, cited Morden, 2004, p.29) stated, national culture is the collective mental programming of a society. Poyatos (2004) explains that culture manifests in various forms such as knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving; differences in these manifestations have a significant impact on the way business and organisations are managed in different countries, which necessitate the need for understanding different cultures for managers and leaders (Crane & Matten, 2004). These attributes of culture also have significant impact on decision making, ethical considerations, leadership style, communication style etc. individuals tend to form a cultural awareness of the self based on these attributes, which might sometimes conflict in inter-cultural dealings due to lack of understanding and knowledge about other cultures. To complicate things further, cultural diversity within a national boundary adds further challenges to management. While cultural diversity is adopted for organisational benefit, and is also a legal obligation in many countries, incomplete knowledge, awareness and biasness in management can be extremely dangerous. The most diverse organisations can be seen in the United States, which comprise 28 percent of population from various other ethnic minorities and this number is believed to increase further in the coming years; this poses a serious challenge to the leaders in terms of leading and managing such a diverse workforce. Relationships with co-workers and other employees will be under constant stress if ignorance about other cultures persists. To this, through literature review, Seymen (2006) points out that many management scholars have suggested the adoption of suitable organisational culture that supports cultural diversity through appropriate policies, procedures and practices. However, this approach would still not be effective in managing project teams that have employees from different locations of the world whose cultural habits and belief systems are very different. Identifying these criticalities, Hofstede and others put enormous effort to understand the most important aspects of culture that can have an impact on business in global market, and Hofstede arrived at five cultural dimensions, such as power distance that is concerned with the significance attached to hierarchy and power, which is large in most Eastern countries compared to the Western nations; uncertainty avoidance, which refers to the level of risk taking, innovative thinking, uniformity etc and is high in the West compared to East and Asian countries; individualism versus collectivism, which means the importance given to collective effort versus individual effort, with the West giving more preference to individualism and the East, Asian and African countries giving more importance to collectivism; masculinity versus feminity related to emotional roles of males and females that differs across nations; long-term versus short-term orientation referring to choice of focus for people’s efforts, wherein long-term focus is high in African and Asian countries compared the US. Many other dimensions have also been identified by others such as Trompenaars, Hall, Adler Schein etc. (Browaeys & Price, 2009), all of which only indicate that cultural impact on individuals behaviour, attitude and commitment is significant. 2.4 Communication across cultures: Cultural differences have critical implications on communication aspects for global leaders and managers. Based on Hall’s dimensions on intercultural communication, it can be deduced that intercultural communication can have significant role in international leadership. Communication itself is one of the most important skills required for effective leadership; understanding and also learning the different cues, styles, and body languages becomes all the more important. Hall (1981, cited Steers & Nardon, 2006) asserted the need for intercultural communication in order not only to understand other cultures but also to avoid and handle potential conflicts. Hall’s work was supported by the fact that individuals’ communication styles are dependent upon their thinking and beliefs, which resulted in identifying two types of cultures namely, high-context and low-context cultures; in the former type, such as Japan and China, most of the times messages are conveyed through contexts, which means people that are interacting seem to already possess sufficient information and knowledge about the matter, and the latter, like that of Germany and the USA, relies heavily on explicit information and direct and frank communication (Steers & Nardon, 2006). A conflicting situation arose when the Chinese team members did not put effort to explain the reason for low performance due to the notion that the leader is ought to know; much effort and time was required to arrive at the root cause of low performance before arriving at the solution. Moreover, in high-context cultures, not much emphasis is given to planning, organising, and/or staffing activities unlike low-context cultures; these activities are understood to exist, and more emphasis is given to direction, authority, monitoring and controlling. In low-context cultures, emphasis is towards motivating others towards achievement of goals. 2.5 Negotiation across cultures: Hooker (2003) explains that people from low-context cultures tend to be flexible and adaptable to explicitly stated rules of behaviour unlike high-context cultures that rely on traditional norms of behaviour that they believe to be the rules. This can be experienced in the way negotiations and/or contracts are made in different cultures. Low-context cultures, like the UK, tend to make elaborately worded contracts that include all norms, laws and regulations, whereas, the high-context cultures, like China, contracts are almost always too vague and might even change eventually. In countries like China, signing a contract might mean the beginning of negotiation process, unlike in the US that concludes and confirms the contract with signatures. The signed contracts in China might be subject to change with situations, which is considered as normal. A serious conflict arose when the Chinese leader advised changes to performance ratings after signing off the performance appraisal form by the team member. In high-context cultures, most of the negotiations happen on the basis of relationships rather than transaction and business or profits like in the low-context cultures. Although an awareness and understanding of different negotiating styles is important, Morris (2005) confronts that intense focus on the negotiating styles of opposite parties can deviate and also dilute the negotiation process because too much information and observation can cause confusion. 2.6 Working in multicultural teams: Due to cultural differences, working in multicultural teams is challenging. Multicultural teams, such as project or virtual teams, usually have members from different cultures, different ethnic backgrounds, and/or different geographical locations. While most organisations view multicultural teams as having high potential for performance, innovation and diversity, these structures also bring challenges and complexities for managers and leaders. Multicultural teams result in frustrating dilemmas, conflicts, and hindrances to teamwork. These challenges can be traced back to team members’ understanding and attitudes towards power and empowerment, job security, job description/role, time-orientation, handling risk, etc. Most importantly, setting team norms and understanding the emerging challenges from culture perspective become important duties for the leader (Brett et al., 2006). Lack of cultural knowledge can create incorrect images about each other due to distorted understanding. For instance, being constantly late to meetings or delivering the report late can make American and Europeans think of others as lazy, disoriented and lack of seriousness. Not all members of a multicultural team will act in similar way to a difficult situation, which might cause chaos and confusion. Dislike towards each other due to differences in habits, practices and values can cause mistrust and other attitudinal issues. Stereotyping is another common challenge faced in multicultural teams, which can also entail distorted understanding due to lack of knowledge about other cultures. 2.7 Cross-cultural leadership: The importance of cultural intelligence for leaders can be understood by studying the role of various cultural dimensions with respect to various leadership activities. Firstly, goal-setting or directional activities which involve identification of goals, resources and other activities to accomplish short-term and long-term organisational objectives vary in different cultures. For instance, Hofstede’s fifth dimension, short-term versus long-term orientation explains that different time-orientation concepts exist. Countries such as China show greater orientation towards the future and take decisions based on long-term consequences rather than achieving short-term goals, which is found in Australia, East Africa and some South Asian countries (Tamas, 2007). Secondly, leaders are responsible for adhering to the plans formulated and assigning specific tasks to teams and individuals based on skills, adhering to the time schedules etc. Countries that are high on long-term orientation are more organised compared to the short-term oriented cultures; considering Hall’s dimension of time, people from countries such as China and some Mediterranean countries can be seen deviating from the plans too often, because these cultures are polychromic; in these cultures, deviation is considered as normal and expected, which might be regarded as rude and unprofessional in the monochromic cultures such as US and some European countries (Steers, Sanchez-Runde & Nardon, 2010). Experiencing monochromism in the context of time occurred when the senior manager from New York provided a serious action point as feedback to the Arab leader for delaying completion of reports on regular basis, which affected the leader’s overall performance rating at the end of the year. People from monochromic cultures believe in accomplishing one task at a time and are highly punctual; however, Chinese are also known for their punctuality (Hooker, 2003) and people from polychromic cultures are high in flexibility, adaptability and patience. Hofstede’s power-distance dimension is very critical in determining the leadership styles across cultures. Power-distance basically ascertains the acceptability of power and authority, which is very high in Arab countries, China, and some South Asian countries, and low in the Western nations; people from these cultures are usually autocratic leaders. So, leaders from the Eastern part of the world need to be aware of their expectations and dominating styles while dealing with people from the West who usually do not accept autocracy or hierarchical power but prefer participative and/or democratic styles (Western, 2007). Moreover, a 360-degree feedback that is exercised in the low-power distance countries might seem offensive to leaders from the Eastern countries (Denison, Kotrba & Castano, 2012). 2.8 Motivating across cultures: Motivating factors vary in different countries depending upon their individualist-collectivist inclination. Moreover, individualistic and collectivistic nations require different leadership and motivation styles. Individualistic nations, such as Canada, UK and the US, lay great emphasis on individual goals and achievements unlike collectivistic nations like the Arab countries, China, Taiwan, and some other East Asian countries, which give importance to group or team’s goals and achievements. In the latter group of countries, individual motivation is considered as selfish and undesirable, and team or group motivation and rewards are revered (Basabe & Ros, 2005). For international managers, it is imperative to know that people from polychromic, collectivistic and high power-distance cultures, like China, are relationship-focused rather than job or reward focused, which can affect their commitment to some extent; however, commitment can be reinforced by maintaining good and interactive relationships and building trust with the members (Steers & Nardon, 2006). 2.9 Ethical perspectives across cultures: Ethical perspectives in managing cross-cultural settings have a profound impact on members mindset and attitudes. Pitta, Fung and Isberg (1999) point out that illegal campaign contributions, bribery, knowingly selling defective goods, hiding information and other troubling issues are some of the famous activities known to create ethical conflicts among people from different cultures. Even rules of conduct exhibited by different cultures have ethical implications on perception creation. For instance, the Chinese stress upon relationship building before embarking on any negotiation contracts unlike the US or UK. The Chinese believe in earning concessions through relationship building, which may be viewed as immoral by the West. In some cultures, ignoring unethical conduct of others is the norm, whereas in others it is considered as an offense. Differences in ethics and various ethical perspectives have serious implications on relationships, motivation and commitment. 3 Development plan to improve cultural intelligence: Considering these complexities in leading and managing in multicultural and cross cultural settings, as identified through literature and personal experiences, it is imperative to acquire specific skills, knowledge and understanding related to multiple cultures as well as cross-cultural leadership competencies in order to be effective. The goal would be to improve cultural intelligence score by improving knowledge and understanding. Adopting learning styles other than reflecting, such as formation of abstract concepts and generalizations, applying these concepts in real situations and noting the experiences followed by reflecting would be most appropriate for improving cultural intelligence; this approach will also help in developing leadership competencies required for leading cross-cultural teams. Considering that my inherent learning style is that of reflecting type, knowledge and understanding about various cultural perspectives will help in assessing various situations from multiple viewpoints; and specific interest in gathering information would add greater value to the learning process. Kolb (2005) explains that emotional and imaginative nature, characteristic of divergers/reflectors, will widen the possibilities to accommodate and accept diverse cultural perspectives. Leading a team with an open mind provides greater potential for generating and understanding multiple perspectives. Development plan based on SMART approach would be best suited, which has been explained in following table. 4 Conclusions: To conclude this self-analysis with reference to theoretical learning, it is evident and understood that cultural intelligence is a unique quality and is critical for effective leadership in cross-cultural or intercultural settings. Leaders in these contexts require special competencies like knowledge about multiple cultures and their manifestations as well as differences between cultural dimensions of various countries; ability to understand, interpret and accept these differences; express or acknowledge the differences through empathetic actions and mutual respect; acquire diverse skills related to communication, behaviour, negotiation, and motivation that would be required to deal with multicultural teams; adopt and exercise flexibility and avoid generalization or stereotyping, which are common outcomes of learning about different cultures; develop sensitivity towards other cultures’ beliefs, norms, values and behaviours. These competencies should be accompanied by effective leadership qualities such as effective communication, trust, honesty, integrity, motivation and confidence. The basic rule to become an effective leader/manager in cross-cultural settings is to adopt a rotating process of continuous learning through observation, reflection, application and feedback. Bibliography Basabe, N and Ros, M, 2005, ‘Cultural dimensions and social behaviour correlates: Individualism-collectivism and power distance’, Revue Internationale De Psychologie Sociale, 17 (47), pp: 189-225. Available from http://www.ehu.es/pswparod/pdf/articulos/basabe1801.pdf (Accessed 29 April 2013). Brett, J, Behfar, K. and Kern, MC, 2006, ‘Managing multicultural teams’, Harvard Business Review, 84 (11), pp: 84-91 Browaeys, M-J and Price, R, 2009, Understanding cross-cultural management. Harlow: Pearson Education. Crane, A. and D. Matten, 2004, Business Ethics, 2nd ed, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press. Conger, JA and Riggio, RE, 2012, The practice of leadership: Developing the next generation leaders, California: Jossey Bass Inc. Daft, R.L, Kendrick, M and Vershinina, N, 2010, Management, Hampshire: Cengage Learning, EMEA. Denison, DR, Kotrba, LM and Castano, N, 2012, ‘A cross-cultural perspective on leadership assessment: Comparing 360-degree feedback results from around the world’, in Mobley, WH, Li M and Wang, Y’s Advances in global leadership. Vol 7, Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing. pp: 205-228. Hooker, J, 2003, Space, time and context. Working across cultures, California: Stanford University Press. (pp: 21-37) Kolb, AY and Kolb, DA, 2005, ‘The Kolb Learning Style Inventory—Version 3.1 2005 Technical Specifications’, HayGroup, LSI Technical Manual. Available from, http://www.whitewater-rescue.com/support/pagepics/lsitechmanual.pdf (accessed 30 April 2013). Lum, L, 2006, ‘Internationally educated health professionals: a distance education multiple cultures model’, Education and Training, 48 (2/3), pp: 112-126. Morden, T. 2004, Principles of Management, 2nd ed, Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company. Morris, MW, 2005, ‘When culture counts-and when it doesn’t,’ Negotiation. Harvard Publishing Newsletter. Pitta, DA, Fung, H-G, Isberg, S, 1999, ‘Ethical issues across cultures: managing the differing perspectives of China and the USA’, Journal of Consumer Marketing, 16 (3), pp: 240-256. Available from http://home.ubalt.edu/ntsbpitt/ethics.pdf (Accessed 29 April 2013) Quappe, S and Cantalore, G, 2005, ‘What is cultural awareness anyway? How do I build it?’, Available at http://www.curiosity.com (Accessed 28 April 2013). Samovar, LA, Porter, RE, and McDaniel, ER, 2007, Communication between cultures, 7th ed, Boston: Wadsworth. Seymen, OA, 2006, ‘The cultural diversity phenomenon in organisations and different approaches for effective cultural diversity management: A literary review’, Cross cultural management: An International Journal, Emerald, 13 (45), pp:296-315. Steers, RM and Nardon, L, 2006, Managing in the global economy, New York: ME Sharpe. Steers, R.M, Sanchez-Runde, C.J and Nardon, L. 2010, Management across cultures: Challenges and strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp: 45-84. Tamas, A, 2007, ‘An intercultural organisation development tool’, Tamas Consultants Inc, Available from, http://www.ctp.bilkent.edu.tr/~aydogmus/Hofstede_Hall.pdf (Accessed 29 April 2013). Western, S, 2007, ‘Leadership, Power and Authority’, Leadership: A critical text. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications Inc. pp:41-56. Development Plan Specific goal Goal is to improve cultural intelligence and develop cross-cultural leadership competencies Measures Reassessing Cultural intelligence scores and seeking constant feedback. Action points 1. Improving knowledge about various cultures through theory and reflection of personal experiences. 2. Identifying obstacles such as mindset/attitude, time, workload and deviations; try to tackle these challenges. 3. Will apply learning in practical situations. 4. Improving engaging with members through greater interaction, listening, and working together. 5. Listening and observing members speech and behaviour, and reflecting thereupon based on knowledge gained from theory. 6. Seeking clarity of thought and information if anything ambiguous instead of forming perceptions. 7. Noting the outcomes/reactions; if undesirable, rechecking knowledge and understanding. Realistic and results-focused 1. Observe self behaviour and actions as well as reactions from others. 2. Evaluate scores and feedback received. Time allotted Aim is to achieve a CI score greater than 5 in next 6 months. Learning and reflecting to be on a continuous basis. Read More