The Primary Goals of an Effective Team Process: Language Education and Cross-Cultural Teachings - Research Paper Example

Introduction Bribery is at most considered as an act of issuing money or any other favors that changes the behavior of the other person who is receiving it. This act is meant to manipulate the actions of an administrator or any other individual who is at that time in charge of a public office or official duty (Carter 2000). It may be in the form of cash, good actions, property, and objects of value or promises that will alter the conduct of the person in charge of the administrative office. As bribery is considered as an act, corruption is taken as a general term where it includes the moral impurity actions like bribery itself and embezzlement. Corruption is incompatible with the ethical standards of the society and result from benefaction. In the place of differing cultural and social norms, one must be careful when trying to examine bribery and corruption. The expectation of when a monetary transaction is deemed as appropriate can be different from one place to another. For example, during campaigns in United States of America, the political contribution in cash is considered as lawful, whereas the same act in other countries is seen as illegal. Furthermore, tipping is bribery in some societies, while in other societies, it is considered as an act of thanking someone (Carter 2000). The same act applies to businesses around the world. Managers and employees may give out money or gifts to a client that they view as having some potential in some areas, in exchange for a good business or attractive deals. Places where the law is not well implemented and followed, bribery and corruption, exist as ways of continuing the business in any company. Actions like these in the public office call for scrutiny and questioning. Ethical issues that arise include defending and recommending concepts of right and wrong, which help in coming up with a level ground where actions will be done with rewards or consequences. (Carter 2000). The business ethics is professional ethics that always examines the ethical principles and many of the moral problems that usually arise in a business environment. It centers at aspects of business conduct by the employees and the entire firm. From the wide perspective of analyzing the discipline of bribery and corruption in the international businesses, I find that every culture and country lives with its own values, customs and traditions thereby coming up with ethical values and ethical principles that suit them. In the entire world, there is no international ethical code of conduct, which has been accepted, embraced and followed by all the nations (Carter 2000). It is very hard to give a clear outline of the ethical values, which would be understandable and acceptable by the people representing all the nations, which have dissimilar types of global collaboration projects. This paper is going to analyze bribery, corruption and intercultural and ethical issues within the international business. Business ethics This applies to the aspects of professional ethics that deals with moral problems that arise in a business environment. When we speak about these ethics, we mean to avoid breaking the criminal law in the business that you have engaged yourself with and actions that are bad for the image of the organization (Carter 2000). Several moral issues and dilemmas in international big business are well-established in the reality that political systems, law, and culture vary significantly from nation to nation. In the worldwide business environment, the ethical issues that are common involve employment practices, human rights, environmental regulations, corruption, and moral obligation and multinational corporations (Kline 2010). Corruption has been a predicament in every civilization in the past years, and it continues to be in the system even today. International businesses have gained trade and industry advantages by making payments to administration officials. Significance of ethics in the business world is outstanding and universal. Other new trends and issues take place every day, which may create an imperative burden to organizations and clients (Kline 2010). At the present time, the need for appropriate ethical conduct within firms has become important to avoid unlikely lawsuits. As international business companies expand internationally and enter foreign markets, ethical demeanor of the officers and employees assume additional significance since the very cultural variety associated with such extension may undercut the much shared civilizing and ethical values noticeable in the more standardized organizations (Carter 2000). Cross culture negotiations Negotiation is a frail business that needs determined people and diplomacy in equal measure. Globalized mode of communication and marketing have brought different regions of the world much closer to one another, but still difference between cultures remain. I understand that every individual conducts negotiations by relying on his national culture (Rosenbaum 2012). Expectations Your negotiating partner may be having completely different expectations from yours. Like you he may want to succeed, but success may be having different meanings according to his understanding. For example, the Americans prefer to make decisions by themselves, whereas the Japanese make their decisions by consenting. When you are able to comprehend these attitudes, they will help you to see the potential of your partner’s priorities, and this will give you an opportunity to strategize your moves accordingly (Kline 2010). When generalizing across different cultures you have to be careful, these sets that prudence is a good approach to solving the problems within the cross-cultural negotiations (Rosenbaum 2012).When a scenario occurs whereby there is the difference in culture negotiating styles, we need to be very aware of the effects of dynamic and mixed style. Managing the negotiations Managing the negotiations is the taken as the second stage after successfully passing the initial stages. This is where actual issues are dealt with. For example the Italian negotiators, will try to push through this phase quickly, continually insisting on their conditions to wear out their opponents. If a foreigner knows this, they should display no hurry to finalize the deal. On the other hand, Chinese negotiators do make several offers one after another with intentions of testing the limits of a possible deal. Here, you have to be deductive and reason out at your best to come out with a better solution (Silkenat et al 2009). Negotiating processes always go through different phases, and here intercultural difference in the distinction on each one of the sector are noticed. First a relationship has to be build which will bring about the exchange of information by trying to persuade each other, making concessions and reaching an agreement. People in western cultures take relatively transitional approach to negotiation, whereby they chiefly center on the last two stages. But the other cultures focus on building a background relationship that will make agreements more likely and emphasize the social side of the scenario over the task side. Styles of persuasion may also differ in several ways (Silkenat et al 2009). Within business negotiations in the western societies, rational argument is favored, whereas in other nations appeal to emotions is used. In face-to-face negotiations subjects may modify their behavior and attitudes according to their perceptions of the counterparts’ culture. In anonymous negotiations, participants cannot rely on these clues and thus are more likely to base their behavior on scripts inherent to their own culture (Kline 2010). Principles for cross-cultural communication and negotiation It is very difficult to spell out hard-and-fast rules for communicating and negotiating with plenty of information that is available from the everyday observation. At the outset, we need to gain knowledge of being able to anticipate differences. You have to learn all that you can of the codes and conventions of groups that you are preparation to transact with. You have to be aware of the various areas of the difference in communication, for example, verbal and non-verbal and different negotiating styles (Usunier and Lee 2009). You further need to get acquainted with the different cultural values of the nation. You should also pay maximum attention to the context and conventions of communication. By doing this, you can be able to acquire additional information by attending to how messages are being delivered. Being able to practice mindfulness, you get to understand and see possibilities in the behavior of other cultural groups. You need to also adapt your behavior to accommodate the codes and styles of the other cultures. This is to help develop a cross-cultural skill (Silkenat et al 2009). Building trust and overcoming geographical barriers, language and culture Best competitive advantage of any company depends on its capability to coordinate and handle critical resources and information that is widely spread across the different geographical areas. The most effective tool here is a global business team. These people of different nationalities, who work in different cultures, businesses and functions come together to harmonize some aspects of international procedures world widely (Usunier and Lee 2009). Most teams fail because they are unable to cultivate trust among their members and they cannot break the communication barriers. Three vital factors that determine how much trust people feel are: individual characteristics, the quality of communication and the institutional context (Thomas and Inkson 2009). Most people do trust one another where they have similarities in which they share, and they operate in a common cultural context that does impose tough sanctions for behaving in an untrustworthy manner. If members cannot be able to see one another’s body language directly, the emotional dimension that is important to the success of the team suffers greatly. Moreover, some types of deliberations call for face-to-face meetings. The inability to be able to comprehend one another is a potential barrier to communication in cross-cultural settings. This hinders the candid sharing of points and achieving creative solutions. For example, a team where its members speak different languages would need to have an interpreter. Even at this they would not fully get the richness of the communication (Cheney et al 2011). Members of global business teams come from diverse cultures, and this brings completely different values, norms and behavior patterns to the group. If these differences are not explicitly addressed, the cohesiveness of the team will eventually get to suffer and impede effectiveness. Communication Communication is very vital to social interactions and relationships. Cross-cultural communication has brought barriers to the shared understanding. This is because people from different cultures don’t share a common background. Successful communication occurs when the message is well received and understood (Cheney et al 2011). Communication is passed through codes which are in different forms like: gestures, words and many others. Cultural differences threaten communication process because they trim down the accessible conventions that are mostly joined by the sender and receiver (Cheney et al 2011). Ethical issues Ethical character has a positive effect on a firm’s image and reputation. On the other side, they are repercussions with unethical behavior, which may include fines, liabilities and negative publicity. Behavior influences how the firm is viewed by suppliers and other outside firms. For example, the purchasing managers may be tempted to get involved in bribery and corruption, and this mostly happens to those that deal with foreign suppliers. This is unethical behavior to the firm. This behavior at most results in unsatisfied customers, which later it leads to sales decrease and lower profits for suppliers (Mitchell 2000). Some of the unethical issues that arise are like using obscure contract terms to gain an upper hand over the other party, writing specifications that favor a particular supplier, allowing only specific suppliers to be able to bid, giving preferences to suppliers preferred by top management and the use of bribery. Some enterprises encourage their marketing personnel to give out gifts to purchasers of clients, but they themselves would not allow the purchasers to accept any gift. This scenario creates an atmosphere full of dishonesty. However, the main reason of unethical deeds is not a must to be perceived as the lack of moral standards (Mitchell 2000). The action of managers, the unethical climate in the firm and the lack of company policies contribute to the unethical behaviors. It now appears that there are different kinds of unethical behaviors in the business world. The unethical behavior that is on the side of the organization and the unethical behavior that is for the individual’s advantage. The first behavior is taken to be less unethical in the business world (Mitchell 2000). Challenges facing global business team Most of the successful teams do their best to make sure they build trust and try to overcome other barriers like the distance, culture and different languages. Doing business on a global basis needs an understanding of the different cultures that do exist (Lane et al 2009). The way of life that works well and perfectly in your country might not work in another and could even be interpreted as to be meaning something else. It is very important to raise awareness of these wide cultural issues within our firms so as to ensure effectiveness comes as a good result in the end. Now we can see that the international business goes beyond the opportunity to greet another international colleague with gifts (Govindarajan and Gupta 2001). Communication hindrances These are the different barriers that result from the difference in geographical location and culture diversity. Having members living in different nations, separated by time zones and conflicting schedules, trying to arrange meetings can be very challenging. In this century with the improvement in technology, we can be able to work together despite the barriers caused by the; long distances. The inability to comprehend what another person is trying to communicate to you is mostly brought about by cross-cultural settings. In order to be able to overcome this challenge that is affecting the international business, a team’s charter has to be crafted, composed and processed. One of the first issues to be addressed is the team’s agenda. We must ensure it is well defined and in the correct manner (Govindarajan and Gupta 2001). Because we can now understand that global teams consists of members from different subsidiaries that are always contending with one another for the few accessible resources, then it is better to have the charter framed in terms of the company’s position via the outside place of the market other than emphasizing on the internal dynamics. Team members Another key to make a successful global business team is by selecting the right team members. The diversity within the team has to be well balanced, the size and the people to occupy the leadership positions. The diversity of nationality accounts for the substantive differences on most of the issues at hand. It fosters creativity and a more comprehensive search and assessment of options. But still the team has to be capable of integrating the different perspectives and come up with a single solution. The primary goals of an effective team process are to facilitate open and good communication between the members and to cultivate a culture of trust. In order to be able to overcome the barriers to communication, which has been brought about by the linguistic and difference in cultures, that separates the members of the typical global business team. Companies need to invest in language education and cross-cultural teachings (Lane et al 2009). This reduces the need for the third-party who act as the mediators such as the translators fostering a more direct and free-form communication (Govindarajan and Gupta 2001). When we get a better understanding of the team members’ different cultures, it can greatly improve the richness of communication. With the same investment into cross-cultural skills, team members will be able to understand and respect diversity, and this leads into a competitive advantage. Forming a solid framework for the designing of high- performing global business team, is considered as one of the essential ways to succeed. When a group consists of members having distinct knowledge and skills, which are drawn from different subsidiaries in different nations, the potential for cognitive diversity is high. That can be a source for a real competitive strength (Govindarajan and Gupta 2001). Unethical behavior Unethical behavior in the purchasing job is most of the times taken as the more unethical issue because it involves large amounts of cash. Various ethical standards are applicable to different people, industries, companies and cultures. Ethics are basically personal, and now they do a lot with the character of individuals (Mitchell 2000). Conclusion The mode of communicating is elementary to most of the social interactions and associations. Cross-cultural communication offers many barriers to shared appreciativeness because individuals from different traditions don’t share a common local or code. Language skills are significant, cross-cultural communication entail much more than language differences. Negotiation is an out of the ordinary communication position where the parties have conflicting goals. Tricky natural world of dialogue makes high cultural intellect a requirement for knowing w how much to familiarize yourself with one’s behavior to accomplish the most victorious outcome. These matters have gotten comprehensive proportions, and they require large-scale solutions. To that closing stage it is put forward that most likely a worldwide business is the best vehicle in the course of which codes of ethics that shall cover all aspects of commerce can be developed. Bibliography: Carter, C., 2000. Ethical issues in International buyer. Journal of Operations Management, 18, 191–208. Cheney, G., et al., 2011. The Handbook of Communication Ethics: International Communication Association Handbook Series. United Kingdom: Publisher Taylor & Francis. Govindarajan, V. and Gupta, A., 2001. Building an Effective Global Business Team. Accessed on 04th Dec 2012 from: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/the-magazine/2001-summer/4246/building-an-effective-global-business-team/ Kline, M., 2010. Ethics for International Business: Decision-Making in a Global Political Economy. Edition2.United Kingdom: Publisher Taylor & Francis. Lane, W., et al., 2009. International management behavior: leading with a global mindset. Chichester, west Sussex: [Hoboken, N.J.]: Wiley. Mitchell, C., 2000. A short course in international business culture. Novato; California: World trade press. Rosenbaum, A., 2012.How to Steer Clear of Pitfalls in Cross-Cultural Negotiation - Tips for Avoiding Misunderstandings When Negotiating Cross-Border Deals. Accessed on 04th Dec 2012 from: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3401.html Silkenat, R., et al., 2009. The ABA guide to international business negotiations: a comparison of cross-cultural issues and successful approaches. Chicago: America Bar association, section of International Law publisher. Thomas, C. and Inkson, K., 2009. Cultural Intelligence: Living and Working Globally. San Francisco; California: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Usunier, J. and Lee, J., 2009. Marketing across cultures. England Harlow: Essex Pearson Education publisher. Read More