Cross-Culture Management and Globalization - Essay Example

Cross Culture Management Cross Culture Management Outline What process of globalization is this company seeking to go through? What is the role of Morel in this process? 2) What advantage will the company attain from moving to a global structure in taking its new product to the market? 3) Which of Gavin’s attitudes may hinder the company in achieving its goals regarding Morel? 4) What were the major challenges Gavin was facing and what was the impact of Sanji’s advice on Gavin’s leadership style? 5) Why Sanji was able to assume the role of a “trusted adviser” and what was his contribution to the successful implementation of the project? Globalization Globalization is the process where intangible unification of countries worldwide occurs to develop a Global product image in spite of presence of many physical barriers of the so called geographical boundaries. In other words, formation of a global recognition is the basic goal of globalization. In its essence, the process commenced when the products started migrating from a place to another for own physical survival or for an economic activity or for the sheer adventure. However, process got recognizable in much later part when the world got impetus of the fiber optic and satellite (the electronic communication) revolutions started affecting the civic commercial life. This time physical barrier stood as removing non-physical way. Resultantly, an abundant and much quick flow of information in the transcontinental dimensions started the process decipherable. Innovations through the means of mobility (use conveyance or transportation) also enhanced the globalization process. In this case, one could see that the physical barrier was evaporated using a physical way. (Enotes, Encyclopedia) Both the electronic communication (i.e. non-physical) and the transportation (physical) have woven a kind of web of globalization owing to which the product development encompassing time along with space seems achievable. That is the reason why, it can also be said that globalization is tertiary effect of the scientific inventions. As a result of the outsourcing and off-shoring of Morel accountancy software, the combination of low labor rates, much reduced tooling and elements costs happens. Globalization would help the design consumer product such as Morel to shift away from its stage of product platforms. Given the much rapid rise of off-shoring, manufacturing the set-up and the purchased component integration hence becomes a much smaller % of the total project cost; and this allows firms to design much unique products for the specific market segments because cost and timing of new tooling or component sourcing is no longer the factor in many cases. This would free up the Morel designer to develop products that could meet discrete market niches inconsiderate of having to spend any further time and cost to develop product platform. In effect, for Morel accountancy software the underlying core that Gavin should made use of is technology – which is the platform – the ability to quickly and much effectively commercialize new products along with leveraging the advantages of global market place. A framework for monitoring the companies score development process is thereby proposed to help the development teams improve the Morel development process and total project expenditure within global environment. (Product development and Globalization in key platform, Conference) Globalization Benefits Globalization for sure permits an acceleration in the global output. FDI The export of Morel products results in Foreign Direct investment that provides many positive effects in return, the major being increase in surplus. Moreover, the foreign direct investment brings the best technology and other types of intellectual capital of the countries that would otherwise have to do without such technology. Wheeling everything at home would have been costly otherwise. Global Recognition Globalization may bring the products to countries that otherwise would have been inaccessible of such variety, this mainly increases the quality of life all over the supplying region, therefore adding value to the world output. This would also help transferring savings from countries where the MP of Capital (Marginal Product) is low to those countries where it is high; this again improves the quality of life and adds to the world output. Hence, globalization builds up global recognition for Morel. Less Waging Cost and Unemployment Morel products can be outsourced to manufacturing and the blue-collar jobs. This would be beneficial, because of low cost of manufacturing goods and wages over there. This also promotes corporate responsibility because it results in more job opportunities and lesser scenes of unemployment all over the world. Online Jobs Outsourcing will be the work of cloud computing service providers such as Amazon and Google from existing service providers in America and elsewhere. This globalization would create new opportunities for employment. However, this would unlikely to bring back all the jobs lost. Increase Competition Because, of increase in competition through globalization company would have to concentrate on products quality with lesser product margins to guarantee consumers satisfaction. This would cause a negative effect as it builds up pressure on the team management. Per Unit Cost Decreases With an ability to supply more would result in decreasing per unit cost. As the quantities sold as a ratio of units supplied would decrease over the period the average cost of Morel products would decrease. Growth Opportunities With globalization, there stands a wider opportunity for economic growth through mergers and takeovers. Company can benefit through taking over the local or foreign stores, resulting economies of scale. Gavin following attitude would hinder the Globalization process: Lack of Acknowledgement of Team members Looking for the positive qualities in the team members, rather than looking for problems need to be fixed, creates much significant shift in an interpersonal dynamic and establishes the environment of trust along with mutual respect. There might be possibilities that the team member is not aware of his/her own strengths and capabilities. As a leader, Gavin must reveal its team members their strengths, qualities plus capabilities that they displays. When a team member acknowledges its team they hold up a mirror and then say, “This is the person I see in you!” Often this is for the first time, that one makes awareness in one of their qualities. This new self-knowledge method would help build self-esteem and empowers the team members to keep learning, growing and doing their best. Major challenges Gavin was facing Lack of International Experience International experience is just proving to be much critical to the financial operations of businesses. “It is of particularly important for the financial managers to understand business context of transactions, not just what are the numbers,” Hartgraves concludes. The results of recent study conducted by Mr. Robert Half International, who is a leader in the specialized staffing services, echoed the value in sentiment. One in five of the CFOs surveyed said that an international experience would be very vital for accounting along with finance professionals 5 years from today. 56 % of them said that an international experience would be at least somewhat necessary. For those who are willing to take an international assignment, such as incase of Gavin the benefits can be high. To pace up their experience, Earl Hill, a senior lecturer in an organization and management at the Goizueta notes, “When dealing with other cultures, it is equally important not to judge any ones practices based on how one does things. Instead, recognizing that a difference exists and that one must be flexible in how they operate.” Interacting and observing how international employers operate at work help unlock cultural and geographical idiosyncrasies which are critical to understanding others along with help develop relationships,” Milrad notes further. “While analyzing the businesses opportunities of guanxi (social and political connections) and the foreign cultural practices – all such issues were far in the background of necessity while working in United States." Indeed, it is this non-academic knowledge and the experience that proves to be most enriching. Through the international assignments, individual managers become more aware of their cultural differences and could thereby market the products globally. The biggest challenge for Gavin is not his skills, but his ability to identify the opportunities and issues within the background of differing local cultures and the values Managing Cross-Cultural Competence This is essential for global corporations in order to compete effectively in the world market-place. Competence can be sense as the difference between international competitive advantage and the disadvantage. It can be the difference between: • attracting, developing, and then retaining the best talent from the world, or experiencing any global ‘talent drain’ • relying on an international teams to collaborate and then to deliver projects on time/on budget, covering the experience dysfunctional international team behavior • bringing on a successful new product in an emergent global market, or experiencing the global ‘marketing disaster’ • demonstrating “speed to market”, experiencing international market-share or capturing market exclusivity and market share dominance or the deterioration A vital element of achieving cross-cultural competence is an ability to recognize, rapidly integrate, and then leverage the international information overload. Today, corporations are consistently “bombarded” with an increasing stream of electronic and paper based information which is extremely difficult to manage; let only analyze, synthesize, and make crucial decisions based on the information that one receives. Pursuing Transformational Leadership Skills In order to be at ease and be successful with transformational scale change, leaders must try to deploy different skills; some of such might need to add to their current skills set. Gavin may also need to evaluate the change in attitude and beliefs regarding how to handle change. Through an edification process, he can begin that shift. Impact of Sanji’s advice on Gavin’s leadership style Sanji’s advice has brought a shift in the perspective of Gavin who earlier was unmoved to the changes in team build up and motivation. Sanji’s advice has helped him focus on the synergy which is the cooperative or combined action that would occur where there are diversified or disparate groups of people with varying or changing viewpoints work together. The objective is to increase the effectiveness by sharing insights, perceptions, and knowledge. But the synergy is more than just simple working together to achieve mutual achievement of certain goals. The power of the synergy rests in reality “when solving problems, groups are often the smarter ones than the smartest people that are within them” Consequently, when ordinary people using available resources are allowed to freely exchange opinions and argue points of view, extraordinary results can occur. Sanji’s style influenced Gavin to adopt the participative leadership which is a style of leadership involving all members of a team in identifying their essential goals and thereby developing procedures or strategies for reaching those goals. Such leadership style focuses heavily on the leader functioning as facilitator rather than just issuing orders or making assignments. Role of a “trusted adviser” Sanji role was considered as that of a trusted adviser as he was a humble traveler worldwide whose work mainly include trying to encourage the team by telling them short stories in order to motivate them or guide them. Being a student at Oxford University and author of famous theories his advice was one that everybody could approve of. Successful implementation of the project 1) Effective Communication Communication effectively is simply an art. Effective communication requires people to share their thoughts with audience. Speaking is just the way of sharing one’s thoughts. Hence the effective speaking skill is vital for the purpose of communicating properly to achieve success in product development. Furthermore, this requires that Gavin and along with his team members need to develop their communication skill. This would even help achieve cross culture competences. 2) Team building For successful implementation of the project the main goals of team-building would be to improve productivity and motivation of team members. Taking employees out of office helps group break down the usual political and personal barriers, reduce stress level, and have fun. The benefits of team-building would include synergy, as motivation and discipline, spontaneity in participation, positive attitudes to conflict and face-saving, expected speed of integration in the team, relative less formality of communication. The best of all benefits of team buildings includes identification of teams strengths and weaknesses. 3) Participative Leadership Style benefits: Motivation, Team Spirit, and Employee Productivity As employees are given liberty to suggest their views and opinions for deciding on the specific aspects, it can in turn cause increase motivation as employees would know that management is taking into consideration their suggestions as well. And this certainly would have positive impact on teamwork along with employee performance. In addition to this, it will also contribute to a good, productive work environment. Conclusion Globalization is a phenomenon that gathers momentum with the simultaneous improvement in the efficiency and speed of worldwide communication and transportation. These generally help push up the amounts of international trade by 100 times. Integration of global economies also leads to such consequences as employees moving to locations where jobs are available improving employment rates world over. Work Cited All About Team Building in Management helpo from http://managementhelp.org/grp_skll/teams/teams.htm Product development and Globalization in key platform, Conference from http://www.keyplatform.com/pdf/Conferences/Keyplatform%20-%20The%20Effects%20of%20Globalization%20on%20Product%20Platforms%20and%20the%20New%20Product%20Development%20Process.pdf The Term “Globalization” in Enotes, Econ-Encyclopedia from http://www.enotes.com/econ-encyclopedia/globalization Read More