Importance of Cross-Cultural Awareness for the Global Managers - Essay Example

Cross-Cultural Management Contents Contents 2 Introduction 3 Discussion 4 Cross cultural awareness 4 Importance of cross cultural awareness for the global managers 6 Training Program Design 7 Appropriateness of this training program 9 Evaluation of the results of the training program 10 Conclusion 11 References 13 Introduction The understanding of cultural differences has become a necessity for business organizations and their global managers to function effectively and efficiently in the intensely diversified and competitive modern global business environment. The era of globalization is marked with the increasing levels of cross border flow of human resources, information and ideas as well as by different levels of business operations and transactions carried across multicultural regions. The need of identifying and acknowledging the basic cultural similarities and differences is a primary requirement for conducting business activities and communicating with business partners, channel partners and employees who belong to different cultural origins. In this scenario, every company that operates on an international platform, has to ensure that it places a high degree of importance to the development of proper awareness regarding the cultural aspects of the people and regions so that it can identify the cultural differences as well as the cultural similarities between different regions and groups of people so that the company can enforce higher level of cultural sensitivity and awareness and thereby, improve the quality of operations, communication, employee and business partner management as well as the level of compliance to the diversity and anti discriminatory standards placed across the globe. This report is prepared with the main objective of developing a cross cultural management and awareness training program for the global managers of a multinational company. For developing the most feasible and beneficial training program, the basic concepts of cross cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity are explained with proper references done to the academic works published in this field, followed by a justification of why this kind of training program is necessary to be imparted to the global managers of a company. The appropriateness and benefits of the training program are also documented and the possible effects that the diversified cultural backgrounds of the training participants may have on the training process and training effectiveness are also considered. A section including how the results and benefits of the training program can be evaluated is also included in the report. The report is suitably concluded by summarizing the discussion and highlighting the main findings from the discussion. Discussion Cross cultural awareness Cross cultural awareness is also known as intercultural sensitivity and is vital for developing or cross cultural competence and cross cultural adaptability within the entities of an organization. Cross cultural sensitivity is based on developing an in depth understanding of the various similarities and differences between the diverse cultures existing in the world. Cultural sensitivity also involves placing value to the diversities prevailing in different geographical locations and cultures. Cross cultural management includes the development of cultural sensitivity and awareness that are necessary to instigate openness, acceptance and flexibility in the business relations that the global managers and other internationally functional employees have to manage as a crucial part of their job roles. Cross cultural management involves the creation of internal changes within these entities especially in terms of mindsets, understanding and sensitivity displayed towards other ethnic groups. The familiarization of cultural knowledge is also a significant part of the cross cultural management process so that the employees develop the necessary degree of familiarization with the cultural history, characteristics, belief systems, values and behaviours of the members of diverse ethnic groups. There have been many literary works prepared and presented by different scholars and academicians in the area of cross cultural awareness and cross cultural management. A review of these academic resources would act as a basic platform for developing a practically implementable and a potentially benefitting cross cultural training program. The keywords like cultural awareness, cultural sensitivity, cultural competence, acculturate, culture, teaching, learning and training are the common keywords that have been used to refer to the relevant academic sources (Bhawuk and Brislin, 2000). Most scholars have evaluated the impact of cross cultural management and cultural awareness trainings on the performances of the employee groups by considering the aspects like professional relations development, ease of familiarity with people from diverse backgrounds, acceptability of the differences among various cultures, professional perceptions, attitudes and beliefs of the participants of such training programs. Cultural awareness training has emerged as a popular and necessary method of developing higher levels of diversity management and enhancing the multinational functionalities of a company. Organizations across the world are conducting cross cultural awareness training programs to improve their employee and business partner management skills, to enhance the cultural appropriateness of the operations of the company as well as to add to the sustainable competitive advantage of the business in a fast shifting dynamic and globally integrated corporate platform (Russon, 2003). The shifts in policy formulations and international standards of ethical and anti discriminative behaviours have made these kinds of training evolve from being a mere awareness initiative to being a main driver of cultural competency the most ideal cross cultural awareness training program would not only address the issues of awareness and identification of the differences between different cultural backgrounds, but will also help to create higher levels of acceptance and acknowledgement of cultural differences so that the business transactions and communications can be carried out in a transparent, flexible and positive manner. Importance of cross cultural awareness for the global managers Cultural awareness trainings are identified to be a necessary human resource management strategy for organizations across the globe because of the far reaching positive impacts that they have on the success and sustainability of a company in the integrated and globally connected corporate environment. The importance of these types of trainings and programs are becoming more and more significant with the increasing level of diversity noted among employee groups as well as due to the extensive foreign expansion operations taken up by companies as a part of their diversification and expansion strategies (Landis, Bennett and Bennett, 2004). A cultural awareness training is an individual management strategy that depends on imparting knowledge and learning related to interpersonal communication processes, acceptance and acknowledgement of the differences in various cultures, creation of moral and ethical values and awareness regarding the do’s and don’ts related to conducting business transactions and maintaining business relationships with diverse ethnic and cultural groups. These kinds of trainings are likely to add value to the performance abilities of individual global managers by helping them to identify the differences among cultures, to start a collective process that leads to conscious changes at an individual as well as at the organizational level. Also, it helps the global managers to develop suitable cultural security and makes them equipped to deal with people from different cultural backgrounds so that higher levels of cultural compliance and intercultural sensitivity are displayed by these managers when they deal in business alliances with entities from other cultures and geographical locations (Barry, 2002). Training Program Design A cross culture awareness training program would be planned in a customized manner according to the exact needs and requirements of the business organization under consideration. While developing a cross culture management and awareness training programme, the trainers should also take into consideration the backgrounds, cultures, beliefs and attitudes of the global managers who would be taking part in the training processes. The planning of the training program should start with the development of a cross cultural management policy that would define and address the components, characteristics and objectives of the training program (Putnam, 2007). The cross cultural training program would be developed on the basis of a pre defined policy statement of objectives and intentions and the desired outcomes of the training program. This policy would include the terms of objectives, the format of the training program, contents of the training program, modules that are to be included and materials that are to be used in the training, mode of delivery of knowledge and information and the duration of the training program. A high level of specialized learning techniques would be used for training the global managers of the organization. The training program would be divided into broad models that would cover sub parts. This would ensure taking up a holistic and explorative view of the training objectives and program schedule (Weber, 2006). The use of multiple types of learning materials, videos, pretensions, leaning materials etc. would be done. Experimental learning, use of audio and visual material resources, role plays, and team activities, small group learning systems, two way learning systems, experiential learning, and problem based learning approaches and participant observation would be employed as the learner centred and solution focused training techniques (Brown, 2004). Apart from these, the case study teaching approach would be used to develop the practical knowledge of the trainees through the consideration and evaluation of real life examples of companies operating in foreign locations. Cultural immersion processes and activities would be infused in every step of the training modules so that better exposure is provided to the training participants regarding the cultures of differ countries and regions. A four weeks training program is designed which can be used to develop suitable skills and knowledge among the global managers of a company to function efficiently and fluently in their business operations and transaction carried out with people from other backgrounds and cultures which are significantly different from their own. The duration of four weeks is considered to be ideal for the cross cultural training program because a very short term training program would not be desirably impactful and a very long term program would be higher cost and time incurring (Parekh, 2002). The main outline of the cultural training program designed for developing global cultural awareness for an organization is given in the following table. Modules Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Understanding the concepts of culture and cultural awareness Studying the different prominent cultures of the geographical locations in which the company mainly functions Developing an in depth understanding of the cultural norms, do’s and don’ts, nuances, prohibited behaviours, acceptable behaviours and business wise beneficial behaviours. Developing language, communication skills and business etiquettes Developing skills to build internationally compatible and competent teams and ability to manage international business dealings and transactions Skills imparted for building up competent business relationships Review of the training program to understand the level of understanding imparted to the participants. Appropriateness of this training program This kind of training program is found to be the most suitable for training the global managers of a company because the modules of the training are developed in a customized manner to add to the skills and knowledge of the participants that would enable them to efficiently conduct business transactions and dealings in the foreign locations and with the people from diverse backgrounds and cultures. The training modules which involve developing an understanding of the different cultures of the world would ensure that the global managers become skilled and knowledgeable about a number of diverse cultures around the globe which would further help the company in its future foreign expansion endeavours. The training modules will not only help to develop cross cultural awareness but would also help to develop the cross cultural communication abilities and skills of the global managers, impart knowledge about the general traditions, business etiquettes, understanding of the values, beliefs and customs of different cultures (Kymlicka, 2005). Additionally, the training would equip the global managers with better knowledge and comprehension regarding the cultural diversity issues and policies associated with the organization itself and with functioning in the various diverse locations of the world. These would ensure better compliance, enhanced cultural sensitivity and cultural integration of the organization in its various business locations and with its diverse business alliances. Evaluation of the results of the training program The results of the training program can be evaluated by introducing a feedback and review session. The review session of the training program would help to gauge the attitudes and skills of the trainees before and after the completion of the training. The evaluations can be done by considering primary questions like How effective the cross cultural training has been in terms of developing cultural sensitivity and acceptance of the differences between diverse cultures and ethnic groups? How far the program has been able to infuse professional disciple and cultural philosophy into the performances of the trainees? Has the training program been able to address varied modalities within cultures and differences in the cultural values? Does the program relate to the practical use of cross cultural awareness and does it meet the pre defined training objectives? Other outcome characteristics that should be considered for evaluating the results of the training program are functional changes, symptom changes, level of restrictions, cost effectiveness achieved, changes in mindsets, improvement in global business performances and enhancement of global leadership skills and business dealings with people from different cultural backgrounds as performed by the global managers who had participated in the training (Fortier, 2008). Conclusion Thus, it can be identified that a customized cross cultural training program is likely to be more effective for developing the skills and attitudes of the global managers of a company because the specific requirements of an organization related to the international operations differ for different organizations. The assessments of the backgrounds and the level of acceptance and flexibility of the trainees regarding cultural differences is the first and foremost factor that should be assessed by the cross cultural awareness trainers before developing the training program. Since, cultural integration is identified as a key performance indicator for assessing the efficiency of an organization of functioning in a globally integrated corporate environment therefore; the organizations have to take up training programs and models that train the participants from a globally implementable perspective. References Barry, B. 2002. Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Bhawuk, D. P. S & Brislin, R. W. 2000. Cross-cultural training: A review. Applied Psychology: an International Review, Vol.49 (1), pp.44-45. Brown, E. 2004. What precipitates change in cultural diversity awareness during a multicultural course: The message or the method? Journal of Teacher Education, Vol.55 (4), pp.101-102. Fortier, A. M. 2008. Multicultural Horizons: Diversity and the Limits of the Civil Nation. New York: Taylor & Francis. Kymlicka, W. 2005. Multiculturalism in Asia. London: Oxford University Press.  Landis, D, Bennett, J & Bennett, M. 2004. Handbook of intercultural training, 3rd Ed. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications. Parekh, B. C. 2002. Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Putnam, R. D. 2007. E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century - The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize. Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol.30 (2), p.60. Russon, J. 2003. Human Experience. Albany: State University of New York Press. Weber, S. 2006. Intercultural training as identity negotiation. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Read More