Cross-cultural Issues in International Management - Essay Example

Other cultural factors do not seem to pose in major challenges. Leadership styles are quite similar as is apparent from the GLOBE study. English is commonly used there and hence communication will not be a major issue. With regard to style, Malaysians tend to be more indirect and hence our managers need to be patient while dealing with their Malaysian counterparts. The global economic slump and the US downturn will have some effect on the JV. But this need not cause any delays or postponements in the whole process.

On the whole, if the steps recommended in this report are implemented, the joint venture will have a smooth cultural integration and all possible problems can be minimized. Employee management is a crucial function of management which calls for extensive knowledge and expertise in the field of management and behavioral sciences like psychology, sociology etc. The knowledge in these areas was sufficient enough to manage a firm which operates within the boundaries of a country. But, as the corporate world has gone international with globalization and liberalization policies enunciated in almost all countries, the role of human resource manager became so complicated than ever before.

In the present global market, managers of multi national firms/joint ventures can no longer effectively manage their employees with their knowledge in the culture of their home country alone. Rather, they must possess multi-cultural knowledge which equips themselves with the techniques to manage employees who hail from different countries. The necessity of possessing these techniques is seriously felt in the present scenario simply because going global is the order of the day. The present report is meant to inform and make alert all concerned to face the challenges in the management of multi-nationals/joint ventures.

The broad objectives for which the present report is prepared are:1. To identify and analyze the cultural differences between United States of America and Malaysia.2. To study the impact of cultural differences on the management, because of :-a. The differences in Leadership styleb. Communication style and languagec. Organization Structure3. To analyze the impact of cultural differences on the employee performance4. To study the issues and challenges before the management in managing the employees from both the countries.

The present paper is purely qualitative and analytical in nature. The paper relies solely on secondary sources for data collection. Data sources such as Books and periodicals, electronic sources are extensively used. The data gathered are used for writing the report from an analytical perspective, but no analytical tool is used. The report is prepared in such a way that every one in the organization associated with the problem is able to comprehend the real issues and challenges of cross-cultural management.

Literature Review:Cultural Differences between United States of America and Malaysia:Culture is a country specific term. Every country has a unique and distinct culture of its own which has a bearing on the life and life style of the people in that country. The culture and history are closely related in the sense that culture is formed and developed over years from the history of a country. The