Cultural difficulties can be difficult to manage, even if they anticipated - Essay Example

The so-called resource-based approach to strategic management, for instance, is based on this line of thinking (Barney, 100-110, 1999; Dereskey, 230-244, 1997). Even though it cannot be allocated and generated in a way entirely analogous to the financial resources of a corporation, it is still an integral part of strategic management (Itami, 108-114, 1987). A strategic resource is defined as a resource that can be shifted from one business strategy application to another (Lorange, 132-154, 2000) - not only financial funds or technological expertise, but also human resources.

Without the growth of human resources as a strategic resource within a corporation, it will be difficult to secure the long-term strategic future of the corporation, even though financial resources might be adequate (Evans, 102-128, 1996). Managers of international workforce are currently witnessing an increase of cooperative cultural problems as vehicles for implementing strategy, particularly in multinational contexts where joint cultural problems, licensing agreements, project cooperation, and other methods of cooperation are becoming commonplace (Contractor and Lorange, 144-187, 2003).

The reasons for the growth of cooperative cultural problems are manifold: they may make scarce strategic resources last longer by utilizing complementary resources from several partners; they may allow faster market penetration; they may be a political necessity, and so on (Lorange, 164-176, 1986). It is interesting to notice that, while strategic alliances in the past often might have been seen as the "next best" options, with full ownership being preferred, today the positive emphasis on creativity and opportunity seeking through bringing together complementary creative teams seems to have put these types of cooperative how managers can overcome problems arising from cultural differences of employee strategies in an even more favourable light (Chakravarthy and Lorange, 316-322, 1999; Lorange and Roos, 141-153, 1992).

The human resource function is particularly critical to successful implementation of such cooperative cultural problems or how managers can overcome problems arising from cultural differences of employee strategies. Several strategic human resource issues surrounding these cooperative cultural problems, however, are not well understood; therefore, the present article raises and discusses a number of them.It can be argued that the choice of a cooperative international business should satisfy several requirements of each participating partner.

The cooperative international business must create a value-added chain by bringing together synergistic factors for a combined output greater than the sum of the outputs of each participating partner. The combined output must result in a competitive product or service, in comparison with alternative sources of supply.A partner in a joint international business may wish to keep a certain degree of discretionary control over its unique resources. Some strategic resources, such as unique technological skills or relevant marketing expertise may not as readily be made available to