Cross Cultural Management

Globalization, offshore outsourcing and international value chains and labour has led to today’s
Business firms to internationalize their activities. With globalization taking over big and small
businesses worldwide, cultural diversity has become significantly prevalent in the contemporary
workplaces and therefore, the need for managing the different cultures has become an important issue.
As a matter of fact, it has become a necessity lately for the managers to completely utilize the possible
potential capabilities of a multi-cultured workforce so as to maximise the organizational efficiency and
effectiveness. Hence, a more professional jargon for managing multi-cultural workforce is “Cross-
Cultural Management”.

Cross-Cultural Management is the management of people involved in a diverse cultural workplace.

Cross-culture management studies teach how to handle conflicts of the heterogeneity culture and
actualize effective management (Li, 2000). It aims to bridge the gap amongst people from different
backgrounds, nationalities and ethnicities. It incorporates the influences of societal culture on the
management and managers so as to design a feasible organisation structure and management
mechanism across varied cultural backgrounds. Besides, according to Holden (2001), culture is
presented as a form of organizational knowledge that can be converted into a resource for
underpinning core competence, instead of being presented as a source of difference and antagonism.
This concept when properly studied and implemented, can have positive effects on the management
thinking, education and research for a sustainable period.

Management of cultural diversity is often related to the competitive advantage that a company can
create. According to Sultana (2013), there are five main dimensions that needs to be addressed to for a
company to attain the competitive advantage. The 5 dimensions are Image and Marketing, Creativity
and Innovation, higher productivity and competence of workforce. The management of cultural
diversity by addressing the said competitive factors, would definitely reflect a positive influence on
human capital and customer equity. A systematic management of cultural diversity can hence lead to
the firm’s competitiveness.

The potential perks of managing a multi-cultured workplace includes greater creativity and innovation,
better success in international deals and marketing, better distribution of economic opportunities and
better decision making. Companies with culturally diverse groups portray a significant increase in the
level of job performance. However, if the cultural diversity is mis-managed, then a sense of fear and
comfortless would emerge as they would then feel threatened to work with people hailing from
different cultural backgrounds. Which then would have an overall negative impact on the
 organizational efficiency. Therefore, it is essential for the management to identify the cultural
specificity to help different employees to coexist in a cross-cultural management.

Cross-cultural management is the oil for all progressive organizations. Encouraging cultural diversity
in organizations may stimulate organizational optimisation by improving representativeness and access
to distinctive capabilities. A multicultural workplace with its collective knowledge and intellect can
help the organization increase productivity. Different types of people bring variety in the thought and
beliefs of work, so monotonous is not a part of the group. The modern way to progress for a firm with
multi-cultured talent is to tap it carefully and not miss out on the opportunity.

Bibliography and References.

Sultana, M., Rashid, M., Mohiuddin, M., & Mazumder, M. (2013). Cross-cultural management and
organizational performance: A content analysis perspective. Cross-Cultural Management and
Organizational Performance: A Content Analysis Perspective, 133-146.

Luo, Y. (2016). Toward a reverse adaptation view in cross-cultural management. Cross Cultural &
Strategic Management.

https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199846740/obo-9780199846740-
0074.xml

Addis, M and Holbrook, M.B. (2001), “On the conceptual link between mass communication and
experiential consumption: an explosion of subjectivity”, Journal of Consumer Behavior, Vol.1 No.1, pp
50-66

MLA: Addis, M and Holbrook, M.B. “On the conceptual link between mass communiation and
experiential consumption: an explosion of subjectivity.” Journal of Consumer Behavior (2001):
50-66.

Chicago: Addis, M and Holbrook, M.B. 2001. “On the conceptual link between mass communiation and
experiential consumption: an explosion of subjectivity.” Journal of Consumer Behavior 50-66

IEEE:
[1] M. a. H. M. Addis, “On the conceptual link between mass communiation and experiential
consumption: an explosion of subjectivity,” Journal of Consumer Behavior, pp. 50-66, 2001.

APA: Addis, M. a. (2001). Journal of consumer behavior.

Addis, M. a. (2001). On the conceptual link between mass communiation and experiential consumption:
an explosion of subjectivity. Journal of Consumer Behavior, 50-66.