Effective Leadership: managing

Talent Across Cultures – Hiring,

Training, and Retaining
Chapter 13
Intel’s Corporate Culture Helps
Managers Cross Cultures
 Dale A. Welcome is a Human Resource global work force
mobility group manager for Intel Corporation.
 He has successfully established a uniform corporate-wide
value system that all employees share around the world.
 Uniform facilities and all offices have similar environment
 The same standards of behavior no matter where you are
 A strong global corporate culture and the consistent
human resource policies and practices.
 Employees learn the Intel culture and values from the
moment they join the company ; All new hires start on
Monday.
Intel’s Corporate Culture Helps
Managers Cross Cultures
 Ongoing training includes:
reinforcement(tăng cường) of the cultural
values, consistent values, management
training, constructive confrontation.
 Intel is aware of hierarchical and group-

oriented cultures where people don’t want to

speak in opposition to their boss.
 By informal conversations with the staffs of

these cultures, Intel could have their shared

ideas.
Hiring and Selecting in a Global
Environment
 If you are to hire a general manager for your
offices in Tokyo, whom you will select from
the following two candidates?
◦ Candidate 1: good experience and credentials;
mentioned strong background and past
accomplishment and success; self-promoting at the
interview.
◦ Candidate 2: good experience and credentials;
soft-spoken; never interrupted; talked about his
understanding of the role and laid stress on the
importance of establishing a good team. Little
mentioned past success and accomplishment.
Guidelines for Selection
 Try to create an environment that enables the
candidates to be at their best so that you can assess
their real qualities.
 In some situations, be aware of hierarchical levels.
 Consider the cultural and legal factors when asking
about personal questions about age and marital status
 Does the candidate feel comfortable with informal (or
formal) conversation?
 Using the language that is understandable; Do not use
idioms and colloquialism.
 Should not ask the hierarchical candidate about his/her
previous company experience.
 Be adapted to the cultural behavior of the candidate.
Steps for Hiring a Manager
 Step 1: Identify the Success Factors of the Position for Which
You are hiring in That Culture.
◦ EX: What are the traits of a successful Sales Executive?
◦ Gather information about the job descriptions of the job
position and its responsibilities.
 Step 2: Prepare for the Interviews
◦ Develop questions that are related to the required job
position.
◦ Plan a culturally appropriate interview.
 Step 3: Validate Your Assumptions with your Local Colleagues
◦ Getting opinions of local experts and the candidate’s
referee(manager of previous company) to prevent hiring
errors.
◦ Explain the candidate why working for your company is
good for their career and lifestyles.
Training for Excellence
 Training is day-to-day activities
 Choose appropriate training methods and
learning styles: active and interactive(tương
tác) or passive ? Learning by listening or
participating?
 Beside job-related, training should include also
cultural perceptions and cultural differences.
 Arrange appropriate training curricula which
considers cultural factors.
 Cross- cultural training is a must.
Performance Appraisal in a Global
Environment
 The 360-degree feedback technique to
evaluate performance may not be suitable to
hierarchical cultures. Employees are not able
to evaluate their own bosses. (like in Vietnam)
 Performance evaluation have to be handled

with a great deal of cultural sensitivity.

Đánh giá hiệu suất phải được xử lý với rất
nhiều sự nhạy cảm về văn hóa.
Global Leadership
 Chosen leadership styles should be
consistent with binding cultural dimensions
of the local culture.
 Transactional leadership or transformational

leadership? High Power Distance or Low?

 Authoritative or Participative leaderships?
Global Business Leader Attributes
(successful business global leader)
 Goal Oriented Tenacity
◦ Strong commitment to achieve the goals
◦ More efforts and tireless focus devoted
 Managing Complexity
◦ Acquire (tiep thu) knowledge, skills and abilities to make decisions in a
foreign culturally unfamiliar and ambiguous(mơ hồ) environment.
 Cultural Sensitivity
◦ See the world through different eyes
◦ Non-judgmental and open-mind approach to the attitudes and behavior.
◦ Avoid Stereotyping and discrimination
Emotional Resilience (khả năng phục hồi cảm xúc)
◦ Emotional stability to cope with stress in the foreign environment
◦ Even tempered(nóng nảy), calm, and emotionally resilient (kiên cường)
Ability to form relationship
◦ Ability to form positive interpersonal relationships
◦ Extroversion
Class Discussion
 You are to hold a meeting with your group
which consists of an American, an Indian and a
German and two Vietnamese.
 Your group will analyze three alternatives
projects and make decision on which one is
the best.
 As a group leader, how will you plan for the
meeting. Identify possible problems of cultural
differences in your planning steps and
suggest measures to over come the problems.
Global Values and HRM across
cultures
 A set of global or universal ethical standards,
such as Michael Josephson’s:
◦ Trustworthiness – Responsibility
◦ Honesty – Fairness
◦ Integrity – Caring
◦ Promise keeping – Citizenship
◦ Loyalty
◦ Respect for others
  Problem: people from different countries
can explain the concepts in different ways.
 A key to improving global ethical and legal

performance is determining the relationship

between national differences in moral
philosophies (triết lý đạo đức ) and the
corporate core values (các giá trị cốt lõi của
doanh nghiệp) in the management system.
Multinational Corporations
 - MNCs are criticized for the following unethical
actions:
◦ a. In some instances, MNCs controlled entire cultures
and countries.
◦ b. The exploitation of both natural and human resources
in the host country
◦c. Exploiting labor market in the host country(Perceived to
be unfair for MNCs to transfer jobs abroad where wage rates
are lower (cost of labour lower )
◦ d. Tax avoidance (tax haven)
◦ e. Unfair competition
◦ Have been accused of increasing the gap between the
rich and poor nations
Multinational Corporations

 Public companies operating on a global scale

without significant ties to any one nation/region
◦ Perceived to be unfair for MNCs to transfer jobs abroad
where wage rates are lower (cost of labour lower )
◦ Have been accused of increasing the gap between the
rich and poor nations
◦ Have been accused of exploiting natural and human
resources
◦ Have been accused of engaging in unfair competition
 However, some corporations have strong ethical
values
 Multinational Corporations

Nike
Cisco

Systems
Monsanto
Shell

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5. Ethical Issues around the World

 a. Sexual and Radical Discrimination

  depend on cultures
 b. Human rights
  Low wages, child labor, abuses in foreign invested factories.
 c. Price Discrimination
 - Inequalities in segmenting markets
 - Gouging (giá cắt cổ): charging exorbitant rates for a limited time to exploit
situational shortage.
 - Price Dumping
 d. Bribery
 e. Harmful products
 - Genetically engineered products (sản phẩm biến đổi gen)
 - Export to Tobacco Products
 - Products that are harmful in some countries but become not harmful on
some other countries due to illiteracy, unsanitary conditions, or cultural
values.
Global Ethical Issues

 Sexual and racial discrimination

 Human rights
 Price discrimination
 Bribery
 Harmful products
 Pollution and the natural environment
 Telecommunications issues
 Sexual and Racial Discrimination
 U.S. and European laws prohibit businesses
from discriminating on the basis of sex,
race, religion or disabilities in their hiring,
firing and promotion decisions.
 Discrimination is sometimes justified on
the basis of cultural norms and values.
◦ For example, businesswomen are rare in the Middle
East.
 Discrimination remains one of the more
prevalent concerns in international
business.
 How Companies Might Address
Discrimination Issues
 Develop a company policy on discrimination
 Communicate the policy internally and externally
 Determine benchmarks for activities in which
discrimination can arise
 Determine indicators of possible noncompliance
(khieu nai, vu kien, bo viec)
 Establish methods to identifying noncompliance
 Develop a plan and implement the plan
Human Rights

 Opportunistic use of child labor, payment

of low wages, and abuses in foreign
factories are a few of the concerns.
 Relationships with subcontractors have

proven problematic for some firms.

 MNCs should view the law as a floor of

acceptable behavior and strive for greater

improvements in workers’ quality of life.
Advancing Human Rights
 Engage in an open dialog with workers and
management.
 Be aware of human rights issues and
concerns in each country in which the
company engages in business.
 Adopt the prevailing legal standard,
but seek to embrace a “best
practices” approach and standard.
Price Discrimination
 Occurs when a firm charges different prices
to different groups of consumers
◦ Allowable if justified, based on costs
 Price gouging—a
price increase exceeding
the costs of additional
expenses (taxes, etc.)
 Bribery and the Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act
 Bribes and facilitating payments are acceptable
in many cultures.
 The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prohibits
American corporations from offering or
providing payments to officials of foreign
governments for the purpose of obtaining or
retaining business abroad.
◦ This may place U.S. businesses at a
disadvantage.(explain below)
◦ This has been supported through global
treaties. (hiệp ước toàn cầu)
THE END