1. You have been hired as a consultant by a local advertising company. They are
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Question
1. You have been hired as a consultant by a local advertising company. They are getting into partnership with a similar company that has branches in multiple international locations.
Your client company is new to the concept of ‘Cross National Management’. Prepare a summary to present to their management team outlining what cross-national management is; its scope; and why it is important for them to develop intercultural competence.
2. You have been invited to deliver the keynote speech at a local conference for businesspeople and companies. The topic you have been requested to speak on is “The Global Manager”. Outline the main points of your speech, covering the role and responsibilities of the global manager, and the competencies required to be an effective global manager.
Explanation / Answer
1 Cross National Management
Cross-national management can be defined by the study and implementation of practices, process and management theories that takes into consideration the various factors that impacts the operation of business across two or more nations. In many case this can be confused with cross-cultural management but differs in certain conditions. For example, two or more countries may have similar cultural stand but due to their sovereign boundary, the rules and regulations are different for the countries. In such instance, while the cultural aspect is homogenous, the political and economic policies of management should differ. Similarly, it is also possible to cross cultural system without a cross-national system. Take example of country such as India where there multiple cultures that live within the same country. In such cases an organization need not adopt cross-national policies but need to consider cross cultural factors.
Cross-national operations takes into consideration various factors and attributes as their scope of operation and these must be kept in mind while doing business across national boundaries. Some of these factors are
The scope of these factors may depend on the type of business that an organization is in. However, considering an advertisement company the scope will span across the following
Considering the above scope and factors, it is clear that intercultural competence is required within the team when a company is looking to operation cross-national. Intercultural competence is not limited to the cultural, legal, and political knowledge of the countries that the company operates on but it focuses on creating a work culture that is tolerant and encouraging of diversity. This competence helps bring different ideas, knowledge and improve the chances of success across different geographies while the organization learns about the new opportunities together.
2. Global Manager
The definition of global manager is often considered to be a manager who operates across different geographies. However, that is a very constricted and literal view. A global manager not only works across geographies but in most cases, he/she works across different functions.
The word global is not necessarily in the literal term of “across the globe”. It also covers the different functions/geographies/businesses around the organization. For example a global operations manager in an organization will typically look after the end-to-end operation process. This means he/she will focus on many different aspects of operation.
This is a role similar to general management than a subject/function specific role. Consider the above example. In many organization an operations manager looks after a specific function (support, procurement, inventory, manufacturing, etc.). However a global manager’s responsibility and role cuts across these functions and spans across even different areas of the organization.
Typically a manager in an organization can be categorized into one of the following
Now, if we consider a global manager, he/she not only touches across each of these categories but has the competency to move from one category to another. This is especially helpful if the organization is dynamic and undergoes structural changes. In summary, a global manager’s roles and responsibility is to provide high degree of management skills and flexibility to the organization irrespective of region, function and business.
A global manager may require many different skills. But considering the various scenarios, he/she must possess knowledge and skills in the following
The above skills helps the managers be dynamic and analytic and approach problems systematically. This is also based on the popular PESTEL analysis framework. However this is the technical skillset of the global manager. In addition to this, he/she must also possess
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