Current marketplace has many opportunities to involve intellectual resources from all countries of the world though that means the diversity of cultural backgrounds of people engaged. Charlene Solomon and Michael Schell (2009) in the book Managing Across Cultures: The Seven Keys to Doing Business with a Global Mindset present the definition of a global mindset and the model that help to transform the awareness of cultural similarities and differences into effective and profitable usage of the intellectual potentiality. Consideration of different cultural particularities such as values and behaviors of customers, colleagues, and suppliers is important for success on both individual and corporative levels.
While the twentieth century business basis was “financial resources, technology, and labor power” (Solomon, 2009, p. 9) with a limited depending on individuality of personnel, the twenty-first “information” century gives precedence to the creativity of a unique personality. “The personnel department changed its name to the human resources department” (Solomon, 2009, p.). The intellectual ability of employees prevails the manufacture in such companies as Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Cisco. Current marketplace demands from managers not supervising but developing human resource, respecting intercultural uniqueness and originality.
Leading a global business today requires capability to ascertain and manage cultural differences in behaviors. “A global mindset is the ability to recognize and adapt to cultural signals so that you intuitively see global opportunities and are effective in dealing with people from different backgrounds around the world” (Solomon, 2009, p. 12). The junction of the global sourcing, mobility, marketing, and wisdom and collaboration highlights the importance of a global mindset. Global sourcing deals with “everything from raw materials to human capital around the world” (Solomon, 2009, p. 12). Cultural barriers can prevent the efficiency of the company even with the most talented personnel while comprehension of the diversity of cultural outlooks enables to benefit from the global interrelation opportunities. Global mobility denotes “the flow of people and ideas around the world” (Solomon, 2009, p. 12). Despite the existence of national borders, people and accordingly intellectual resources migrate more and more with every coming year and course composing of different cultural backgrounds that need to cooperate. “Global marketing refers to the ability to develop products and services appropriate for the markets at which they are aimed” (Solomon, 2009, p. 13). Adaptation of products and services to customer cultural requirements gives an opportunity to compete successfully in any marketplace. For example, McDonalds serves a special menu to meet requirements of customers during Lent. The global wisdom and collaboration deals with “the intellectual capital that fuels the contemporary marketplace” (Solomon, 2009, p.13). People need to learn how to team up, modernize, and take full advantage of opportunities for sharing their knowledge and fulfilling the goals both individual and corporative. For example, Israel, the country with no natural resources, has one of the highest living standard because of valuing intellectual potentiality. The modern technology is very helpful while the deficiency of understanding of people’s behavior, values, and communication styles can be harmful for these advantages.
Integrating with another company, the perfect deal can turn into a debacle if managers regard and discuss every detail of management contracts and functions of business, but disregard the human element with cultural backgrounds. To succeed, it is important to develop carefully a cultural integration plan such as cultural awareness training. “One of the reasons cultural attitudes are so powerful is that the distinguishing characteristics of deeply held beliefs are often invisible” (Solomon, 2009, p. 30). Similar goals are not enough to interact effectively gaining them as the debilitating cultural differences can stand on the way. The DaimlerChrysler merger is an example of the lack of a global mindset as for deep values and beliefs of the other side that has resulted into a business letdown. Palthe (2014) exams value differences at national, organizational, and individual levels. She argues that organizations, which recognize the importance of diversity at all three levels and take efforts to smooth the adaptation and socialization of personnel at the individual, organizational, and national culture levels, optimize individual and organizational performance (p. 59). Working across cultures demands the wisdom to foresee the possible cultural problems in the process of integration of different corporate cultures and national cultures.
Culture involves “the visible behaviors and invisible values and beliefs that are unique for each society. These value systems are deeply rooted in the society and passed from generation to generation” (Solomon, 2009, p. 20). The visible, often material aspect of the culture includes the language and expression, the food, clothes (Conley, 2011, p.77). The uniqueness of every culture is due to historical, religious, tradition, climate and geographical factors of a country development. According to the sociological theory of symbolic interaction (social constructionist), “people create meaning using symbols to make sense of the world.” (Conley, 2011, p.16) Symbols are cultural representations of reality. Interacting with people from other cultures, one encounters and may misinterpret traditional symbols reflecting different experiences and observations. Understanding culture helps to advance global talent, to conduct negotiations, to manage personnel, and to cooperate. The visible signs make culture learnable. For example, Western cultures perform individualistic values that is a person is more independent from the social life, while Eastern cultures are more collectivistic, and interdependent. Though visible cultural indications prompt the invisible or nonmaterial aspect (beliefs, values, and ideas), it requires reasonable steps (learning and observation) to prosper while forming a cultural integration plan as culture determines work styles and main concerns.
Cultural generalizations form the outline for considering culture that is useful in predicting the people reaction in different circumstances. Although according to the sociological theory of conflict, “in a given society (or group), there are subgroups of people who have different beliefs and conflicting values and goals” (Conley, 2011, p.15) within a society, moreover, every individuality differs and stereotypes deceive, there is always a general national norm. A global mindset helps to use to your advantage opportunities of motivating people better, understanding how they think, and predicting their reactions. The CultureWizard Model© (CW Model©) (Solomon, 2009, p. 35) presents the seven keys to achieve smooth and effective functioning of multi-cultural interrelations. They are:
“1. Hierarchy and egalitarianism
2. Group focus
3. Relationships
4. Communication styles
5. Time orientation
6. Change tolerance
7. Motivation—work-life balance.” (Solomon, 2009, p. 53)
Considering together, these dimensions help to interpret interconnected and intricate cultural behavior with which one faces. Cultural diversity (the existence of different cultures and cultural particulars within a society) forms a diversity of personal cultural style: Cultural norms and standards of behavior do not destroy the distinction between unique individuals. It is important to be aware of personal cultural preferences to understand others. If the person has possibility to behave in harmony with own values and the organizations culture, the work becomes less stressful and more satisfactory and productive (Palthe, 2014, p. 58). This fact gives advantages in identifying, differentiating cultural alterations, and adjusting to them to be efficient and successful.
Learning to considerate different cultural particularities such as values and behaviors of customers, colleagues, and suppliers is important for success on both individual and corporative levels. Gaining skills of effective interrelations in multicultural teams help to smooth cross-cultural encounters and develop the fluency in any interpersonal communications.
References
Conley, D. (2011) You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking like a Sociologist. (2nd ed.). New York: W.W. Norton.
Palthe, J. (2014) Cross-Level Cultural Congruence: Implications for Managing Diversity in Multinational Corporations. Journal of Diversity Management, 9 (1), 51-62. http://cluteinstitute.com/ojs/index.php/JDM/article/view/8622
Solomon, C. M. (2009). Managing Across Cultures: The Seven Keys to Doing Business with a Global Mindset. NewYork: McGrawHill.
