Cross Cultural Management book Summary all weeks

This summary includes all book chapters from the book by Thomas, D. C. and Peterson, M. F.
(2018). Cross-cultural management: Essential concepts. Sage. Includes chapters 1-4 and 6-8. All pictures included as well.

Preview samenvatting (5 van de 59 pagina's)

Cross Cultural Management Summary
Chapter 1:
Globalization: process whereby worldwide interconnections in virtually every sphere of activity are
growing. Some of these interconnections lead to integration/unity worldwide; others do not
à This increase in interconnections is the result of shifts that have taken place in technological,
political, and economic spheres

à The gap between regional GDP growth rates of the fastest growing and least dynamic regions of
the world has begun to narrow, but in a context of low global growth

à Global economic turmoil during the past decade indicate that the effects of globalization not only
have the potential to favor developed market economies and a small number of a large emerging
economies but are not even consistently positive in developed economies

More complex and dynamic work environments:
- Changes that affect the stability of the work environment: downsizing, privatization, and
movement toward team-based management
- Number of permanent migrants is changing the composition of the workforce in numerous
countries
- Privatization: selling state-owned business to private investors, be available for purchase by
foreign firms, thus reducing boundaries
- Organizations around the globe are increasingly looking toward the formation of teams of
workers as a solution to productivity problems

Forces toward globalization:
- Dramatic advances in information technology
- Change in communication and computing technology
- Decreasing price and increased sophistication of computing systems

Summary globalization:
- On the global stage, likely to include firms headquartered outside of the US
- Could be small to medium size businesses
- Recognize that the increases permeability of boundaries associated with globalization also
applies to il egal and terrorist activities
- Is it difficult to disentangle the causes of globalization from single effects
- Undergoing changes that influence traditional boundaries
- Global managers face an external environment far more complex, more dynamic, more
uncertain, and more competitive than ever before

Environment of global management:
- Four categories: economic, legal, political, and cultural
- Required an understanding of the economic strategies of countries in which one is
conducting business
- Arises from the variety of laws and regulations that exist
- Characteristics of a country are manifestation of a nations culture
- Culture is largely invisible
- The practice of management largely focuses on interpersonal interactions
What managers do:
- Is to manage is to plan, organize, coordinate, command, and control
- Have formal authority over their organizational unit and that this status divides their
activities into interpersonal, informational, and decisional role categories
- Role set members: colleagues, superiors, and subordinates, as wel as staff departments
- Norms: explicit organizational rules and procedures as wel as organizational laws
- Provides sources of ideas, principles, and other ways of thinking that managers use to guide
their understanding of events or issues
- Managers role relates directly to the constraints and demands of the national and
organizational environment and involves choices in which roles are emphasized

Limitations in present management studies:
- Was mostly defined in the US fol owing the second world war
- The united states dominated the world economy for the next 20 years
- It was during this period of US economic dominance that the field of management studied
began to emerge and was thus marked with a US orientation
- The US firms were studied and their practices were help up as models for the world

Types of international management research:
Domestic research:
- Management studies designed and conducted within a single country without regard for the
boundary conditions set by the cultural orientation of the country
- Assume the universal applicability of the constructs and relationships they test
- Originated in the US
- Before being applied to a culture, its generalizability across cultures must be proven

Replication research:
- Attempts to replicate research results first found in one country, typical y the US, by
repeating the research on other countries
- Anticipate that the concepts wil have the same meaning to the participants in the new
culture as they did in the culture in which the study was conceived
- The goal: compare the responses in the two cultures as closely as possible
- Advantage: evaluate the assumption that research finding that have been reported in one
cultural context wil apply to another
- Disadvantage: adjustments made to the measures through the translation and measure
adjustment process can change the meaning of the measures and that other better or more
important concepts could be developed from the new context

Indigenous research:
- Focuses on the different and varied ways in which managers behave and organizations are
run in specific cultural setting in a way that highlights something that is expected to be
unique
- Conducted within a single country
- Differ in that they assume cultural differences and required locally generated theory to
explain and predict behavior within a culture
- Simpatia: central to understanding interpersonal interactions in Hispanic cultures
- Amae: as an important element in superior subordinate relationships in japan
- Guanxi: fundamental building block for chines businesses
- These concepts and relationships their support is only applicable within their own cultural
context until generality is proven

Comparative research:
- Seek to find both the similarities and differences that exist across cultures regarding a
particular management issue
- Both the ways in which a theory is universal and the ways in which it is culturally limited are
key questions
- Accepts the chal enge to incorporate multiple cultural standpoints by obtaining substantial
guidance from colleagues in multiple countries while the research is being designed
- Descriptive comparative studies document the similarities and differences found across
cultures, such as differences in leadership preferences
- Predictive comparative studies test relationships suggested by theory, including a theory
predicting the expected cross-cultural differences

International research:
- Captures those studies that focus attention on the MNE
- Recognize that both similarities and differences exist across cultures, the cultural context
does not figure prominently in the conceptualization or execution of the study
- Are not concerned with comparing the cultural context in each of the countries the firm
might operate, except it applies to the organization as a whole

Intercultural research:
- Seeks to understand the interactions between cultural y different individuals in
organizational settings
- Considers the culture of both parties in the interaction as wel as contextual explanations for
observed similarities and differences
- These types of studies are represented in studies of cross-cultural negotiation, in studies of
the interactions among members of multicultural work groups, and in studies of leader
fol ower interactions across cultures

Methodical issues in cross cultural research:
- Cross cultural equivalence cannot be assumed at any stage of a cross cultural study
- It must be established at three key points: the conceptualization of the theoretical
constructs, the study design, and the data analysis
- Conceptual or construct equivalence: relates to the extent to which concepts have the same
meaning in different countries
- Method equivalence: relates to similarities and differences in the way to which the cultural
groups being studied respond to measurement instruments in general
- Metric equivalence: refers to the extent that questions have similar measurement
properties across different groups
- Equivalence challenges mean that the instrument development process and data collection
strategy play a large role in research across national boundaries

Sampling:
- The goal is to conduct research with a small number of participants who accurately
represent a clearly identifiable population
- Cross cultural sample is closely tied to conceptual and instrument development
- Cross cultural studies are often based on samples of people who are either from only
roughly similar organizations in multiple nations, groups of working students or trainees, or
from mail surveys or phone interviews done under conditions in which only a very smal
proportion of people respond
- Sample comparability is usual y compromised by differences in the social implications of
many sample characteristics
- Assessing the effects of sample differences: document relationship between different
studies that measure similar concepts that are designed to be similar but are based on
different samples gathered at different times

Data collection:
- Common methods of data col ection: interviews or questionnaires
- Disadvantage interview: possible interaction between interviewer and respondent,
characteristics can influence the respondent to answer

Critique of international and cross-cultural research:
- Questionable theoretical base: relying too heavily on a very smal set of dimensions about a
society’s cultural value that do not capture a broad enough view of culture or within-society
variation; emphasizing the differences among nations as opposed to testing management
theory in a cross-cultural context
- Parochialism: culture is often ignored and what are real y domestic conclusions are assumed
to be universal
- Samples that assume country homogeneity: each samples representation of known within-
nation subcultures should be documented
- Lack of relevance
- Reliance on a single method: reliance on responses of questionnaire gathered at a single
point in time
- Bias toward studying large companies
- Reliance on a single organizational level: responses drawn from a single level
- Limited to a smal number of locations: forgotten about other locations
Chapter 2:
Culture:
- Consists of patterned ways of thinking, feeling, and reacting, acquired and transmitted
mainly by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including
their embodiment in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional ideas and
especial y their attached values

Three characteristics of culture:
1. Culture is shared:
- Means that most members intuitively understand the basic values, norms, or logic that
underlie what is acceptable in a society
- Mental programming that lies between universal human nature on one side and unique
personalities on the other
three levels of mental programming:
- At the broadest level: al human beings share certain biological reactions
- At the narrowest: the personality characteristics that are unique to each of us as individuals
- Culture occurs at an intermediate level based on share experiences within a particular
society

Two main points about culture that are easily missed:
1. Individuals living in a society have very little personal choice about whether or not they are
thoroughly familiar with the central cultural value and norms of their society
2. Individuals can differ quite widely in what they personal y like and dislike about their
society’s cultural characteristics
2. Culture is learned:
- Transmitted through the process of learning and interacting with the social environment
- Over time, the people in a society develop patterned ways of interacting with their
environment
3. Culture is systematic and organized:
- Cultures are integrated coherent systems