Management across cultures : challenges and strategies

Management practices and processes frequently differ across national and regional boundaries. What may be acceptable managerial behaviour in one culture may be counterproductive or even unacceptable in another. As managers increasingly find themselves working across cultures, the need to understand these differences has become increasingly important. This book examines why these differences exist and how global managers can develop strategies and tactics to deal with them. The text draws on recent research in anthropology, psychology, and management, to explain the cultural and psychological underpinnings that shape managerial attitudes and behaviours, whilst introducing a learning model to guide in the intellectual and practical development of managers seeking enhanced global expertise. It offers user-friendly conceptual models to guide understanding and exploration of topics and summarizes and integrates the lessons learned in each chapter in applications-oriented 'Manager's Notebooks'. A companion website featuring comprehensive chapter-by-chapter PPT slides is available at www.cambridge.org/management_across_cultures.

Author Notes

Richard M. Steers is Professor of Organization and Management in the Lundquist College of Business, University of Oregon, USA.
Carlos J. Sanchez-Runde is Professor of People Management at IESE Business School, Barcelona, Spain.
Luciara Nardon is Assistant Professor of International Business at the Sprott School of Business, Carleton University, Canada.

Reviews 1

Choice Review

The authors, academics in the US, Spain, and Canada respectively, have extensive international experience in research and teaching. Their book addresses how management works in different parts of the world and, equally important, why these differences occur. Unlike other books in this field, this work digs deeper into the underlying reasons for global differences, and this information can help managers be more effective in their work. Another of the book's strengths is the authors' inclusion of recent research on cultural anthropology, psychology, and management, which provides a much broader framework for understanding. Another valuable topic addressed is biases inherent in global management. Each chapter concludes with a "Manager's Notebook" section that discusses lessons learned and highlights important points for practitioners. The authors introduce a learning model to guide readers in intellectual and practical development, and an underlying theme throughout the book is the importance of lifelong learning for managers. Future leaders need to be prepared to embrace and leverage global differences to successfully compete in an ever-increasing global business environment, and this book provides excellent support for understanding and achieving this goal. Each chapter concludes with a comprehensive list of resources useful for further research. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduate through professional collections. G. Klinefelter Argosy University

List of exhibits	p. viii
Preface	p. xiii
1 Global realities and management challenges	p. 1
Globalization, change, and competitiveness	p. 3
The new global realities	p. 12
Challenges facing global managers	p. 17
2 Developing global management skills	p. 24
Traditional views of management	p. 26
Global managers: variety of the species	p. 28
Rethinking managerial roles	p. 35
Rethinking managerial skills	p. 36
Manager's Notebook: Developing global management skills	p. 39
3 Culture, values, and worldviews	p. 45
Culture, socialization, and normative behavior	p. 49
Core cultural dimensions: a starting point	p. 55
Regional trends and cultural differences	p. 64
Digging deeper: cultural complexities and contradictions	p. 66
Manager's Notebook: Culture, values, and worldviews	p. 76
4 Inside the managerial mind: culture, cognition, and action	p. 85
Culture, cognition, and managerial action: a model	p. 88
Patterns of managerial thinking	p. 91
The geography of thought	p. 96
Culture and the managerial role	p. 102
Management patterns across cultures	p. 106
Are management patterns converging?	p. 115
Manager's Notebook: Inside the managerial mind	p. 118
5 Inside the organizational mind: stakeholders, strategies, and decision making	p. 126
Stakeholders and strategic choice: a model	p. 128
The strategy-structure nexus	p. 134
Organizational decision making: a model	p. 137
Decision strategies across cultures	p. 139
Manager's Notebook: Inside the organizational mind	p. 149
6 Organizing frameworks: a comparative assessment	p. 155
Culture and organization design: a model	p. 157
US corporations	p. 159
Japanese kaisha and keiretsu	p. 165
Chinese gong-si	p. 175
German konzern	p. 181
Mexican grupo	p. 186
Manager's Notebook: Organizing frameworks	p. 193
7 Communication across cultures	p. 199
Eye of the beholder	p. 201
Culture and communication: a model	p. 202
Language, logic, and communication	p. 204
Lingua franca and message comprehension	p. 210
Cross-cultural communication strategies	p. 214
Communication on the fly	p. 228
Manager's Notebook: Communication across cultures	p. 232
8 Leadership and global teams	p. 241
The meaning of leadership	p. 245
GLOBE leadership study	p. 253
Culture and leadership: a model	p. 256
Global teams	p. 261
Working with global teams	p. 262
Manager's Notebook: Leadership and global teams	p. 270
9 Culture, work, and motivation	p. 279
The world of work	p. 284
Work and leisure	p. 290
Culture, motivation, and work behavior: a model	p. 292
Culture and the psychology of work	p. 295
Incentives and rewards across cultures	p. 299
Manager's Notebook: Culture, work, and motivation	p. 310
10 Negotiation and global partnerships	p. 317
Seeking common cause	p. 321
Culture and negotiation: a model	p. 328
The negotiation process: strategies, concessions, and contracts	p. 330
Negotiation patterns across cultures	p. 337
Building global partnerships	p. 342
Managing global partnerships	p. 346
Manager's Notebook: Negotiation and global partnerships	p. 350
11 Managing in an imperfect world	p. 363
Rules of the game	p. 364
Bases of cross-cultural conflicts	p. 367
Ethics, laws, and social control: a model	p. 373
Ethical conflicts and challenges	p. 374
Institutional conflicts and challenges	p. 384
Manager's Notebook: Managing in an imperfect world	p. 395
12 Epilogue: the journey continues	p. 404
Learning from the past	p. 405
Looking to the future	p. 407
Appendix A Models of national cultures	p. 411
Appendix B OECD guidelines for global managers	p. 421
Index	p. 430

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