Lakhasly

The economic globalisation, the technological progress and the revolution of the information and communication technology sector have facilitated the communication among people around the world.Definition of intercultural management The importance of intercultural management

If you agree with Elashmawi/Harris (1993, p. 1), who say that "the new world market will not only be international, but intensely intercultural", it will become obvious that the inter-national management of the future will also or even particularly make the inclusion of intercultural management an absolute necessity, Hambrick/Snow (1989, pp. 84ff) arrive at a similar conclusion and say:

"Integration and human resource management are dependent upon one another to the degree that structuring a firm's global activities involves the deployment and use of human capital and other human aspects."Intercultural management

In recent years, the intercultural management has become particularly important as the phe nomena of globalisation has been accompanied by increasing migration flows, enlargement of the European Union, economic openness of many countries around the world, the emer gence of new economies like China and the expansion of economic partnerships between countries disposing of different economic systems.The authors share the opinion that

"these new roles include international extensions of more traditional human resource management support functions such as providing country-specific knowledge of union and labour policies, legal and regulatory requirements, compensation, and benefit practises. They include preparing people for international assignments, and re-entry after those assignments are completed."While the psychology and sociology have reacted by studying the relations deriving from cultural exchanges, the economy developed a new discipline in the 1970s - the intercultural management - aimed at adapting the marketing rules to the specific cultural characteristics of a target market.This is because the communication is not linear, which means that the transmission of a message is never neutral, the spoken message trans-mits words and notions, but also norms and values and some of these norms and values may not be fully shared by the dialogue partner.(Meunier/Zaman, n.y.)

Consequently, managers have to be aware not only of the different language of the business partner but their diverging attitude, time perception, behaviours, traditions and further as-pects related to a different culture.Since then, the scope and object of study have been expanded to include the management at the level of organisations operating in a multi-cultural environment, especially for companies operating branches outside the country of origin.The need for a specific intercultural discipline in the management field comes from the fact that speaking a foreign language is not enough for a sufficient communication between peo-ple belonging to different cultures.The cooperation between these different economic systems, which are based on significant cultural differences, requires a new-in-tercultural-approach.Especially in Anglosaxon literature (Black/Mendenhall, 1990, Phatak, 1997, Teagarden Gordon, 1994, Tung, 1981), strong reference is to be found.Consequently, the intercultural management has rapidly developed the notions of mother-culture versus enterprise-culture.

The economic globalisation, the technological progress and the revolution of the information and communication technology sector have facilitated the communication among people around the world. While the psychology and sociology have reacted by studying the relations deriving from cultural exchanges, the economy developed a new discipline in the 1970s – the intercultural management – aimed at adapting the marketing rules to the specific cultural characteristics of a target market. Since then, the scope and object of study have been expanded to include the management at the level of organisations operating in a multi-cultural environment, especially for companies operating branches outside the country of origin. Consequently, the intercultural management has rapidly developed the notions of mother-culture versus enterprise-culture. The first element is specific for the country from which the company originates, while the second is specific for the country in which the company opens its branch. In order to avoid possible cultural conflicts, the intercultural management uses specific tools and methods that mediate between two or more cultures.
Definition of intercultural management
The importance of intercultural management

If you agree with Elashmawi/Harris (1993, p. 1), who say that "the new world market will not only be international, but intensely intercultural", it will become obvious that the inter-national management of the future will also or even particularly make the inclusion of intercultural management an absolute necessity, Hambrick/Snow (1989, pp. 84ff) arrive at a similar conclusion and say:

"Integration and human resource management are dependent upon one another to the degree that structuring a firm's global activities involves the deployment and use of human capital and other human aspects."

The need for a specific intercultural discipline in the management field comes from the fact that speaking a foreign language is not enough for a sufficient communication between peo-ple belonging to different cultures. The surface of a process is much more complex than the simple understanding of what the other says. This is because the communication is not linear, which means that the transmission of a message is never neutral, the spoken message trans-mits words and notions, but also norms and values and some of these norms and values may not be fully shared by the dialogue partner. (Meunier/Zaman, n.y.)

Consequently, managers have to be aware not only of the different language of the business partner but their diverging attitude, time perception, behaviours, traditions and further as-pects related to a different culture. At this point, intercultural management provides the op-portunity to be aware of it and deal with such cultural aspects. Failures in one's behavior while doing business or misunderstandings of the business partners' actions can lead to se-vere problems and even a termination of the partnership.
Intercultural management

In recent years, the intercultural management has become particularly important as the phe nomena of globalisation has been accompanied by increasing migration flows, enlargement of the European Union, economic openness of many countries around the world, the emer gence of new economies like China and the expansion of economic partnerships between countries disposing of different economic systems. The cooperation between these different economic systems, which are based on significant cultural differences, requires a new-in-tercultural-approach.

Another possibility of integrating intercultural thinking and acting into the existing curricu lum can be seen in the job enlargement of international personnel management. Especially in Anglosaxon literature (Black/Mendenhall, 1990, Phatak, 1997, Teagarden Gordon, 1994, Tung, 1981), strong reference is to be found. The authors share the opinion that

"these new roles include international extensions of more traditional human resource management support functions such as providing country-specific knowledge of union and labour policies, legal and regulatory requirements, compensation, and benefit practises. They include preparing people for international assignments, and re-entry after those assignments are completed." (Teagarden Glinone 1997, p. 8)

30 TIPS ON HOW TO LEARN ACROSS CULTURES (1-2) (Andre Laurent)

1. 
   

   Be aware of your own very special culture as a unique peculiarity. When working across cultures you will often be the "stranger" perceived by others as being

   
   


2. 
   

   The culture that you ignore most in terms of its shaping power on yourself-is obvi ously your own culture. It is very difficult to look at oneself from the outside. We can make interesting observations and comments about other cultures. But we often re main blind to our own

   
   

In: SIETAR (Hrsg.), Keynote Speech, Kongress 2000, Ludwigshafen

For companies, this approach means that the consideration of the intercultural issues of all cross-border activities munt no longer be neglected. Far more than before, these issues have to explicitly find their way into the respective activity's intercultural orientation. (Perlmutter, 1965, р.153)

Those who want to succeed on international markets have to deal with unprecedented prob-lem, which result due to the mere fact that there is contact with foreign countries, cultures as well as economic and social structures. However, an explicit implication of those factors does not happen in most cases. At this point, intercultural management comes into place

At the University of Applied Sciences Stralsund, a study was conducted by the four students Carolin Boden, Elisabeth Guth, Nelly Heinze and Sarah Lang, who questioned 22 consulting companies and experts about the influence of cultural aspects on the failure of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) The results underline the importance of intercultural management and training during the M&A process, but can be transferred to other fields as well.
Intercultural Management can be described as a combination of knowledge, insights and skills which are necessary for adequately dealing with national and regional cultures and differences between cultures at several management levels within and between organisations (Burggraaf, 1996), It is not a separate subject but an integral part of general and international management

General Management

International Management

Intercultural Management

...

Fig. 1.2. Management me Sour Own

Intercultural Management interleaves with international management as some similarities occur. It might therefore be relevant to depict those features of international management that are effective. These features are:

Teams consist of internationally repres