Course: International Business and International MBA

Name of the Subject: Managing and Leading People

across Cultural Borders

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Number of words: 2000

Project Management

Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................1
Report.........................................................................................................................................2
Initial report which considers the various projects needed to deliver the move to new
premises..................................................................................................................................2
Handbook on the Project Management Approach.....................................................................6
Methodology of the Project....................................................................................................6
Responsibilities of the staff....................................................................................................7
Detailed Project Plan..............................................................................................................8
Alternative team structures and quality and change management.........................................9
Monitoring and control of the project..................................................................................10
Tasks to be completed in the final stage of the project.........................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................11
References................................................................................................................................12

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Project Management

Introduction
Managing and Leading People Across Cultural Borders examines the differences
between cultures, their relation with business and working in organisations and the way
people from various cultures communicate and interact.
Managing across cultures is a major theme for business as the workforce of organisations
becomes more varied in terms of culture, language and religion. Another major issue for
modern organisations is internal and external communication. The meaning of
information is different in the context of diverse cultural settings and problems may occur
since the meaning of what is communicated is different for different people with various
backgrounds. Also, the underlying values of various cultures may be different, which may
lead to misunderstanding and may, hence, cause conflicts between various actors. In sum,
organisations underperform and may suffer from conflicts when the variety of cultures is
neglected. Therefore, various aspects of culture and their impact on working in
organisations will be explored.
The success of managers is usually dependent on their sensitivity and open-mindedness to
accept and value aspects of other cultures which may be unfamiliar to them. Instead of
looking at it as a threat cultural diversity may be looked at as an asset.

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Project Management

Analysing theory and research

The culture is best known to be the complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art,
morals, custom and any other capabilities and habit acquired by man as a member of society
as per McCort and Malhotra. The difficulty comes when separately identifying factors in the
culture which are strict from macro-level factors influences in which find a superior
complexity. Usefulness of cultural dimensions plays a big role in these circumstances when it
comes to increasing the understanding of doing business in and between various cultures.
Identifying reliable dimensions to incorporate significant distinguishing aspects of culture
could be a real contribution to cross-cultural research. While Hofstede and Trompenaars were
given a great contribution in this things like GLOBE project, Adler, etc. were aslo given the
input in addressing national cultures.
They would provide an alternative to conceptualize and measure culture as a complex,
multidimensional as opposed to as a simple categorical variable. In any case, using
dimensions to capture the multidimensional culture construct has not been without criticism.
It would be a great achievement of thrift if we can simply explain many diverse cultural
differences when it comes to decision making in terms of a single cultural deposition, for an
example individualism-collectivism. Thus, the dispositional methodology has pulled in
numerous supporters. Yet, the current proof for the dispositional perspective misses the mark.
While this criticism is substantial, the merits of this methodology for international marketing
and cross-cultural research exceed its confinements. When we consider Hofstedes cultural
dimensions which is mostly used national cultural framework in psychology, sociology,
marketing, or management studies he created five dimensions by assigning indexes on each
to all nations and linked the dimensions with demographic, geographic, economic, and
political aspects of a society. If we take any concept this feature is largely untouched. This
gives a proof of how useful it would be in understanding and working through cross-cultures.
The recognizable proof of solid dimensions of cultural variety should help make a
nomological schema that is both equipped for coordinating various attitudinal and behavioral
observational phenomena and of giving a premise to theory era. Apart from these dimensions
it is much needed to focus on additional emic dimensions in order to characterize unique
features of some cultures.

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Project Management
Multinationals and the role of expats
Your next task is to assess the policies multinationals could adopt to select the employees
they need, looking at various policies of multinationals with regard to the home-country and
host-countries where they operate. Possible options for HRM should be discussed in terms of
recruitment, training and other activities to prepare employees for expatriate assignments.
Explain, based upon articles from academic journals, how companies (could) prepare and
support expatriates and their relatives with training, the reward and other aspects of working
in another country or culture.
The following should be considered:
Explain how expatriates could be prepared on the basis of one or more relevant concepts
from the course;
How could expatriates adapt to other cultures and improve the management of organisations
(e.g., cultural awareness, resolving ethical dilemmas) make managerial decisions and
communicate across and between various cultures?
What is most crucial for individuals with the ambition for an international career and what
is the relevance of cultural intelligence for an expat operating across cultural borders?
Critically evaluate this concept in terms of systematical and adequate evaluation of cultural
skills of employees;
Last, but not least: how can multi-cultural awareness be raised and the impact of
stereotyping be decreased?

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Project Management

Conclusion
In a project such as changing into a new local office with purpose of minimising the cost and
achieving other objectives, it is visible that there are a series of tasks to be carried out while
ensuring that all the resources are available and specially using human resource without
affecting day to day business activities. Also this shows the number of challenges which will
come up when achieving the success of a project within the three constraints of time, cost and
quality. It is also important to identify different methods to be used and also different set of
techniques in achieving the project outcome successfully. It is important to identify and
analyse the external environment better in order to make sure everything will be on right
track throughout the project.

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Project Management

References
Albrecht, Maryann H. (2000), International HRM: Managing Diversity in the Workplace.
London: Blackwell.
Adler, Nancy J. (2007), International Dimensions of Organizational Behaviour, 5th ed.
London: Cengage Learning.
Branine and Mohamed (2011), Managing across Cultures. Concepts, policies and
practices. Sage, London
Browaeys and Marie-Joelle (2011), Understanding Cross-Cultural Management. 2nd Ed.
FT Prentice Hall,
Edfeldt and Ralph B. (2010), Global Comparative Management. A Functional Approach.
London: Sage.
Elashmawi and Farid (2001), Competing Globally: Mastering Multicultural Management
and Negotiations. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann
Guirdham, Maureen (2005), Communicating Across Cultures at Work, 2nd ed. London,
Palgrave Macmillan.
Hall, Edward T., & Hall, Mildred R. (1990), Understanding Cultural Differences:
Germans, French and Americans. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press.
Lewis, R.D. (2005), When Cultures Collide: Leading across Cultures, Nicholas Brealey
Publishing. 3rd Ed.
Schneider, Susan C, and Jean-Louis Barsoux (2003), Managing across Cultures. 2nd Ed.
FT Prentice Hall, London (Essential)
Thomas, David C., and Mark F. Peterson (2015), Cross-Cultural Management: Essential
Concepts. Third Edition. Sage, London. (Essential)
Tayeb, Monir H. (1996), The Management of a Multicultural Workforce. Chichester:
Wiley.

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Project Management
Terpstra, Vern, & David, Kenneth (1985), The cultural environment of international
business. Cincinnati, OH: South-Western.
Trompenaars, Fons & Hampden-Turner, Charles (2000), Riding the Waves of Culture:
Understanding Cultural Diversity in Business. London: Nicholas Brealey. 2nd ed.

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