Comparative Management

3033B

Personal Paper

Who are the international managers and what are their role in the management of a multicultural team and its diversity?

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Table of content

1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..3

2. Discussion of the literature…………………………………………………………….4

3. Real-life example…………………………………………………………..…………12

4.Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………14

5. References…………………………………………………………………………….15

6. Appendix………………………………………………………………………………16

1. Introduction

The correct operation of a company does not depend solely on its organization, nor of the competences of its personnel. Mentalities, the manner of working together, to make decisions and to carry out them, also play a great partin the correct operation of a company.
Culture has a real impact on all those aspects, the way people do business and communicate with each other. By definition, international business involves bringing people of various cultures together. Problems in cultural understanding can have a major influence on the success or failure of international business.
Managers need to understand theirworld business environment and must work daily with clients and employees from around the world. International and cross-cultural skills become needed for managers throughout the firm, not just for those leaving for foreign postings, such as the expatriates. It is of crucial importance to highlight and understand cultural differences in order to be effective in the worldwide business. The role of theinternational manager is to survive and be effective in such a diverse environment. We will describe his role and his required qualities and skills in the first part of the discussion, based on the seventh chapter of the book and on two academic articles. We will also discuss briefly how companies try to get those competent people.
In the second part of the discussion, we will talk aboutmulticultural teams. Nowadays, companies are heading towards an increasing use of teams; and since the world is by now widely open, those teams are becoming more and more multicultural. This multiculturality is a real richness but is also sometimes responsible for emotional conflicts between members. We will explain those points through the eighth chapter of the book and two other academic articles.Then we will talk shortly about how important it is for an organization to take the diversity into account and how it can be an advantage.
The main purpose of this paper is to show how being an international manager could be more useful and effective in managing a multicultural team than a normal manager, thanks to its specific required knowledge.
Our problem statement is therefore thefollowing:
Who are the international managers and what are their role in the management of a multicultural team and its diversity?

2. Discussion of the litterature

Nowadays companies need to have a better contact with their partners over boarders since global expansion is achieved through alliances, joint ventures, acquisitions and cross-border mergers. Therefore there is a constantcommunication between people from different cultures. For this reason, companies need their employees to be able to manage the cultural differences. The most important role is probably the responsability of the international manager since he is the one who will lead the operations abroad, but employees in front lines are also supposed to be cultural sensitive because they are the first who meetforeign visitors. By the way, the role of the international manager is not restricted to the ability of doing business abroad, known as the expatriate manager, but is also the ability of doing international business at home.

• The expatriate manager
Most of our knowledge about the tasks and responsibilities of the international manager come from the experience of expatriates. We have…