Intercultural Mgmt

MGT 2301, Intercultural Management 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit III Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

2. Compare human values that affect job behaviors. 2.1 Determine what skills are needed in the populated test area to market the corporation’s

product.

4. Examine the influence of culture on business goals. 4.1 Define business cultures of the populated area for introduction of the corporation’s product.

Course/Unit Learning Outcomes

Learning Activity

2.1

Unit Lesson Chapter 5 Document: Sample Research Paper Unit III Scholarly Activity

4.1

Unit Lesson Chapter 5 Chapter 10 Document: Sample Research Paper Unit III Scholarly Activity

Required Unit Resources Chapter 5: Cross-Cultural Negotiation and Decision Making Chapter 10: Developing a Global Management Cadre In order to access the following resource, click the link below. Review the Sample Research Paper, which demonstrates how to correctly format an assignment using APA Style.

Unit Lesson

Identifying Business Strategies for Overseas Operations Product Market Research An old business adage is to always know your product better than any competitor. Start with your product research as related to culture and subculture. Because the product chosen in Unit II may already be in production, researching is simplified. Business strategy is nothing more than planning before implementing new ideas to improve sales or increase profits. Different organizations and managers have different strategies based on methods they have found to be successful in the past. This unit will only address a few for practice.

UNIT III STUDY GUIDE

Identifying Business Strategies for Overseas Operations

MGT 2301, Intercultural Management 2

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No one formula or procedure exists for market research of a specific product because there are so many avenues you may take. On the other hand, many organizations tend to focus on marketing, costs of production, and possible profit margins only. In today’s business world, research should include culture, subcultures, environment, social responsibility, and communication—both electronic and personal. All of these, including the basic marketing and financial considerations must be a part of an overall business strategy. Any method chosen is acceptable if it leads to results used in exploring possible markets. For example, what sources would be needed to manufacture plastic toys using polyethylene resin pellets (PSPs)? First, identify the source of the PSPs by populated area; next, check if the plastic toys are sold in any of the populated areas of the selected country. Populated areas in which the products are not sold but do produce PSPs could be excellent candidates for corporate expansion. The practice described above needs to be viewed through filters of culture and subcultures. For example, plastic toys may not be allowed based on religious or cultural beliefs. Also, PSPs may not be allowed in all countries. Hypothetically, assume that your research identified two or more populated areas for test marketing. Research would then continue to determine whether or not the culture or subculture could support the marketing of plastic toys. After your research on the populated areas is complete, then the work consists of analyzing the results from the research. It is important not to prejudge the outcome of your analysis. You must trust your native intelligence to decide on which populated area would have the best potential for investment and expansion of your corporation. The aforementioned is merely one idea among many; you will develop a technique and style with which you are comfortable. What tends to work for most intercultural managers is following your ideas without prejudice. Without prejudice, decision makers may be divided into two major categories. Review the following, and practice your own decision-making process when considering the impact of culture and subcultures, environment, ethics, and communications. Business and Course Writing Format Actions speak louder than words. The requirement for this course is to consider how culture and subcultures affect most decisions you make, both in academia and the real world. Each unit of this course provides specific issues for your studies. Many have subsets, and each subset must be treated as equal to all other issues. Another way to state this is to only deal with one issue at a time. For example, for this unit, elements to research and review about the target culture and subculture could include, but are not limited to:

• behavior,

• choices,

• taboos,

• habits, and

• living conditions that may define a culture. Each of the bullet points above require your full attention. To help with formulating actual business strategies, prepare a skeleton draft of what issues you need to address. It need not be fully populated on your first try and could look similar to the example below.

Business Strategies for the Selected Country

• In-country personnel behavior:

• Choices, such as office location:

• Taboos of the host country:

• Cultural or subcultural buying habits:

• Living quarters for staff personnel:

• Required dress code:

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Then, you expand the basic strategies, as shown below.

• Personnel behavior: Personal behavior includes any acts in the presence of the host country’s citizens. This is a broad definition but is vital for the success of a branch office in a host country. Research should focus on the culture and any subcultures, so your part is to educate all in-country personnel on what behavior offends the host country’s citizens.

• Choice of office location: The basic elements required for selecting an office in the host country are location in regard to the offices of the wholesalers, traffic patterns, and whether or not the office location will provide receiving docks for products and warehousing necessities.

• Taboos: Culture and subcultures must be understood, and it is important subject matter for training in- country staff.

• Shopping, buying, and selling: These elements should be studied using two separate criteria. The first will be in regard to the offices, and the second will be in regard to the needs of employees and their families. For example, in some countries, there are no grocery stores. The host country’s population may use outdoor displays of grocery items. The safety of the shopping areas must then be considered. For host countries where security is questionable in shopping areas, the organization must be prepped to provide protection. For example, in Venezuela and Guatemala, the embassies have commissaries within the embassy compounds that may be accessed by U.S. citizens.

• Living quarters: In some host countries, the organization leases entire complexes for housing its personnel. In others, the host country security allows for standard housing. Check your host country for the availability of housing.

• Dress codes: Cultures and subcultures may have different dress codes for specific events. For example, in the Republic of the Philippines, for formal events, the Barong Tagalog is worn even by the U.S. Ambassador. It is a long-sleeved shirt worn over a white t-shirt.

Once you have more detailed information, you can then format that information in outline form, which is shown below.

• Restate the issue fully. Thoroughly identify courtesies, behaviors, and customs of the subcultures. Generally, no in-text citations or sources are needed for this section.

• After you have completed your research, document your findings as related to the issues identified above. Provide your readers with the information and data (e.g., charts, graphs) to support your analysis and arguments. In this section, you will need in-text citations and references, which should be formatted using APA Style (7th ed.).

• Using the material presented in Section II, analyze and argue all possible sides of the possible courtesies, behaviors, and customs as you feel are necessary. Focus on trying to make good cases for choosing different solutions.

• Provide your readers with your recommendations and conclusions. Since each issue (i.e., culture, subcultures, environment, social responsibility, and communication) needs to be thoroughly explored, you will need one four-section response (I–IV) for each. Lumping them all together never works for academic or business papers. For example, social responsibility is a topic that is often overlooked when reviewing intercultural management. It is generally overshadowed by more easily recognizable cultural issues (e.g., dietary prohibitions, dress requirements). In decades past, organizations’ social responsibility was not prioritized; however, that has changed. To better review this organizational need, think of social responsibility as a subset of culture. For this course, focus on what behavior an organization must exhibit to elicit support from the host country’s population. To simplify your studies, think of social responsibility as being the effect that your organization and/or product will have on the environment and society. Effects on the environment present fewer issues than those on the host country’s society. For example, the host country will probably have specific guidelines on its website as to what environmental practices are unacceptable. By using this list, your business strategy should include, at a minimum, the host country’s list. Determining society issues will require more analysis.

MGT 2301, Intercultural Management 4

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An effective method to understanding societal issues is to first determine how the society is structured. For example, focus on two subsets: Which society will be buying your product, and on which society does the organization’s existence in the host country depend? Marketing your product will be the subject of future courses; for this course, consider the culture or subcultures that are most likely to purchase your product. For example, if the potential society does not approve of short skirts, then common sense dictates not to market them in the targeted area. On the other hand, your organization’s product may be gold jewelry, which is popular with the culture; in this case, there might be a match. In the past, many organizations had difficulty dealing with the host country’s custom of using bribes to persuade organizations to comply with restrictive policies in the host country. The conflict was known to the home office and the in-country branch. Many organizations just paid the bribes to ensure survival. In recent decades, however, transactions are apparent and easy to track, so the bribe mentality is disappearing. Still, there may be issues that need to be resolved. For example, some Asian countries require organizations to use only in-country transportation companies for product distribution. This type of regulation would need to be added to your business strategies. Determining What to Research Since it would be illogical to attempt a review of every possible nuance in any given populated area, much less two, where should you start? The best place, once again, is at the end. This translates to knowing your product, knowing the characteristics of the population, and understanding what would trigger a buying impulse for the product. In other words, start with your product, and list the necessary features that would satisfy the needs of the culture or subculture. Once your list is complete, then you can conduct a logical selection of your target populated area. Do not let the number of separate issues presented in the assignments cause stress. Take them one at a time; find good sources; and make notes on what you need from the sources, being sure to address all possible outcomes while citing your sources. Do not forget to document your sources and relevant notes for use when formatting in-text citations and references. The better notes you keep, the easier it will be to complete the assessments. Major Types of Decision Makers Working with cultures and subcultures, there are two types of decision makers. One is not better than the other; they are merely different styles used to arrive at decisions. The two general types are the thinkers and doers. The thinker will amass every fact, factoid, and possible outcome based on the research, and they will conduct a complete analysis of every possible solution. Each solution will then be subjected to microanalysis to refine the possible solutions further until the best is chosen. Then, and only then, does the thinker act. On the other hand, the doer—when faced with the same decision—will do basic research, subject the possible outcome to in-depth analysis, and pick the best choice. If it fails, the doer will repeat the process as many times as necessary to complete the mission. When faced with whether to choose doer or thinker style plans, you will need to know your readers because your readers also have the same basic decision-making process. Think of the two processes as taking two separate roads to reach one destination. The thinker generally can be portrayed as a straight line between the two points. The doer would provide many erratic deviations from the straight-line path. The path would stray violently from the straight and narrow with reversals and changes. Historically, intercultural managers have succeeded using both processes. The obvious problems arise once the proposal is presented to your audience. For example, the audience for your work in an academic course is your professor; in business, your audience would be your boss. Generally, in business and academia, the straight-line path is the best. On the other hand, to achieve a straight line from the issues presented in this course to the professor, you will need to support each conclusion, recommendation, and idea by supporting the information with thorough analysis and arguments. The arguments must address the deviations from the straight path you did not take so your professor knows you considered all possible paths.

MGT 2301, Intercultural Management 5

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When recommending business strategies for an intercultural venture, many subsets of the decision-making process must be considered. See the considerations below.

• Influence: The cultural or subcultural influence on product selection should be determined.

• Ethics: This is a broad-range issue that varies with the culture and educational level of the buyers.

• Social responsibility: The social responsibility of the organization directly impacts the culture or subculture of the potential buyers.

• Communications: Both oral and written communications should be considered. Each of the bullet points above are solely dependent on the in-country makeup. The organization must adjust to the country and not attempt to change the basic makeup of the in-country population just to market a product. Change that is required to adjust to foreign cultures is sometimes difficult. Decisions must be made as to how in-country personnel will interact with in-country citizens. For this course, assume the thinker style is favored.