Cross Cultural Management. Importance of Value Essay

Cross Cultural Management. Importance of Value - Essay Example Cross cultural management refers to a mechanism formulated to train people regarding the variations of practices, preferences, and culture in global business. With the lapse of time, diversity in practices, cultures, and preferences of consumers increase substantially, thereby increasing the need to bridge the communication gap by implementing cross cultural management. In management, cultural differences refer to varying taste, preferences, culture, likes and dislikes, ways of communications, norms, values, and beliefs of every culture. The objective of this paper is to examine the cultural variations in the light of scholarly articles as mentioned in two renowned models. An extensive study of Hofstede and Schwarts model will be done followed by a criticism of Hofstede model. These two models can be viewed in terms of how the business managers react to cross cultural management. The business managers face various sorts of cultural issues while performing their tasks e.g. workforce d iversity, language barriers, religious issues etc. Under these circumstances, it is highly effective for the business managers to understand these two cross cultural models and incorporate their effects in their organizational context. Importance of Value Hofstede and Schwartz have studies cross cultural values and their findings are in the subsequent parts of this section in order to gain acquaintance with importance of value and varying values in different culture. Hofstede Model Hofstede (1993) stated that when management theorists embark to other parts of the world, outside their own country, they encounter strange customers, beings, theories, organizing and disorganizing, immoral or old-fashioned ways of doing things. Some of them work but some of them fail to work. After gaining this experience, the traveler comes to home country and can use this experience advantageously. The purpose of the study of Hofstede (1993) was that all great ideas relating to management, politics, or science, have come from different parts of the world and have been enhanced by foreign influences. Hofstede (1993) examined the context of management from different parts of the world. Hofsetde (1993) reviewed the managerial culture of countries like Japan, France, China, Holland, Russia, Germany, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Hofstede (1993) stated that management is what is common among all countries but its context and meaning differ to a smaller or a larger extent from country to country. Hofstede (1993) further stated that it requires considerable cultural insight to understand the philosophies, processes, and problems. Further arguing, Hofstede (1993) stated that if management is such a broad word and it means so many varying things, then it cannot be expected that management theories of one country will be applicable to abroad as well. Management is related to government, politics, and school. It is present in beliefs and religion about science. Manag ement theories are interdisciplinary but as soon as national boundaries are crossed, it becomes more interdisciplinary. By stating so, Hofstede (1993) divided cultural difference into five dimensions. i. Power distance; inequality among people that is considered as normal among people ii. Individualism vs. collectivism; degree to which people of a country tend to act as individuals instead of a members of a group iii. Masculinity vs. femininity; where tough values like performance, assertiveness, success prevail over gentle values such warm relation, care, quality of life. iv. Uncertainty avoidance; people preferring planned situation over unstructured ones. v. Long-term orientation vs. short-term orientation; long-term refers to values