Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Exhibits
- Preface
- 1 Global realities and management challenges
- 2 Developing global management skills
- 3 Culture, values, and worldviews
- 4 Inside the managerial mind: culture, cognition, and action
- 5 Inside the organizational mind: stakeholders, strategies, and decision making
- 6 Organizing frameworks: a comparative assessment
- 7 Communication across cultures
- 8 Leadership and global teams
- 9 Culture, work, and motivation
- 10 Negotiation and global partnerships
- 11 Managing in an imperfect world
- 12 Epilogue: the journey continues
- Appendix A Models of national cultures
- Appendix B OECD guidelines for global managers
- Index
- References
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core
5 - Inside the organizational mind: stakeholders, strategies, and decision making
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Exhibits
- Preface
- 1 Global realities and management challenges
- 2 Developing global management skills
- 3 Culture, values, and worldviews
- 4 Inside the managerial mind: culture, cognition, and action
- 5 Inside the organizational mind: stakeholders, strategies, and decision making
- 6 Organizing frameworks: a comparative assessment
- 7 Communication across cultures
- 8 Leadership and global teams
- 9 Culture, work, and motivation
- 10 Negotiation and global partnerships
- 11 Managing in an imperfect world
- 12 Epilogue: the journey continues
- Appendix A Models of national cultures
- Appendix B OECD guidelines for global managers
- Index
- References
Summary
There are no universal solutions to organization and management problems … Organizations are symbolic entities; they function according to implicit models in the minds of their members, and these are culturally determined.
Geert Hofstede Maastricht University, The NetherlandsGlobalization does not mean imposing homogeneous solutions in a pluralistic world. It means having a global vision and strategy, but it also means cultivating roots and individual identities.
Gucharan Das Former CEO, Procter and Gamble-IndiaMany years ago (in the late 1930s, to be precise) telecom CEO Chester Barnard defined an organization as a system of consciously coordinated activities of two or more persons. In the intervening eight decades, no one has come up with a better definition. Barnard went further to point out that the survival of any organization depends on its members' ability and willingness to cooperate, communicate, and work towards a common objective. In particular, he noted that in any theory of organization or management, communication must play a dominant role. While Barnard was thinking about US firms in the 1930s with a fairly narrow business focus, his observations still apply today when considering both large and small firms doing business around the world. What has changed is not the fundamental challenges facing companies, but rather the magnitude of these challenges, as well as the manner in which firms organize and “think” collectively to accomplish their core mission.
Consider Wipro and Intel, two highly successful IT companies doing business globally, yet headquartered in very different regions of the world.
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Management across CulturesChallenges and Strategies, pp. 126 - 154Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
References
Cited in , Essentials of International Management: A Cross-cultural Perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2002, p. 189.
, , and , “Alternatives to organizational downsizing: a German case study,” M@n@gement, 1999, 2(3), pp. 263–286.Google Scholar
and , “Wagoner outlines his role in GM's hierarchy,” The Wall Street Journal, March 5, 2008, p. B1.Google Scholar
and , “GM chief Wagoner gets 33% raise,” The Wall Street Journal, March 7, 2008, p. B6.Google Scholar
and , Understanding and Working with the Japanese Business World. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992.Google Scholar
, “Toshiba's plan for life after HD DVD,” The Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2008, p. B1.Google Scholar
, , and , “National culture and the adoptation of new technologies,” Journal of World Business, 2008, 43(3), pp. 255–260.Google Scholar
and , “Cultural variations in creation, diffusion, and absorption of organizational knowledge,” in and (eds.), Handbook of Culture, Organizations, and Work. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009Google Scholar
, Culture's Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations across Nations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001.Google Scholar
, “A bad report card for European cars,” The Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2004, p. D1.Google Scholar
, “An international look at quality practices,” Management Review, 1991, 80(5), pp. 38–41.Google Scholar
Accessibility standard: Unknown
Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown
and may be updated in the future.