With aquisitions and mergers happenening all over Europe and more and more organisations ending up in more than one European country, a common question seems to be "how do we manage all of our various employees". Much of the current research seems to suggest that the differences in styles are great, for example measuring 'power/distance' relations, hierarchy, task/people orientation and so on. And suggest that there is no one style fits all. The same case, of course, could be argued for manageging any large group of people, are the issues in cross national cultures any different from any mixed organisational cultures for example? I'd be interested in hearing general opinions or thoughts on the subject and perhaps some steering towards any research out there that I might have missed.
Andrew Hayward
2 Responses
International management style
I think the Americans are more interested in management style than any other country, and possibly academics. It is their concept.
Each country probably has a management style, if you look closely enough. Otherwise, there is a way of managing business and staff from many cultures. In between, I do not think that there is a regional management style covering several countries. Why would anyone look for one?
No more so than elsewhere
There may be some general characteristics which form a useful shorthand and shortcut – but they are no more than generalisations and as such never seem to apply to individuals on a case by case basis.
I would throw the whole lot out the window and treat ‘effective management’ for what it is – building rapport with the people who work for you, the people you work with, and the people for whom you work, and then using that rapport to build mutually beneficial outcomes. And that is a one-to-one thing.
So saying, there are some models which you may find useful. (I won’t say true, because none of the models are ‘true’, just useful representations of reality for a particular person at a particular period in time). I’ve yet to find any models particularly effective in my work to date.
Oh – and one final thing. Having fun whilst you about it!
Regards