Managing Diversity

International management refers to the pursuit of organizational objectives in more than one nation. International management has evolved as a discipline of increasing importance in recent years. The underlying reason is that the corporate community is becoming more and more diverse. Improvements in transporta¬tion and communications and lower production costs in many countries around the world have made global markets more accessible. Although United States-based firms have immediate access to huge domestic markets, they have steadily increased the proportion of their foreign markets. It has been estimated that about 10 percent of all jobs in North America are dependent upon export and import trade.

Other indicators, including foreign investments, profits earned overseas, and fees and royalties paid to firms abroad, point to an increase in corporate internationaliza¬tion.

Next we will look at some of the challenges facing managers who work in an international environment.

CHALLENGES AND PROBLEMS FACING THE INTERNATIONAL MANAGER

A host of interacting and overlapping forces create problems for the manager in an international setting that are infrequently faced by the manager who works for a company doing business in only one country. The term infrequently is chosen because some countries are so large geographically that they contain radically different subcultures within their own boundaries.

We will summarize 11 factors that the international manager may have to make adjustments for in order to achieve organizational objectives:

1.Conflict of cultural attitudes. The most pervasive root problem in con¬ducting business in another country is that an assortment of cultural values may be in conflict with company values. Culture in the sense used here refers to the customs, beliefs, values, and patterns of behavior of a given

society. An important example of conflicting cultural values relates to the need for achievement . In a society where most people have a low need for achievement, the profit motive may not be very strong and most

employees may not have a strong sense of time urgency.

2. Unfavorable political climate. An unfavorable or even hostile political cli¬mate