Challenge 2: The Evolving Global Environment
Through globalization, organizations that were once local become global. Managers have
to manage international personnel with different cultural backgrounds, work ethics, and
values. As such, managers have the challenge of understanding the organizational
behavior of the personnel in the company's subsidiary organizations. The global manager
uses this information to improve those subsidiaries' organizational behavior totally with
the overall organizational culture of the company.
Managers must understand how cultural differences influence the organizational behavior
in different countries.
Management functions become more complex as the
organization’s activities expand globally, and coordination of decision-making and
organizational issues becomes a necessity.
Managers must understand the
requirements of foreign markets and how cultural differences impact organizational issues
such as compensation packages, evaluation, and promotion policies.
Two important challenges facing global organizations are, to appreciate the differences
between countries and then to benefit from this knowledge to improve an organization’s
behaviors and procedures.
Understanding Global Differences
Companies must learn about many different kinds of factors when they operate globally.
1. There are problems related to understanding organizational behavior in different global
settings. Organizational behavior becomes especially complex at a global level because
the attitudes, aspirations, and values of the workforce differ from country to country.
2. Problems of coordinating the activities of an organization to match its environment
become much more complex as an organization’s activities expand across the globe.
3. In many cases, global organizations locate in a particular country abroad because this
allows them to operate more effectively, but in doing so, also has major effects on their
home operations.
Global Learning
Global learning is the process of acquiring and learning the skills, knowledge, and
organizational behaviors and procedures that have helped companies abroad become
major global competitors. To respond to the global challenge, more and more companies
are rotating their employees to their overseas operations so they can learn firsthand about
the problems and opportunities that lie abroad. Expatriate employees are those who live
and work for companies located abroad. These employees assist their organizations by:
1. Learning about the sources of low-cost inputs and the best places to assemble their
products throughout the world.
2. Expatriate managers in functions such as research and development, manufacturing,
and sales can take advantage of their presence in a foreign country to learn the skills and
techniques those companies have to offer.
These two important tasks are the two major tasks an organization should accomplish in
order to appreciate the differences between countries and then benefit from this
knowledge to improve an organization’s behaviors and procedures.
(i) Managing Global Environment:
Organizations are no longer limited to or constrained by national borders. The
internationalization of business has transformed the world into a global village.
Managers have to cope with unfamiliar laws, languages, practices, attitudes,
management styles, ethics, etc. The HR function must change to acquire a global
perspective. Managers have to be flexible and proactive if they are to face these
challenges.
(ii) Managing Cultural Diversity:
Today’s managers have to learn to cope with people from different cultures.
Globalization affects managers in two ways. If they are transferred to another
country, they will have to manage a workforce that is likely to be very different in
needs, aspirations, and attitudes. If they are in their own country they have to work
with people from other countries having different cultures. Hence to work
effectively with these people one has to understand their culture and learn to adapt
management styles to these different cultures.
https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/organization/organizational-behaviour/organizationalbehaviour-issues-faced-by-todays-manager/63755
https://bizfluent.com/info-11369752-challenges-faced-organizational-behavior.html
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