Global Workforce Management

The world is changing politically, economically, technically, and collectively at a previously unthinkable rate. Both new and skilled multinational firms are stumbling and committing mistakes as they confront these recently emerging environmental forces. What is desired now is a new way of viewing both the global and foreign operations of multinational firms. To be as thriving as possible, these firms should be as culturally attuned to the world and to every foreign society in which they seek to work as they are to their own home society.

            In the early nineties the term globalization entered popular discourse. It referred to the increasing interdependence of many of the advanced and rapidly industrializing economies. As part of this process, multinationals were relocating production to from plants in the advanced countries to subsidiaries or contractors in the recently industrialized and developing countries, particularly in Asia.

Order custom essay Global Workforce Management with free plagiarism report

450+ experts on 30 subjects Starting from 3 hours delivery

Get Essay Help

            A key finding was that workplace relations in contributories of the same company, located in diverse countries, bore the stamp of the particular country's industrial relations institutions as imitated in the nature of trade unionism, management authority configuration, and rule setting mechanisms (e.g. collective bargaining or unilateral management control). However, there were similarities in other fundamentals work roles, reward systems and the setting of management-employee relations. on the whole, there was a inclination towards convergence on a pattern termed `cooperative dependence'--cooperation based on the dilapidated power of workers in the face of diminishing union influence, with workers seeking greater conviction in management and more involvement in job-related decisions (Frenkel 1994).

            More extreme competition stimulated the implementation of new technology. Globalization was changing workplace relations in ways that were as yet not well understood. This encouraged three subsequent studies of multinational subsidiaries. The cooperative reliance pattern was explored further by distinguishing between Neo-Taylorist and Lean Production manufacturing variants. There was a general affinity towards the latter pattern characterized by increasing management technical expertise and systems assimilation, more complex work, greater employee participation, and weak or non-existent trade unionism (Frenkel 1995). A similar finding emerged in an analysis of workplaces in the similar company's US and South African subsidiaries (Frenkel ; Royal 1999). Based mostly on survey and documentary data, this study also investigated differences in workers' views of management and trade unions, and traced the changeable pressures for change to the plants' diverse positions in the company's global corporate strategy. The US subsidiary's plant was found to be under more pressure to progress performance, as validation was central to the firm's European strategy. This contrasted with the South African workplace, which continued to supply a small, less important market. Therefore, change was slower and the outcomes less dramatic. This research led to the hypothesis that the rapidity and scope of workplace change depends mainly on the strategic position of subsidiaries in multinational companies but the content of these changes is powerfully influenced by local institutional and labour market factors (Frenkel 1998).

The prevailing trend in the international business environment in current decades has been greater directness in trade, investment, finance and technology resultant in increased international integration and interdependence in business and between states. What is also obvious is that large swathes of the world's population are efficiently marginalized or barred from these trends. This segregation has been a major factor in modern anti-globalization campaigns and is often used to justify proposals to reform or even abolish international institutions and to invalidate policies that have contributed to international integration.

Morrison (2006) characterized a global industry as having intense levels of international competition, competitors marketing a standardized product worldwide, industry competitors that have a presence in all key international markets and high levels of international trade. These definitions have the common thread of the need and opportunity to integrate strategy across countries.

Though aspects of globalization and the guiding principles of the IMF and the World Bank have not always been affirmative for developing countries, it is a generalization to place all or most of the blame for the marginalization of developing countries onto these factors. Development is a multifaceted process but some countries have managed it successfully. Considerably, it is those countries that have affianced most intensively with the outside world (that is, in East Asia), that have been most successful in their development endeavors. Equally considerable has been the keenness of each state to take a central role in the development process, a role that assorted from country to country depending on its culture and early circumstances.

Development is a significant, and often ignored, issue for international business. Too often, international business and development are simply discussed within the context of problems such as child labor or environmental degradation. Certainly, these and similar issues pose serious challenges for multinational enterprises and policy-makers but they are ultimately problems that, with adequate political will, are amenable to solution (admittedly, the political will requisite is of a much greater extent than has hitherto been seen). Successful development, however, forms markets and improves the quality of labor forces and key features of infrastructure, thereby creating investment opportunities. Investment in turn is essential to the development process.

Recognition of the need to be culturally attuned is not new. William J. Holstein and colleagues noted in a Business Week article that going global can be awesome as experienced CEOs find that their executive skills developed at home are not almost as sharp when diverse cultures determine the playing field (Holstein et al. 1989, 9-18).

To sharpen these skills and permit managers to function cross culturally, firms have characteristically focused on management selection and training. The thought here is that if being culturally attuned at home yields a non-cognitive automatic response, then suitably oriented managers could be selected and trained in the cultures of the world to exhibit also appropriate responses in other societies. IBM, for instance, requires that each manager shall receive forty-two hours of training each year on topics such as managing multinational groups of people and the internationalization of IBM's business (Callahan 1989, 28-32). Still, despite efforts such as these, one study noted that cross-cultural obstacles facing émigré employees continue to result in a failure rate of 20 to 50 percent of all expatriate assignments.

International organizations develop certain assumptions, norms, patterns of speech and behavior that make them unique. Also, similar to social or racial groups, culture is one of the factors that differentiate one organization from another. Applying the concept of culture to organizations gives them a human quality. Organizations become much more than the profit margin, the buildings, and the organizational charts. As living entities, organizations grow and change. They adapt to their environment and maintain internal health.

Many management scholars have focused on the thought of adapting diverse culture in international business. It is usually defined as a series of basic assumptions that an organization has developed in learning to handle with its external environment and its internal functioning. These assumptions have been found to be effectual and valid and are therefore communicated to new employees. Adapting foreign culture makes every international organization unique and bonds members of an organization together. The culture in the organization verifies what behaviors and ideas are acceptable and appropriate.

Working productively in an organizational setting, demands a diverse approach of communication, management and negotiation. The majority management techniques and interpersonal skills are put together on a personal value system that is extremely influenced by culture. Both company culture and national culture recount to a persons’ effectual behavior (Fisher, Glen 1990, 98).

Working globally means working in a different cultural environment. As one culture might interpret eye contact, smiling, happy, individual space, touching, punctuality, and arousing responses in a certain way, another culture might infer a totally opposite meaning from the similar behavior (Moran, Robert T. and Stripp, William G., 1991). The deepest level of a culture is the least visible part, its value system. It becomes apparent indirectly, while working with foreigners.

Basically, culture inspires every feature of social behavior and manipulates communication style, personality, character, inspiration, knowledge and cognition. There is a widespread body of work globally on differences in communication styles in the linguistics and cultural anthropology literature (Reine, P.P.V. & Trompenaars, F, 2000, 237-243).

Managers can distinguish and acclimatize to different work styles andbeing globally effective. Getting work done through others entails a free flow of perfect information and open, prolific relationships with employees. But that's easier said than done in a diverse workplace where lots of cultures collide.

On the other hand, nearly every aspect of daily human life involves negotiations. Parenting, interpersonal relationships, commercial dealings and communications with customers, co-workers and suppliers are some of the few to name.

Employees through strong negotiation skills are important assets to organizations. Armed with the accurate knowledge, approaches and skills, well-trained and well-prepared negotiators deliver results that go immediately to the bottom line.

Diverse techniques of negotiation attach to your ideas. An instance of this is when Americans were negotiating with Vietnamese. They used a plan stratagem in order to stick. Poor negotiating is when someone talks to you. Negotiating downwards is not an excellent way. It is like takes it or abscond it approach. Approximately everything is negotiable (Reine, P.P.V. ; Trompenaars, F, 2000, 237-243).

Another culture difference is a bigger course toward people. It is in addition a high-level of internal negotiation, and a greater skill in managing international variety. European managers are able of managing linking extremes (AAhad M. Osman-Gani ; Zidan, S.S, 2001, 452-460).

Working in another culture a lot depends on the inter-cultural skills of the negotiator. Whereas technology and financial ability might be an issue in the negotiation process in our fast-growing world, the cultural competence of the negotiator provides a company the viable edge (Moran, Robert T. and Stripp, William G., 1991).

Cultural values persuade all features of behavior in doing business in negotiating through people from different surroundings; the most efficient approach for overcoming probable communication barriers is to center on the interests of the parties (Reine, P.P.V. ; Trompenaars, F, 2000, 237-243). Why do they want what they want? You have to go at the back the validations they may use to protect why they want something; finally virtually everyone can come up with an explanation for whatever they want. The actual issue is how what they want will hand out their interests (AAhad M. Osman-Gani ; Zidan, S.S, 2001, 452-460).

Negotiation progression is a build process. It is a challenging style, cooperative, working together, avoiding, and compromising style. There are negotiation tactics, which are trouble solving win-win and partnering. It is a build trust, shows optimistic feeling, and reduces differences, obvious and rational. It is also inspired, peaceful shows patience, elastic, seeks common interest, makes others contented, and yields to good alternatives.

Lots of manager has been aggravated by the employee who nods in obviously considerate of a direction, then does just the contradictory. Or there are the staff members who rise cold and distant after getting feedback on their work, as well as the team members who clam up at meetings when asked for ideas (Fisher, Glen 1990).

Besides, our understanding, culture manipulate how close we stand, how loud we converse, how we contract with conflict even how we contribute in a meeting (AAhad M. Osman-Gani ; Zidan, S.S, 2001).

Though lots of cultural norms manipulate a manager's behavior and ensuing reactions, mainly significant ones are hierarchy and status, groups vs. individual orientation, time realization, communication and conflict pledge. By failing to recognize how culture collisions individually needs and preferences, managers, a lot misunderstands behaviors (Moran, Robert T. and Stripp, William G., 1991).

Think about the norm of hierarchy and status. If you desire all people to feel valued and to contribute in indicative or decision making, differences in this standard could be restrained. An employee who has been taught regard to age, sexual category or title, might out of respect timid away from being sincere or offering ideas as offering proposals to an elder or a boss might emerge to be tough authority.

The manager in addition might require structuring a climate that balances predilections for group and individual work. The employee who can't or won't subordinate individual wants or requirements for the good of the group might perform better working alone (Casse, Pierre 1995).

A globally skilled manager generates opportunities for individuals to take a number of risks and investigate projects that don't need coordinating with others. Doing so can hearten employees with a sturdy individualist bent to draw concentration to significant matters, such as policies or procedures that don't work. On the other hand, when managers put too high a premium on evading workplace discord, even distinctive employees may be disheartened from providing potentially productive feedback (Moran, Robert T. and Stripp, William G., 1991).

However, managers require comprehending the people with whom they work (Casse, Pierre 1995). Devoid of clear mutual understanding, it is almost not possible for a team to attain its objectives. Even in a comparatively standardized organization, designers and accountants, for instance, might be seen as representing diverse cultural perspectives. Getting them to work efficiently together is perceptibly crucial for a company's success. And, most confidently, getting people whose cultural variety is based on diverse issues is no less significant (Adelman, Mara B and Levine Deena R.1993).

To obtain the information you require you have to get alternative approaches that are more in order with the employee's culture. Here are a number of suggestions:

Evade yes/no questions such as "Is that clear?" or "Do you understand?" provide the employee options from which to prefer. Inquire for specific information, such as "Which step will you do first with this new practice?"

If time allows, carry out the task along with the employee or watch to see how well he recognizes your directions.

Endeavor using unreceptive language that focuses on the circumstances or behavior, rather than the individual. For instance, "Galls should be answered by the third ring" or "All requests require accurate charge codes so as to be processed." (Adelman, Mara B and Levine Deena R.1993).

Give workers enough lead time to gather their thoughts before a meeting so they can feel prepared to get input.

Have employees work in petite groups, engendering ideas through discussion and presenting input as a group.

One of the most significant functions of a manager is budding and grooming employees for encouragement. Cultural norms have a vast collision on this job as of the underlying conjecture a manager might make about an employee's prospective (Fisher, Glen 1990).

One has to be cautious not to designate people with a particular image, to think that everyone with a particular 'label' thinks or acts alike. If it isn’t for differences, the world would be a very uninteresting place. What we require to do is finds out how diverse interests can be addressed to yield results that work for the organizations that have the decisive liability to realize an agreement. Organizational cultural diversity is merely one of the rudiments that desire to be taken into relation to keep things operating on a cultured level.

            Thus in this global era, amongst skilled employees, the number of service and sales workers is growing fast. Their contracts of employment typically provide for rational pay and job-related training in lieu of job security and career prospects with the firm. But this might not be enough. Product market trends are from standardization to personalized customization. The latter needs flexible, customer-oriented personnel. Management face a dilemma: offer better employment prospects so as to motivate and retain these workers--an assurance that is more costly and perhaps more hard to meet--or outsource this work to contractors, often situated in developing countries. International outsourcing limits employment prediction at home and it creates disagreements in the host economies where workers employed by foreign firms or their suppliers often have superior contracts of employment than their equivalents working in smaller, local firms. Local labour markets begin to distort as a result of globalization.

            These issues indicate that there is no shortage of important research questions. Three in particular merit attention. First, little is known about workplace relations in knowledge-intensive firms that rely on rapid innovation to endure. What are the institutional and organizational factors and processes that promote innovation in these workplaces? Second, globalization has accelerated organizational restructuring and contributed to growing worker insecurity. There is a require for new mechanisms to make certain that definite fundamental labour standards (including access to continuing education and job search assistance) are not only upheld but raised sporadically. This requires more policy-oriented, workplace relations research that is competent to assimilate micro-strategies with meso- and macro-approaches being developed by governments. Finally, there is the challenge of devising theory that reflects growing international economic and political interdependence, proffering hypotheses that relate globalization and technological change to instantaneous developments in workplace relations in advanced, recently industrialized, and developing countries.

References:

AAhad M. Osman-Gani ; Zidan, S.S. "Cross-Cultural Implications of Planned on-the- job Training. Advances in Develpoing Human Resources, vol.3, no.4, pp.452-460. November, 2001.
Adelman, Mara B and Levine Deena R.1993. Beyond Language: Cross-Cultural Communication. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Regents. Bareback, Winston.1997. Wiechecki, Barbara.1999.Non-Verbal Communication: Classroom Activities for Raising Cross-Cultural Awareness.TEFLIN Paper.
Callahan Madelyn R. 1989. "Preparing the New Global Manager". Training & Development Journal, March, pp. 28-32.
Casse, Pierre (1995), Managing Intercultural Negotiations: Guidelines for Trainers and Negotiators. Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research, Washington, DC.
Fisher, Glen (1990), International Negotiation: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Intercultural Press, Yartmouth, ME.
Frenkel, S. & Royal, C. 1999, `Workers, unions and change in the global corporation: Contemporary experience and future possibilities', in Globalization Patterns and Labour Resistance, ed. J. Waddington, pp. 105-30, Mansell, London.
Frenkel, S. 1994, `Patterns of workplace relations in the global corporation: Toward convergence?', in Workplace Industrial Relations and the Global Challenge, eds. J. Belanger, P. Edwards & L. Haiven, pp. 240-74, ILR Press, Ithaca.
Frenkel, S. 1995, `Workplace relations in the global corporation: A comparative analysis of subsidiaries in Malaysia and Taiwan', in Industrialization and Labor Relations: Contemporary Research in Seven Countries, eds. S. Frenkel & J. Harrod, pp. 179-215, ILR Press, Ithaca.
Holstein William J., et al. 1989. "Going Global". Business Week, October 20, pp. 9-18.
Janet Morrison, Global and Local Marketplace in a Changing World, International Business Environment, Second Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, Apr 2006
Moran, Robert T. and Stripp, William G., 1991. Dynamics of Successful International Business Negotiations, Gulf Publishing, Houston, Texas.
Reine, P.P.V. & Trompenaars, F. "Invited Reaction: Developing Expatriates for the Asia-Pacific Region”. Human Resource Development Quarterly, vol.11, no.3, pp. 237-243 fall 2000.

Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade

Run a free check or have your essay done for you

Check my essay Hire Writer