Advancing Cultural Mindset and Integration
Introduction
Technological advancement has led to tremendous growth of the international trade owing to increase in the rate of global connectivity, a phenomenon referred to as globalization. Globalization provides numerous advantages to both small business enterprises and large corporations some of the advantages include; a large number of untapped client pool and the ability to outsource labor to overseas countries at lower prices than the domestic countries.
On the other hand, globalization also presents numerous challenges, for instance the elimination of international trade barriers has led to increase in competition. Global organizations compete for limited resources such as labor and low materials (Mathews, 2016). Labor forms one of the critical factors of production. In the global markets an organization’s leadership is not only tasked with the onus of hiring top talents but also the responsibility of ensuring that a cultural mindset and diversity of the workforce does not inhibit the productivity of the firm.
According to Wilson (2013), for firms to be successful in the global markets there is need for developing a global mindset that allows cultural mindset and integration. The essay thus evaluates strategies and negotiation process that lead to cultural mindset and integration in global organizations.
Adopting a Diverse perspective
The international workforce comprises of cultural mindset diverse individuals. Culturally diversity provides a large pool of untapped talent with the potential of elevating the firm’s productivity owing to the prevalence of creative and innovative employees. However, classical management theories such hierarchy model tends to hinder creativity. This is because the model is based on the need to monitor and control hence workers are tasked oriented and tend to act in the best interests of the superiors as opposed to the best interests of the firm.
The hierarchy model is thus inappropriate in the global market. Executive leaders of international firms should adopt a diverse perspective; that is recognize the individual differences of the workers and strife to encourage creativity of each employee.
According to Wilson (2013), a diverse perspective elevates the levels of creativity and increases the firm’s productivity by maximizing talent exploitation within the firm. To develop diverse perspective, the leaders should create an enabling environment that encourages individual growth. The basic step in developing a direct perspective is adoption of an inclusive leadership system. According to Davies & Brundett (2010), there is no ideal leadership system that would guarantee success of the firm.
However, the inclusive leadership system incorporates all the necessary leadership skills hence more suited in developing diverse perspective. The basic leadership skills include; technical, human and conceptual skills (Davies & Brundett, 2010 p 78). Technical refers to skills acquired in training while human skills entail the ability to socialize and influence people. On the other hand, conceptual skills refer to the understanding of how the industry function.
Incorporation of these skills allows the leaders to effectively influence the workforce. They are able to identify motivating factors of each worker and thus set into places mechanisms to ensure that the workers are motivated. One should note that for inclusive system to function, the labor force should be intrinsically motivated. Intrinsic motivation occurs when each labors contributions to the end unit is appreciated.
Wilson (2013), argues that appreciation of each worker contributions to the end product occurs through enhancing the relationship between the leader and each individual worker. According to Wilson (2013), a dyadic level perspective is a prerequisite in developing a diverse perspective, this is because it enhances the leader’s capacity and ability to influence each workers actions.
In essence, developing and integrating a diverse perspective requires; a leadership model that incorporates all the necessary leadership skills and a healthy leader employee relationship. An inclusive leadership model is not only important in developing direct perspective but also in responding to dynamic changes in the international market system (Mathews, 2016). Diverse perspective is important in developing a global mindset when dealing with cultural mindset diverse employees. However, the success of the business leadership models crucial in cultivating a diverse perspective greatly depends on the strategies employed.
Strategies that enhance global mindset.
Effective business strategizing require rigorous evaluation of the business environment and assessment of the organization’s capacity to capitalize on available opportunities while maintaining its productivity. Global organizations require to employ strategies that allow simultaneous capitalization of the international markets and the domestic markets (Vandermootele, 2012).
Therefore, these firms are tasked with the onus of ensuring that the international market strategy fits with the organization’s goals. According to, the success of a firm in acquiring a full culturally integration require superb culturally self-awareness, cognitive complexity, and suspended judgements. In order to develop these capabilities the global organization leadership should employ a glocal strategy.
The glocal strategy entails incorporating both the local and international business international structures in the organizations operations (Wilson 2013 p 48). However, the leaders and staff need to adopt a global mentality in order to effectively develop a global mindset. According to Mathews (2016), global mentality comprises of three important components which include; global thinking, local thinking and the ability to think and act glocally (p41).
Global thinking allows the organization’s to evaluate cultural mindset differences that would inhibit the success of its international operations, it facilitates the development of cultural cognitive abilities thus help in formulation of the best international expansion plan.
On the other hand, local thinking creates cultural mindset awareness within the organization’s leadership. Local thinking creates understanding of the local cultures thus enables the organization to implement policies that would facilitate the motivation of its local employees and thus enable maximum exploitation of international workforce through efficient workforce adoption. This is necessary for companies that seek to enter the international market through acquisitions and mergers.
The ability to think locally creates cultural mindset sensitivity and cognition ability that enhance leaders’ ability to influence local labor force by ensuring that the firms operations do not jeopardize culturally obligations of their employees (Mathews, 2016). An example is a firm seeking to operate in an Islamic nation, the leaders need to understand that the Islamic religion sets Fridays as worship days while in most European countries Friday is a normal working day. Such as organization will thus have to close its operations in order to enable its local workers to attend to religious matters.
Correspondingly, ability to act and think glocally eliminates conflicts that would result from a culturally diverse workforce. As mentioned earlier, the leader’s actions should influence the workforce. Therefore, a leader who is culturally cognitive will influence expatriates in the local company to respect culturally boundaries and thus enhance team building. The global mindset strategy incorporate open communication strategies that enhance team building.
Communication Methods
As mentioned earlier, open communication methods enhance the global mindset strategy. This is because they facilitates the acquisition of effective leader work relationship and team building among the employees. Therefore, formulation of effective communication methods is important in developing a diverse workforce while at the same time ensuring consistent productivity.
According to Davies & Brundett (2010), work place productivity and group cultures interrelate. However, in a culturally diverse work place there are numerous barriers to effective communication. Formulation of the communication method thus requires critical evaluation of the barriers and identification of possible methods of evading the obstacles.
Language barrier is the most common barrier. Language barrier impacts on network heterogeneity which refers to the ability of culturally diverse members to communicate. Another communication barrier is intrinsic competition which impacts on the ability of group members to communicate. Leaders are thus tasked with ensuring that the communication methods employed facilitate to network density and network homogeneity (Vandermoortele, 2012).
To eliminate language barrier, workers should be encouraged to acquire a second language while employing a translator and language translation software should occur in the initiation stages. On the other hand, intrinsic competition can be eliminated through employing effective motivation strategy that is based on individual contributions rather than performance hence encourage information sharing.
Additionally, upward and downward communication should be encouraged through open group brainstorming. Group forums will not only encourage upward and downward communications but also lead to higher integration which will eventually create a positive interaction of the organization’s productivity and group interactions.
Conclusion
Globalization has led to rapid increase in business competition. In order to oust competition, global organizations are tasked with the onus of developing a global mindset that encourages labor force cultural mindset diversity while at maintain constant productivity. A global mindset enables the organizations to maximally utilize the diverse talents through adopting a diverse perspective and developing a glocal strategy. Open communication methods also play a critical role in enhancing the inclusive leadership model which supports efficient global mindsets.
References
Davies, B., & Brundrett, M. (Eds.). (2010) Developing Successful Leadership (Vol. 11). London: Springer
Mathews, J. (2016). Toward a Conceptual Model of Global Leadership. IUP Journal of Organizational Behavior, 15(2), 38.
Vandemoortele, J. (2012). Advancing the global development agenda post-2015: some thoughts, ideas and practical suggestions. New York: UN System Task Team on the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda.
Wilson. W. (2013). Coaching with a global Mindset. International journal of evidence based Coaching & Mentoring. 11. 33-52.
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