When a company faces the decision of whether to become an international enterprise, they will be encountering many issues they have never before dealt with. This can be a confusing and difficult process for everyone involved especially the managers. Some companies hire consulting firms to deal with the issues involved. However, for those companies that want to do it themselves, they first need to gather some information.
Companies encounter several major issues while going through the process of becoming international.
The major issues are mentioned below:
• Firstly, they have to decide who will run this new operation and what qualification (s) this individual must possess.
• Secondly, the company needs to examine the roles of this manager and how these roles may differ from the local manager.
• The location of the new operational facility,
• The relationships they need to have, to name only a few
International managers are responsible for developing strategies, deploying resources, and guiding their organisation to compete in this global environment. To understand the notion of international management better, it is logically necessary to first define management and international independently. There are many viewpoints as to the definition of management and for this book we will define management as the collective functions of planning, organising, leading, and controlling the resources of an organisation within its national borders to efficiently achieve its objectives. We refer to an individual who is responsible for the realisation of these objectives as a manager and his or her actions are termed managing.
International, on the other hand, is synonymous with multi-domestic firms, international firms, global firms, and transnational firms, but for the purpose of this book, the word international will be used. It is any activity of an organisation conducted beyond its national boundaries to exploit a potential expansion of emerging economies, earn greater return from their special competencies, and realise location economies and greater experience curve economies.
International management on the other hand is the collective functions of planning, organising, leading, and controlling organisational resources across its national borders.
The managerial approach that works in one country does not necessarily work in the same fashion or not at all in another one, this being explained by environmental differences (that is, cultural, political, legal, economic, and climatic) across countries. Because of these differences, a manager will need skills beyond those required to manage in his or her home country, and to be able to coordinate this type of manager at a level that goes beyond national boundaries is termed an international manager. An international manager is “someone who has to handle things, ideas, and people belonging to different cultural environments.” He or she can work either in a multinational corporation, an international organisation, an institution located in a foreign country or even in a local, regional, or national organisation in which people do not share the same patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.
In referring to this broad definition of an international manager, all managers within all organisations are actually multicultural. Some managers may be more involved with intercultural issues than others, but they all have to plan, organise, direct, and lead people with different cultural backgrounds characterised by various values, beliefs, and assumptions. Without realising it, most international managers have been multicultural in their jobs. So far, there was not a pressing need for them to be aware of the fact that they learn many of their management decisions by utilising their staff/personnel as resources.
Many managers now have to face the fact that a lone educational background will not be enough for them to be effective and efficient managers. They must also gain a deeper understanding of intercultural relations and various cultural practices and beliefs. This goes for local, regional, national, and, of course, international managers. This means that the old style of viewing management must adjust to meet the needs of the international managerial functions. Management activities related to planning, organising, leading, and controlling must be approached from a cross-cultural perspective if public and private organisations want to keep up their productivity both inside and outside the countries and cultures to which they belong.
Today, one has placed so much emphasis on what is logical and rational, that one has become preoccupied with figuring out the right answers mentally, rather than seeing, hearing and feeling what is really going on inside and around us, and responding to it according to its demands and according to what we have to do to meet our needs. With that in mind, let us now examine what it takes to be an international manager.
A successful international manager should have the following skills or qualifications:
• The ability to communicate and cooperate across cultures, including being able to develop an understanding, trust, and teamwork with people of various cultural backgrounds.
• The ability to understand and appreciate numerous different cultures.
• The ability to use more than one language to communicate effectively. This may be important when travelling to different locations or simply dealing with someone who understands better in his or her native tongue.
• The ability to build and maintain relationships at work and in the family, by supporting, growing, and learning. However, to do this, one must first understand oneself, which includes being aware of one’s own assumptions and preferences.
• The ability to learn and grow from the new information just discovered by carrying out the new ideas into one’s behaviour, and simultaneously, the ability to maintain the health of the organisation and oneself.
• The ability to coach, guide, and educate others in the organisation to develop cross-cultural skills both at work and to incorporate them into their families as well.
• The ability to observe all cultures and accomplish management changes that will be most effective for the cultural mix present.
