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This innovative book offers help to managers and firms as they deal with cross-cultural issues in their operations. As newly independent nations offer new market opportunities for international firms, cross-cultural issues are presenting new competitive problems. Increasingly, both new and experienced firms are encountering difficulties and often committing costly blunders as they attempt to deal with the cultural issues. In an insightful text that is both theoretical and practical, the author offers an interesting staffing and structural alternative to help firms regain and maintain their competitive edge.
An in-depth look at the cultural environment of the emerging global economy provides insight into the cultural-issue problems facing all businesses. While the problems are crucial for internationally operating business firms, domestically operating firms are also beginning to encounter critical cross-cultural problems. Maddox notes a number of costly blunders made by firms and analyzes the different reasons for these blunders. The critical role of the cultural integration function in organizations in dealing with these problems is explored, along with the inadequacy of continuing or merely increasing past efforts. A new organizational structure response is proposed as an alternative to the old way of dealing with the problem.
List of contents
A New Game with New Rules: The Global Economy
The Multiple Environments of Multinational Businesses
The Blundering Multinational Firm
The Role of the Cultural Integration Function in Multinational Firms
The Organization Structure and the Cultural Integration Function
The Cultural Integration Staff: The Positions and Their Placement
Cultural Integrators: Their Characteristics
The Sources and Training of Cultural Integrators
Potential Problems with the Cultural Integration Function
Conclusions and a Look to the Future
Epilogue: Cross Cultural Operations for Domestic Firms
Index
About the author
ROBERT C. MADDOX is an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Tennessee. He has studied, taught, and researched in Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East. He is the author of the monography, Wage Differences Between United States and Guatemalan Industrial Firms in Guatemala. His articles have appeared in over 18 journals, including, Personnel, Personnel Journal, Advanced Management Journal, Business Horizons, and Latin American Research Review.
