HOUSTON BUSINESS REVIEW

Cross Cultural Management 
By Ismael Tabije

Cross-cultural Management is a system designed to train and make known to people in the global business about the variations of cultures, practices and preferences of consumers around the globe.

Cross-cultural Management poses as a challenge for companies from all over the world who participate in the global market. As time passes by, the diversity in culture, practices and preferences significantly increases, and so is the need for cross-cultural management, to be able to bridge the communication gaps for every culture.

As the competition becomes rigid, the need to survive becomes a difficult test for most companies. Each must compete and at the same time formulate strategies that would make them stay alive. One is alliance with other companies, (not necessarily of the same country, culture, or preference).

Because of the increasing immigration counts, the global marketplace has become culturally diverse. And in order to survive, a company must be highly productive and at the same time innovative. It is a manager’s key function to promote and maintain a system of communication to best understand the others’ cultures and preferences, and at the same time keep pace with time zones, trends and updates so as not to get off the global market tracks or lose out to rivals.

Before embarking on a global marketplace, a newbie company must first be aware of the consumers to whom it will introduce its products and services. Thus, an intensive research about varied cultures and preferences of the possible target market in the world market is very necessary.

Communication is the foremost tool needed to deal with the stiff market competition. And, through cross-cultural management, people are trained to see other cultures and are exposed to various practices to be able to familiarize themselves on the preferences in products and services of various cultures.

Copyright 2007 Ismael D. Tabije