Intercultural Management

Wayne Vucinic Book Prize 2007, "for the most important contribution to Russian, Eurasian, and East European studies in any discipline of the humanities or social sciences." 

Endorsement by Slavoj Zizek:

"Alexei Yurchak's Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More immediately seduced me by its very title with a profound philosophical implication that eternity is a historical category--things can be eternal for some time. The same spirit of paradox runs through the entire book--it renders in wonderful details the gradual disintegration of the Soviet system from within its ideological and cultural space, making visible all the hypocrisy and misery of this process. I consider Yurchak's book by far the best work about the late epoch of the Soviet Union--it is not just history, but a pleasure to read, a true work of art." (Slavoj Zizek, author of In Defense of Lost Causes)

Abstract:

Soviet socialism was based on paradoxes that were revealed by the peculiar experience of its collapse. To the people who lived in that system the collapse seemed both completely unexpected and completely unsurprising. At the moment of collapse it suddenly became obvious that Soviet life had always seemed simultaneously eternal and stagnating, vigorous and ailing, bleak and full of promise. Although these characteristics may appear mutually exclusive, in fact they were mutually constitutive. This book explores the paradoxes of Soviet life during the period of "late socialism" (1960s-1980s) through the eyes of the last Soviet generation.

The paper deals with intercultural marketing, which is a combination of two different phenomena - marketing and culture. The first objective of the paper lies in providing theoretical definitions of the above-mentioned areas. Subsequently, the aim is to analyse marketing communication of the selected automotive companies and determine its efficiency on social media within the context of cultural differences and cultural forms as their manifestations. A considerable amount of literature has been published on intercultural marketing, but only a few studies have concentrated on the connection with modern communication tools – i.e. social media. The data come from a research conducted online focused on Facebook. In total 2606 posts on twenty Facebook profiles of selected automotive companies were analysed. Our findings show that the use of standardization and adaptation is not related to the efficiency of marketing communication of individual Facebook profiles. One of the factors that d...

Objective: The main objective of this paper is to explore/investigate the role of social media in searching and acquiring the talented employees and the appropriate rationales behind and ways of using the social media for such purposes with due advantages and risks involved. Methodology: This paper uses the literatures published from 2010 to 2019 to highlight the research on social media influence on searching talent for organizations. For due purpose, Scopus and ResearchGate databases have been utilized to search the papers using the keywords such as social media, social networking sites, online recruitment & selection, candidate screening, hiring, human resources management and talent search. Findings: Although social media is getting popular among employers, they are not utilizing this platform as the main rather as secondary sources. LinkedIn is the most preferred source among the employers for searching and acquiring talents. Value Added: The paper is expected to contribute to ...

Whilst the condition of a damaged ethical life has received due scholarly attention to date, only rarely is resistance to it conceived as an actual possibility with the potential of real effects on a macro-social scale. This is not just a curious lacuna in the literature. To ignore or miss concrete possibilities or even instances of resistance is to reinforce the apparent naturalness and inevitability of structures of injustice. The aim of this edited collection is to help address this epistemological neglect, exploring the multiplicity of motives, presuppositions, sites, ways, and consequences of acts of resistance. As shown in the ensuing contributions, resistance can be recalcitrant or transformative in its aims, discursive or physical in its means, and local or generalised in its loci. If there is a single argument that can be distilled, it is that the emergence of progressive resistance entails the incessant rational critique of so-styled ‘common sense’ and prevalent ethical claims–a process which could be called ‘the banality of good’. Contributors (in alphabetical order): Andrea Mubi Brighenti, Leonidas K. Cheliotis, Lilie Chouliaraki, Spiros Gangas, Richard Kearney, Alison Liebling, John O’Neill, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Justice Tankebe, Ezra Tessler, Sappho Xenakis.


Contents

List of Contributors
Acknowledgements

1. Roots, Rites, and Sites of Resistance: The Banality of Good: An Introduction
Leonidas K. Cheliotis

2. Values, Crisis, and Resistance: Prospects for Freedom Reconsidered
Spiros Gangas

3. Narcissism, Humanism, and the Revolutionary Character in Erich Fromm’s Work
Leonidas K. Cheliotis

4. Thinking after Terror: An Interreligious Challenge
Richard Kearney

5. Ecce Homo: The Political Theology of Good and Evil
John O’Neill

6. Resistance as Transformation
Andrea Mubi Brighenti

7. Acting on Vulnerable Others: Ethical Agency in Media Discourse
Lilie Chouliaraki

8. Sites of Resistance: Death Row Homepages and the Politics of Compassion
Ezra Tessler

9. Face to Face with Abidoral Queiroz: Death Squads and Democracy in Northeast Brazil
Nancy Scheper-Hughes

10. Resisting Submission? The Obstinacy of ‘Balkan’ Characteristics in Greece as Dissidence against ‘The West’
Sappho Xenakis

11. Legitimation and Resistance: Police Reform in the (Un)Making
Justice Tankebe

12. ‘Governmentality’ and Governing Corrections: Do Senior Managers Resist?
Alison Liebling

Internationale Zusammenarbeit ist im Kulturbetrieb und in der Kulturpolitik selbstverständlich. Kultureller Austausch muss auf Augenhöhe geschehen, um wirklich fruchtbar zu sein. Doch geschieht das? Sind es „faire“ Kooperationen?
Dr. Annika Hampel hat mit ihrer preisgekrönten Dissertation ein Themenfeld eröffnet, dass auch im deutschen Kulturbetrieb noch viel zu selten diskutiert wird. Hier gibt sie einen kurzen Einblick in ein sehr komplexes Thema.

The Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations represent a universal response to current global challenges that include climate change, poverty, political instability and the massive displacement of people worldwide. The central role of education in achieving sustainable development has been internationally acknowledged and successfully promoted: Global enrolment rates are now 90 percent for primary education and over 70 percent for secondary education. Building on these achievements, this paper focuses the role of tertiary education in contributing to sustainable development. This study reviewed recent theoretical and empirical research relating to the field. Conclusions from theoretical studies confirm that building on human capital is crucial for achieving the sustainable development goals. The majority of empirical studies also confirm a positive correlation between tertiary education and sustainable development. This study highlighted, however, that the full benefits of tertiary education to society may have been underestimated and that there are significant research gaps in the field. Furthermore, current challenges including funding, equity and market relevancy in tertiary education need to be addressed. Given the pressing global issues and the mounting evidence of positive impacts, this paper calls for more research and attention to be devoted to tertiary education in the sustainable development debate.

Intercultural Management & International Relations - This research paper (French language) analyses challenges and potential barriers for the future development and strengthening of the network of cultural institutes in Europe (EUNIC) by identifying cultural and institutional differences amongst member institutes. The EUNIC case study is an example for multilateral collaboration in European non-governmental organisations and it suggests areas for future development of this type of associations. We are identifying some underlying themes that are potential levers for success and that could be considered when optimizing EUNIC governance structures, strategies and operating principles.
We are hoping that our study will contribute to EUNICs future development by raising awareness on the complexity of the networks’ mission due to the heterogeneous visions of its member institutes. Maybe this work can initiate further discussions leading to co- creating a new, shared vision on European foreign cultural action.

The main goal of the article is to present some differences in the practice of competency management, perceived as a part of human resources management, that were identified in the empirical research conducted in three countries, that is Poland, Spain, and Austria. Our research is placed within cross-cultural HRM and comparative HRM, that together with corporate-international HRM make three theoretical and research streams within international human resources management (IHRM). This is because on one side, the analysis of the research data covers comparison of competency management systems and practices both at the organizational and national level in different countries, but on the other side, we make an attempt to discuss the possible influence of national culture on identified differences.

Objective: The increasing influence of YouTube vloggers on consumer purchase behaviour and the specificity of the vloggers _ viewers/subscribers relationship are under-researched. Addressing this gap in knowledge, this paper explores the role of vloggers as brand influencers on consumer (their viewers) purchase behaviour. It aims to investigate the interaction between vloggers and viewers/subscribers in terms of brand awareness and consumers’ purchase behaviour. Methodology: A mixed-method approach (often connected with netnography) incorporated non-participant observation of vloggers’ activities and vloggers-viewers interactions within selected popular vlogs, supported by an online survey with both vloggers and viewers. Findings: We have observed specific brand endorsements and experiences, depending on the vloggers’ context, leading to both positive and negative feedback. This interaction and the consistently positive perception of reasons behind the vloggers’ choice of the endors...

Objective: The article is an attempt to make a diagnosis about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on HR practices including recruitment and selection, remote working, motivating employees, re-skilling and communicating. This theoretical study is a kind of revision and discussion with the “future trends in HR” predicted a few years ago before pandemic. Methodology: The research method was a review of the most recent research findings from business practice and from scientific literature concerning the impact of the pandemic on various fields of human resource management. Due to the growing flood of media information, the authors wanted to select the most updated HR practices implemented in organizations from the reliable and acknowledgeable sources. Findings: The biggest challenges for HR after COVID-19 will be: restructuring the place of work and the content of work, applying more advanced technology to recruitment, selection and performance; more interests, appreciation and motiva...

Summary:
            1. Happiness can be defined as “ the deepest attainable inner peace”.
2. Happiness requires some notion of constraint. Civilization over time takes the shape of increased impulse control.
3. It also requires a degree of autonomy. A feeling by people that they are in control of their own lives
4. Those societies with strong concepts of constraint and autonomy within their cultures are markedly happier than others. They are also markedly wealthier. The ‘network’ countries - which also share a strong value of ‘Femininity’ are a standout example
5. Societies that do not have strong values of internal constraint and autonomy are markedly less happy.
6. But all is not lost for hierarchical societies – Governments can take resolute ‘Top down’ action to reinforce a narrow interpretation of rule of law and institutions enforcing the rules. This can restore a sense of being in control of their life to people.

Keywords: Culture, happiness, constraint, Mental Images, autonomy.

Most changes fail - according to Mike Hammer (the father of business re-engineering).

Many of the change enablement tools we use are useful to project managers and sponsors, but these tools merely invite and increase resistance.

The article visits a number of the most prevalent change activities and programmes, describing how they can be implemented. A model of change enablement activities are presented, detailing those that merely rely on power and those that rely on empowerment.

The main purpose of the research is scrutinizing the effect of power distance, individualism, masculinity and uncertainity avoidance on innovation performance of 96 countries by implementing the cross sectional regression analysis. According to research results of this
paper, there is significant positive effect of individualism on innovation for 96 countries. In addition, the results also indicates that there is no impact of power distance, masculinity and uncertainity avoidance on innovation performance. Individualism has partial mediating role for the relationship between power distance and innovation index of 96 countries.
Keywords: Cross Sectional Regression, Innovation, Power Distance, Masculinity and Uncertainity Avoidance, Individualism

L’idea di un museo diffuso sul territorio (o ecomuseo) sul tema dell’interculturalità nasce dall’esigenza di trasformare la realtà sociale connessa ai fenomeni migratori all’interno di uno specifico contesto ambientale, trasformando in elementi di forza funzionali allo sviluppo locale quelli che finora sono risultati essere invece elementi di debolezza e portatori di diverse e complesse problematiche sociali. In un territorio come quello qui considerato, particolarmente ricco di espressioni culturali diversificate, offrire ai cittadini l’opportunità di conoscere la bellezza di tale varietà di culture può infatti divenire una risorsa rilevante per lo sviluppo e la promozione della salute delle comunità presenti. Elementi fondamentali per il benessere collettivo, quali l’inclusività, la resilienza, la partecipazione e la giustizia sociale, vanno quindi promossi e incentivati e l’ideazione di uno spazio conoscitivo delle culture diffuso sul territorio diviene, così, strumento utile a tali scopi.

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.

Pozycja autorstwa dra Marka Krasińskiego stanowi odpowiedź na pytania praktyki gospodarczej o sposoby skutecznego i trwałego wprowadzania lean management w polskich przedsiębiorstwach. Publikacja zawiera uporządkowany opis popularnych japońskich koncepcji, metod i technik zarządzania oraz wyniki badań empirycznych, które prowadzone były w japońskich firmach działających w Polsce. W wyniku postępowania badawczego autor zidentyfikował dwanaście głównych uwarunkowań kulturowych,  istotnych dla japońskich rozwiązań, oraz zaproponował skuteczne sposoby postępowania przy wprowadzaniu tych rozwiązań w przedsiębiorstwach polskich.
Książka jest przeznaczona przede wszystkim dla praktyków zarządzania, menedżerów i przedsiębiorców wprowadzających lub chcących wprowadzić w swoich organizacjach lean management, a także dla studentów zarządzania, słuchaczy studiów podyplomowych oraz wszystkich, którzy chcą pogłębić wiedzę z zakresu japońskich koncepcji, metod i technik zarządzania.

Cross-Cultural Management: With Insights from Brain Science explores a broad range of topics on the impact of culture in international business and vice versa, and the impact of businesses and individuals in shaping a culture. It provides critical and in-depth information on globalization, global/glocal leadership, cross-cultural marketing, and cross-cultural negotiation. It also discusses many other topics that are not typically found in the mainstream management textbooks such as diversity management, bias management, cross-cultural motivation strategies, and change management.

While most literature in the field is dominated by the static paradigm, that is, culture is fixed, nation equates to culture, and values are binary, this book takes a different approach. It regards national values as a first-best-guess and balances it with an introduction of the dynamic paradigm. This school of thought posits that culture is not static, context is the software of the mind, opposing values coexist, change is constant, and individuals can develop a multicultural mind.

A unique feature of this book is the contribution of an interdisciplinary approach. It’s the first textbook of cross-cultural management that incorporates latest findings from the emerging discipline of cultural neuroscience and evolutionary biology in the discussion. Such a holistic approach is meant to help readers gain a deeper and broader understanding of the subjects.

The sample chapter focuses on Change management.

https://www.routledge.com/Cross-Cultural-Management-With-Insights-from-Brain-Science/Nguyen-Phuong-Mai/p/book/9781138304666

""ABSTRACT
"This paper focuses on change implementation in the global business environment. Organizations seek continuously ways to cope with major changes in order to survive and sustain competitiveness. A primary challenge in cross cultural change processes is how to manage and implement change successfully in the context of different national and local cultures. The paper discusses and examines empirically how change readiness is created for implementing change in cross cultural context. Ways of handling change resistance is quite scarcely studied in more detailed although it is a widely recognized issue in business practice. Creating readiness to change is one of the primary challenges in coping with continuous change and its effective management in organizations. Empirical findings from the case study in the company of crossing Chinese and Finnish cultures are presented and challenges the findings imply to global management are discussed.

Keywords:  Change process, communication, coping, cross cultural, resistance, implementation, middle management, readiness, trust, case study, Sinofinn
"""

Phronetic organizational research is an approach to the study of management and organizations focusing on ethics and power. It is based on a contemporary interpretation of the Aristotelian concept phronesis, usually as ‘prudence’. Phronesis is the ability to think and act in relation to values, to deliberate about ‘things that are good or bad for humans’ in the words of Aristotle (1976:1140a24–b12). Phronetic organizational research effectively provides answers to the following four value-rational questions, for specific problematics in management and organization studies: 1. Where are we going with this specific management problematic? 2. Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? 3. Is this development desirable? 4. What, if anything, should we do about it?

The Aalborg Project may be interpreted as a metaphor of modern politics, modern administration and planning, and of modernity itself. The basic idea of the project was comprehensive, coherent, and innovative, and it was based on rational and democratic argument. During implementation, however, when idea met reality, the play of Machiavellian princes, Nietzschean will to power, and Foucauldian rationality-as-rationalization resulted in the fragmentation of the project.

DESCRIPTION: Ce séminaire (de niveau M1) propose aux étudiants des langues enseignées à l'Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) une introduction générale à la communication interculturelle. Nous traitons les 7 sujets suivants:
1/ Le contexte historique qui a vu émergé la problématique dite interculturelle.
2/ La notion de « différence culturelle ».
3/ Le « sentiment », la « perception » de la différence culturelle.
4/ La communication interculturelle et la compétence interculturelle.
5/ La communication interculturelle et la communication stratégique et participative.
6/ Quelques domaines prioritaires de la communication interculturelle.
7/ Quelques types récurrents de programmes et projets de communication interculturelle.

At the same time that case studies are widely used and have produced canonical texts, it may be observed that the case study as a methodology is generally held in low regard, or is simply ignored, within the academy. For example, only 2 of the 30 top-ranked U.S. graduate programs in political science require a dedicated graduate course in case study or qualitative methods, and a full third of these programs do not even offer such a course. In contrast, all of the top 30 programs offer courses in quantitative methods and almost all of them require training in such methods, often several courses. In identifying this paradox of the case study’s wide use and low regard, Gerring rightly remarks that the case study survives in a “curious methodological limbo,” and that the reason is that the method is poorly understood. In what follows, we will try to resolve Gerring’s paradox and help case study research gain wider use and acceptance.

Our understanding of the cross-cultural aspects of personal epistemology is limited. In particular, cross-cultural comparisons of elementary school teachers’ and students’ personal epistemology have received very little theoretical or empirical attention. The current chapter aims to examine German and U.S. elementary schools in terms of their philosophical and practical similarities and differences in personal epistemology. Both theoretical and empirical work will be reviewed to support a more holistic model of personal epistemology, the Educational Model of Personal Epistemology. In light of this model, we discuss our expectations for differences and similarities in the epistemic climate of elementary classrooms in the U.S. and Germany. Drawing from this discussion, we suggest that researchers should approach cross-cultural research in personal epistemology from a more holistic standpoint, employ a diversity of methods, and obtain a solid understanding of the educational context under study. Regarding educational implications, we propose a possible fusion of the educational philosophies held in the U.S. and Germany concerning the implementation of teacher training and classroom education. Finally, we recommend that fostering evaluativistic thinking (i.e., a way of knowing that focuses on the evaluation and decision-making among differing viewpoints) should be a main goal for education starting at the elementary level to ensure students’ future roles as productive citizens in Western societies and stress the role of the teacher in this endeavor.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the functioning of a faculty from different insiders' perspectives on academia, based on organizational culture. 'Insiders' in this case are academic leaders, evaluators, and students. Universities are complicated social organizations with characteristic cultures. On the one hand, academic freedom, critical thinking, and autonomy are protected values and, on the other hand, changing environmental conditions exert powerful impact on the primary functions of universities. Understanding of organizational culture is not a panacea to all problems in higher education. A deep understanding of culture, for example, will not automatically increase enrollments or increase quality of teaching or decrease corruption. This case study is employed for the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (FEAA) within the "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University (UAIC) in Iasi, Romania that faces the challenges of transition to democracy and free market economy. The findings of this paper suggests a close link between organizational culture and quality in state higher education.

The preparation and implementation of change is highly culturally sensitive. This article explores the influence of cultural differences on the concept of change management. 2 It outlines the important aspects for change in international organizations and shows us where the potential cultural booby traps lie.

"This paper uses an ethnographically-inspired methodology to look at the dynamics of anglicization and resistance against it in a culturally and linguistically homogeneous project team. We show that changing working language can be extremely disruptive to team work. Over the surface, efficiency is impaired as working in a foreign language restricts speakers’ accuracy, fluency and willingness to speak.  The  team  leader’s  important  and  difficult  role  is  to  limit “losses”.  Under  the  surface,  the
language  change  turns  out  to  strike  a  new  balance  of  power,  in  response  to  which  potentially harmful individual strategies emerge to in- or decrease the weight of English in team work, notably through  language-switching.  Ambiguity  as  a  policy  reaches  its  limits  there,  although  explicit negotiation may not be an option. Corporate language policy should in any case be thought of as dialectically co-constructed by decision-makers and language-users themselves."

This article discusses the teaching of intercultural and transcultural awareness together with language learning in foreign language contexts. Ensuing a brief argument of what language, culture and its forms mean, we illustrate the relationship between intercultural and transcultural competence and the development of communication skills in the foreign language frame for teaching EFL students. The author draws attention to the importance of developing students' intercultural research utilizing the transcultural communication competence notion. We show how intercultural culture orientations and transcultural communication competence affect the students' framework and their career dimensions. The author illuminates the activities and approach that develop communication skills. The article concludes underscoring the critical challenges teachers encounter and potential solutions.