As the world becomes more and more internationally connected, the need to understand people from different cultures and how to interact appropriately with them also increases. Managers and leaders need to develop intercultural competences that can help them be more aware of their own culturally-based perceptions, norms, and patterns of thinking, and consequently adapt their behaviors according to specific cultural contexts.
Managing people across cultures offers solid theoretical frameworks and practical insights to handle the cultural challenges in managing people in a globalized workplace. Cross cultural management addresses topics including cross-cultural communication and understanding at both interpersonal and inter-organizational levels, leading multicultural and global virtual teams, cross-cultural leadership, managing cross-cultural joint ventures, transferring managerial practices across cultures, and managing international assignments.
To understand what is cross cultural relationship, we first need to understand what culture is.
Culture :
Culture is the philosophy of life, the values, norms and rules, and actual behavior - as well as the material and immaterial products from these – which are taken over by man from the past generations, and which man wants to bring forward to the next generation - eventually in a different form – and which in one way or another separate individuals belonging to the culture from individuals belonging to other cultures.
Cross-cultural organizational behavior (OB) is the study of cross-cultural similarities and differences in processes and behavior at work and the dynamics of cross-cultural interfaces in multicultural domestic and international contexts.
Any relationship at a workplace has its pros and cons. However, when it comes to cross cultural relationships, the advantages and challenges faced are different compared to a domestic workplace, which can be seen below.
Advantages Of