Cross-cultural management
CROSS-CULTURAL MANAGEMENT IN HTBG SMEs: CHALLENGES AND STRATEGIES INTRODUCTION
Cross-cultural management in the organization is one of the important factors of competitive advantage of today’s company in the global marketplace. Accelerated globalization, shortening of product or technology life cycle and openness of foreign markets have allowed many companies both large and SMEs to internationalize their activities and markets much more rapidly and early than the one advocated in the stage wise step-by-step globalization in the Uppsala model. Many SMEs technopreneurs during the turn of the millennium have took their firms into the global market from the very inception or following two to three years of their formation. Very rapidly, they have expanded to the foreign markets and encountered many challenges in the new markets. We call these firms as High-tech born global (HTBG) SMEs. The HTBG differs in many aspects from their peers. They offer similar kind of products and services in all the market they serve. The target population for their services has very often same social strata and do possess the same kind of attributes. However, there are still cultural differences in each of the market. The HTBG does not have the experience of dealing with cultural issues as they have no or little experience before they started their innovative ventures. Despite their innovative products and technological uniqueness, the HTBG faces enormous challenges to manage their ventures in abroad. In our knowledge, no study has ever taken to study how the HTBG SMEs manage their cultural diversity in the Head Office and their subsidiaries in abroad. The current study is exploring how the HTBG SMEs manage their cultural diversity in their head office as well as in the subsidiaries. Our discussion highlights whether these firms should transplant the HQ cultures to the subsidiaries or subsidiaries should have their own culture or the HTBG SMEs should develop corporate culture
Cross-cultural management in the organization is one of the important factors of competitive advantage of today’s company in the global marketplace. Accelerated globalization, shortening of product or technology life cycle and openness of foreign markets have allowed many companies both large and SMEs to internationalize their activities and markets much more rapidly and early than the one advocated in the stage wise step-by-step globalization in the Uppsala model. Many SMEs technopreneurs during the turn of the millennium have took their firms into the global market from the very inception or following two to three years of their formation. Very rapidly, they have expanded to the foreign markets and encountered many challenges in the new markets. We call these firms as High-tech born global (HTBG) SMEs. The HTBG differs in many aspects from their peers. They offer similar kind of products and services in all the market they serve. The target population for their services has very often same social strata and do possess the same kind of attributes. However, there are still cultural differences in each of the market. The HTBG does not have the experience of dealing with cultural issues as they have no or little experience before they started their innovative ventures. Despite their innovative products and technological uniqueness, the HTBG faces enormous challenges to manage their ventures in abroad. In our knowledge, no study has ever taken to study how the HTBG SMEs manage their cultural diversity in the Head Office and their subsidiaries in abroad. The current study is exploring how the HTBG SMEs manage their cultural diversity in their head office as well as in the subsidiaries. Our discussion highlights whether these firms should transplant the HQ cultures to the subsidiaries or subsidiaries should have their own culture or the HTBG SMEs should develop corporate culture
References: 1. Dessler, G. et al. La Gestion des organisations. Principes et tendances au XXIe siècle, 2e édition, Éditions, ERPI, 2009, 640 pages. 4. Emploi-Québec, Guide pratique de la gestion de la diversité interculturelle en emploi, Bibliothèque nationale du Québec, 2005, 91 pages.