International Business and Culture

Leaders and organisations have the responsibility to create, nurture and maintain a certain organizational culture. Organisational culture refers to the common beliefs used by a certain group to govern perceptions, thoughts, actions and feelings of the group. Culture is simply the way things are done in or by an organisation. In most cases, organizational culture is influenced by the management. An organisational culture is based on past experiences and evolves with time, situations and actions of every employee and the leaders (Czinkota, Ronkainen, Moffett, Marinoca and Marinov, 2009).
In 1993, Robert J. House launched the Global Leadership and Organisational Behaviour Effectiveness research program (GLOBE). This was meant to examine how leaders relate to culture. In more than six years, investigators from over sixty different cultures have been involved in this research. The researchers asked the middle managers how cultural differences have affected their leadership. The second phase of the research showed that some leadership attributes are impediments to outstanding leadership. The most interesting attribute was the cultural-continent as a hindrance to leadership (Francesco and Gold, 2005). What was considered to be strength in one culture was found to be an impediment for leadership in another culture.
Global business organisations have their cultures developed and shaped by the business and the people who run them. Most global business leaders are products of unique cultures determined by their regions of study and previous employments. A good example is the case of a British executive who studied in the American business schools and was placed in charge of a Japanese firm in Brazil. The executive was required to perceive leadership according to the culture of the country of work. He was also required to perceive leadership from the same perspective as the employees (House, 1999). The Tata Company has successfully expanded its business to other parts of