International HRM PowerPoint Presentation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

International HRM - PowerPoint Presentation Example Other studies suggest that there are certain aspects to business organisations like technology, structure and other common practices that transcend culture and form a commonality between how businesses operate across cultures (Kerr et al, 1973 & Hickson et al, 1979 cited in Mullins, 1999). In Hofstede’s words, â€Å"effective multinationals have created practices that bridge the national value differences† (1997). This suggests that uniformity in organisational structure may in fact help the organisation create its own culture regardless of national culture differences. These common practices are what help international managers operate effectively beyond their own cultures. Identifying Cultural Differences and Prejudices: â€Å"One’s own culture provides the ‘lens’ through which we view the world; the ‘logic’ by which we order it; and the ‘grammar’ by which it makes sense† (Avruch and Black, 1991) Hofstede (1994, 199 7), argues that ethnocentrism, the behaviour where one considers their own culture to be superior over others, has no place in a world that is getting smaller due to globalisation. The same applies to management, as Evans et al (1989) suggest that managerial styles designed in one culture may not easily translate to another because of the differences in traditions and values of the management and workforce. Globalisation has increased pressure upon firms to invest across cultures to maintain their competitive advantage and to be open for new opportunities. This calls for international managers to be prepared for the challenges they may face as they venture into unknown cultures. Understanding people requires understanding their background, as their background has provided them with their culture and would help one predict their present and future behaviour (Hofstede, 1991 cited in Tulder & Zwart, 2006; Scullion and Linehan, 2005). This calls for an understanding of historical origin s of culture in terms of religious beliefs, values and norms (Hofstede and Bond, 1988). In most cases cultural traits can be identified through culture-specific literature, for example, the Holy Bible, which has historic significance in the evolution of both American and British cultures. Both cultures, argues Cleary (1991), are derived from belief in Biblical texts, which suggest an absolute truth outside of oneself, and as a consequence, one evaluates issues in terms of absolutes and fixed goals. So both Brits and Americans, or westerners in the general sense, according to Trompenaars (1993), tend to be goal oriented and tend to rely on legal contracts during business negotiations. Also, as multicultural nations, both offer a weak culture (Robbins, 2003), which is flexible to change. People in both cultures also tend to be more short-term oriented in their association with organisations. Evans et al (1989) suggest that in the west in general, â€Å"workers ‘sell’ the ir time to the company for wages and do not owe any allegiance to the company in their own time† (pg130). The Five Cultural Dimensions: Hofstede’s five dimensions of cultural values can be now applied to both cultures to better understand the challenges of cross-cultural management, and to derive suggestions for the International

Philosophy of Social Science Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Philosophy of Social Science - Essay Example (Gordon, 3) The considering of this second aspect engendered by social science, connects it to ethics, to the study of values. Dealing with the concept of "philosophy of social science", the same author defines it as "the study of how we are able to know whether our notions or theories about empirical phenomena are true or false." (3) Another definition is that the philosophy of social science is the study of the logic and the methods of social sciences. This second definition appears in the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. According to the same source the problems it deals with are those connected to answering questions like: "What are the criteria of a good social explanation", "How are the social sciences distinct from the natural sciences", "Is there a distinct method for social research", "Through what sorts of empirical procedures are social science assertions to be evaluated", "Are there irreducible social laws", "Are there causal relations among social phenomena", "Do social facts and regularities require some form of reduction to facts and regularities involving only the properties and actions o f individuals" One of the problems the philosophy of social science is concerned with is that regarding methodology... dividuals having to conform to a model or pattern offered by society, nowadays conceptions emphasize on the importance of respecting one's individuality, conception based on the idea that all human beings are free to choose their own and personal way of life. As a consequence of individualization, a new method of social science research appeared: the biographical method.Extensively discussed in The Turn to Biographical Methods in Social Science: Comparative Issues and Examples, the biographical method is new to the field of the social science methodology. The explanation the authors give in regard to the fact that social science researchers rejected this method until recently, lies in the fact that "modeling themselves on the natural scientists", they "set out to construct models of body and mind which described uniformities and regularities, and which enabled human behavior to be understood "objectively", that is in terms of its abstracted common attributes" (Chamberlayne, Bornat an d Wengraf, 36). The authors mention the fact that, although biography is commonly regarded today as a written work, it is, in fact, a production of face to face oral communication. The definition provided by the same researchers connects it to the social integration aspect: "The work of orienting the temporal process of the individual's life and of social change." (115) Through biography, meaning by telling their life, people integrate themselves in a context and realize that they belong to a structure, they reconstruct themselves. The biographical method was attacked, researchers warning about its inadequacy and supporting their position by two main reasons: the possibility of having to do with what was called "a neurotic narrator", or a person who invents the facts presented as