1. Managing across Cultures
MGMT 544:
Managing across Cultures
Professor Xiao-Ping Chen
University of Washington
Spring, 2005

2. International career
What do the companies that manage expats effectively do?
Cross-cultural training
Case analysis: Catskill Roads

3. Sending people for right reasons:
What do the companies that manage expats effectively do? (Nokia, Honda, GE, LG Group…)
Three things:
Sending people for right reasons:
focus on knowledge creation and global leadership development
Sending the right people:
people whose technical skills are matched or exceeded by their cross-cultural abilities

4. Who are the right people?
A drive to communicate
Broad-based sociability
Cultural flexibility
Cosmopolitan orientation
A collaborative negotiation style

5. 3. Finishing the right way:
What do the companies that manage expats effectively do? (Nokia, Honda, GE, LG Group…)
3. Finishing the right way:
end expatriate assignments with a deliberate repatriation process

6. Gillette’s international trainee program
Gillette’s consumer businesses
Personal grooming products for men and women
Stationary products
Small electrical appliances
Brand names: Braun, Oral-B, Liquid Paper, Paper Mate

7. Gillette’s international business
International markets generate > 70% of total sales and operating profit
> 75% of Gillette employees work outside the US
Gillette does business in more than 200 countries and territories
Global deployment of people created the need for the international trainee program

8. International Trainee Program
Trainees work at Gillette subsidiaries in their home countries for 6 months
Then transferred to one of Gillette’s 3 international HQs: Boston, London, Singapore for 18 months
Grads. then return to their home countries to assume entry-level mgmt positions
If successful they move to other assignments in other countries

9. International trainee program
Eventually the most successful trainees return to their home countries as general managers or senior operating managers
Objective: not to fill short-term vacancies
Objective: hire and develop people who want careers with global dimensions

10. To qualify, trainees must be
Adaptable + good social skills
< 30 years old, single
Mobile + oriented toward an international career
Fluent in English
Enthusiastic and aggressive

11. International trainee program
Home countries of current trainees:
Argentina, Brazil, China, Columbia, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Russia, S. Africa, Turkey, Venezuela

12. A practical but theory-based framework
Theory: Social Learning Theory (SLT)
Learning takes place by (1) the effect of reinforcement and (2) imitating or modeling
Four elements:
attention
retention
reproduction
incentives and the motivational processes

13. Findings related to learning process
Gradual modeling is more effective than “one-shot” modeling
Individuals can learn completely through symbolic modeling
Participative modeling is generally more effective than symbolic process alone

14. Cross-cultural training (CCT)
Rigor of the training program
Important situational factors:
Culture novelty
Degree of interaction
Job novelty

15. Catskill Roads Background info. Moves: Decision: To go or not to go?
Kathryn Hill-Baker
Brian Baker
Universal Bank (Bob Jasper; Jim Collins)
Moves:
NY—Argentina—NY—Mexico City?
Decision: To go or not to go?

16. Questions What went wrong? What should have UB done?
What should Brian and Kathryn do?

17. What is a “perfect” expatriation program?
Selection: what criteria should determine who would go?
Preparation: what type and how long should the preparation be?
Overseas support: what type of support does an employee need while overseas?
Reentry: what type of a position should the expatriate return to? Who should determine that? When should the position search begin?