The International Manager

Currently, internationally dispersed teams are commonplace among global companies. Managers are often aware conceptually of the different dimensions of culture, yet struggle to translate these concepts into their daily activities. This book gives managers insight into specific techniques they can use to better manage their intercultural teams and deal with partners, suppliers, and customers from other countries. It gives practical strategies for how to apply popular management models in other cultures. All intercultural problems initially manifest as communication problems. For this reason, The International Manager starts with practical insight into interpersonal (verbal and non-verbal) communication against a cross-cultural background. The element of culture is added with the introduction of the Hofstede model of culture. The book then applies these frameworks to four key aspects of the manager’s responsibilities: managing performance, managing teams, managing change, and managing negotiations. Along the way, the book provides 100 practical tips for successful intercultural cooperation that the manager can start using immediately. This book targets managers in companies whose business takes place in a global context. It should benefit globally operating product and marketing managers, engineers, project leaders, program managers, change managers, and specialists. Two specific groups that can benefit are managers who steer intercultural teams and managers who manage their company’s interaction with suppliers, customers, and partners from other cultures. With its vast amount of new practical tips, this book provides managers with an extremely useful reference they can rely on in their daily business lives.

The book discusses international assignment-related decision-making by emerging market firms and their employees. It reveals that the ongoing, reciprocal interactions between the organisational and individual discourses, structures, processes, and the wider macro context spark multilevel role transitions and identity work. The book uncovers the macro-, meso-, and micro-level factors of role transitions and identity work, as well as their outcomes for international staffing. It also expands on the role (transition), social categorisation, and social identity theories by applying them to international staffing. Finally, it presents practical insights for international human resources managers by presenting several 'soft' approaches to managing international employee mobility, such as employer branding, prioritisation of favourable discourses and identities, and encouraging role hybridisation.

The Mindful International Manager tackles the management situations that international managers have to handle every day. Accessible and jargon-free it explains how to clarify local vs. international roles, support and develop a team, organize and coordinate boundaries of time and distance, and win commitment toward common goals. The authors, both interculturalists, include exercises and best practice advice and the experiences and insights of practising international managers. They combine their practical approach with great depth of insight into the challenges of working and managing internationally and include the results of new research findings and cutting-edge case studies on topics such as leadership, global nomads, virtual teams, coaching and mentoring across cultures and decision-making.

The Mindful International Manager tackles the management situations that international managers have to handle every day. Written to be accessible to non-native English speakers, it quotes the experiences and insights of practicing international managers and describes differences and difficulties as well as the skills and competences. Equipping readers with the techniques and knowledge to motivate and manage their teams, this book shows how to clarify local vs. international roles, support and develop a team, organize and coordinate boundaries of time and distance, and win commitment toward common goals. It contains exercises, best practice advice, quotes from practicing managers from around the world, and a glossary of difficult terms. Visit the website at http://www.themindfulinternationalmanager.com/.

An in-depth look at the desired professional profile of new international managers in different aspects of business. It examines the qualities an international manager needs to possess, including commitment to environmental sustainability, sensitivity toward gender and diversity issues and an engagement in progressive entrepreneurship.

Business is becoming increasingly global in scale, and this trend will increase throughout the 1990s, both with the advent of the Single Market, and the further internationalization of world markets generally. The cross-cultural business dealings which this phenomenon necessitates call for a high level of communication skills, and managers are often faced with unfamiliar and perplexing environments.