[International relation i] report

1. Julie BIGEY
Louis de FOUCHER
Woojin KIM
Class 14
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Should
managers
at
the
local
operation
blend
in
with
a
local
environment
or
do
we
want
to
differentiate
ourselves?
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Professor VU-HOANG Year 2013-2014

2. Acknowledgment
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We undersigned have not copied and have quoted
the sources, whenever wherever used.!
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Date :!
Signatures :
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3. Contents
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Executive Summary ………………………………………………………..…. p.1!
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I. Introduction: Globalization and Culture ..………………………………. p.2!
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II. Should We Blend In? ……………………………..……………..………… p.3!
1. Advantages: Localisation …………………………………………….… p.3!
2. Obstacle: Case Study (1) ……..……………..………………….….….. p.4!
3. Strategies: How to blend in with smoothly? ………………………..… p.5!
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III. Should We Differentiate Ourselves? …………………………..…….… p.7!
1. Advantages: Diversity ……..……………………..……………..……… p.7!
2. Obstacle: Case Study (2) …..……………..…………………………… p.8!
3. Strategies: How to differentiate ourselves efficiently? ……..…….… p.9!
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IV. Solution: Mixture of Two Strategies ………………………………….. p.10!
1. Glocalisation …………………………………………………………… p.10!
2. The 4 Cultural Dimensions ………………………..……………….…. p.11!
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V. Conclusion: To the Wiser International Management ……………… p.12!
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Bibliography - Webography ……………………………………….……..… p.13

4. Executive Summary!
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Before jump into our subject, in the introduction, we will look though the growing
importance of the globalization and the understanding of culture. Today globalization must
not be only defined by commerce with goods and services it is also a mixture of many
different peoples with different cultures. Based on their understanding of the globalization
and the culture, international managers also have to decide every each moment their
behaviors and their general attitudes as well at the local operation.
On the chapter 1, we’ll examine closely about the advantages when we blend in with a
local environment in both individual scale(Prevent mental disorder, Strong local
relationship, More local info & Linguistic advantage, High convenience of Family and High
feeling of achievement) and organizational scale(Relaxation, Diversity and High
productivity). Then we will see one case which can possibly happen in reality to figure out
some obstacles and the strategies which will help you to blend in smoothly: with basic 3
steps- Motivation, Linguistic ability, Interpersonal skill, and also additional 3 steps to go
further- Patience, Cultural empathy and Sense of humor.
On the next chapter, to solve the curiosity of why we need a heterogeneous team, we
provide some advantages derived from multicultural environment - Diversity. Diversity can
result in the increased creativity and new attitudes in the organization. There also is some
obstacles - ‘My way or Highway’ attitude, we’ll look though by a practical case of Mr.
Dupont. Lastly, we’ll provide some possible strategies for you to differentiate yourself more
efficiently: Non-dogmatic thinking, Linguistic effort, Body language and Lateral
thinking.
On the final chapter, we’ll provide the specific solution - the mixture of two strategies,
about when and in which situation you have to decide between two actions. Simply, ‘When
to blend in with a local environment and when to differentiate yourself?’ To answer that
question, we’ll use two concepts: Glocalization and the 4 Cultural Dimensions.
Finally we will talk about the rest of our ideas and thoughts regarding to the
international managerial attitude.
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5. I. Introduction: Globalization and Culture!
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"Language as a vehicle of culture may influence the thinking and behavior. [...] The
language can be transmitted, and culture (although more slowly) too. [...] Try to define
peoples in a different way than by their language, their religion, their customs, their
habitats, their economic behavior or their own sense of identity would have no meaning.”
- Jonathan Littell, <Les Bienveillantes>
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Some historians establish the beginning of the globalization at the 16th century with
the discovery of America and commerce overseas. Nowadays, the phenomenon is
accelerated by the huge development of the new technologies of information and
communication, the improvement of technology in transportation (trains and planes) and
the disappearance of real and virtual frontiers (economic areas like ALENA or
MERCOSUR, Schengen area and the internet) which deeply modified relations between
states, society and culture.
But globalization must not be only defined by commerce with goods and services it is
also a mixture of many different peoples with different cultures. UNESCO defines the
culture by “all of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that
characterized a society or a social group and that it includes, besides art and literature,
lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems , traditions and beliefs.” But it manifests
itself in the arts, religion, political structures, education, work organization, politeness and
other social structures.
Culture is both individual and collective; it is a social construction, directly or
indirectly wanted (unlike civilization) useful for the construction of the cultural identity of
individuals.
Current estimates on the total number of international foreign workers stand at about
25 million.
International mangers today have to face and solve lots of problems when1
operating abroad. Based on their understanding of the globalization and the culture,
international managers also have to decide every each moment their behaviors and their
general attitudes as well at the local operation.
This leads to our subject: Should managers at the local operation blend in with a
local environment or do we want to differentiate ourselves?
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Wikipedia ‘Foreign worker’1

6. II. Should We Blend In?!
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‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do.’ Does it really work today? In this chapter,
we will get to know the advantages by individual scale and organizational scale when
international managers succeed to blend in with a local environment. And a provided
case study will lead you to understand the possible disadvantages. Lastly, we will
suggest some proper strategies for localization.
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1. Advantages: Localisation
The advantages when an international manager succeeds his(her) localization can
be brought both in individual scale and also organizational scale where he belongs to.
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[Graphic 1] Individual & Organizational Scale
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A) Individual Scale
When an international manager blends in with a local environment, 1) it can
prevent from some mental disorders such as home sick, depression, insomnia and
some diseases caused from excessive stress which are likely to occur in a strange
environment. These can be able with the positive aspect to a new environment but not
with a negative aspect. When it comes to interpersonal relationship, he might be able to
have some serious and true relation with local workers and also local people, each
relationship enables an international manager to change a new, unfamiliar environment
to ‘his’ environment. In other words, 2) by interpersonal relationship with local
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7. people, 3) international managers can get easily local information and 4) consequently
it provides convenience to their family. One of the advantage is a linguistic advantage.
Appropriate localization can facilitate for international managers to acquire the language
skill more rapidly, and thereafter it becomes the foundation for his better localization
creating this virtuous circle.
B) Organizational Scale
The advantages in organizational scale are deeply related to individual success.
We can expect 1) relaxations of tension for the organization where he belongs to when
an international manager successfully blends in with a local environment. Furthermore,
it provides 2) diversity of products and improves 3) the productivity of the
organization. Thus, it will make the organization more competitive as a result.
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2. Obstacles: Case Study (1) - ‘‘Who am I?’’
In the case above, why did Mr. Dupont come to fail and go back to France despite
his effort? We are able to explain his failure by these reasons below:
•Loss of identity
•Unnatural effort
•Lack of patience
•Sense of humor
‘Blending in with a local environment’ does not mean that he has to totally change
his identity or his life style. Losing his identity in this case is the crucial factor which
brought him to failure. When someone looses his root, it’s equal that he looses himself.
Secondly, his effort was not so natural. Usually to achieve a goal, we need to make
effort more gradually in the long-run.
Mr. Dupont, who is living in Paris, is transferred to the Seoul office. Before moving
to Seoul, he learned Korean at his best, he also learned about the Korean culture by his
korean friends in Paris and read some books about Korea.
In the beginning of the life in Korea, everything was OK. Thanks to his efforts to
blend in with a environment, he could make more friends, and it helped him in many
ways to settle down in Korea.
He always tried to speak Korean language and to act like Koreans. However,
despite his efforts, he somehow started to be depressed. He figured out that he can
never speak Korean like his korean friends. And he missed everything in his country,
France. Eventually, he had to go back to his country in 5 month.
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8. And the lack of patience as well made him go back to his country. According to the
professor VU-HOANG, patience and respect are essential for international executives
because different culture have different reasons. Time is a necessary factor of learning.
He should have avoided all the temptations of comparing the new culture with the home
culture.
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Let's not forget humor's social benefits. According to the professor Peter McGraw,
and the journalist Joel Warner, not surprisingly, funny people receive positive attention
and admiration. Your ability to create and appreciate humor also influences who wants to
date, mate and befriend you. Most studies find humor to be a highly desirable attribute,
which explains why the acronym GSOH (good sense of humor) finds its way into
personal and online dating posts. And according to the work of Barb Frederickson and
others who examine the benefits of positivity, humor is an excellent way to boost your
creative prowess. Finally, humor smoothes potentially awkward social and cultural
interactions. Think about how much easier an uncomfortable situation can be when you
joke about it.
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3. Strategies: How to blend in smoothly?
We suggest a strategic approach(inspired by the professor VU-HOANG) to
succeed to blend in with a local environment like below.
The basic 3 steps are:
1) Motivation: Specific and intense motivation offers driving force of success
when working overseas. This factor applies also to his partner and family members.
/5 13
Conference <Competencies When Operating Abroad> / Professor VU-HOANG2
<The Humor Code: In Search Of What Makes Things Funny> / Peter McGraw, Joel Warner3

9. 2) Linguistic Ability: It is not about the total control of a specific language but it
is about the development of a feeling for others: the local expressions, the
information, the interest.
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3) Interpersonal Skill: It is the most important factor which helps creating
relationship. Developing interpersonal skills became an important and essential part
in business.
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If you get over those 3 basic steps, it means that you are ready to go further 3 steps
to be a successful international manager. Here are additional 3 steps:
1) Patience: It is absolutely a requirement in especially working abroad as
leaving overseas is not always full of joy. International managers should learn how
to tolerate.
2) Cultural Empathy: Without cultural empathy, it is extremely difficult to have
a continuous and stable life in that country.
3) Sense of Humor: It helps in terms of relaxations of tense to the organization.
In addition to that, it can be the most powerful weapon if one succeed to show his(or
her) personal charm which can attract people regardless of his language level.
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Then we are able to have diverse experience and also the opportunity for
employees’ personal growth. We will take about these advantages more precisely later
on.
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Conference <Competencies When Operating Abroad> / Professor VU-HOANG4

10. III. Should We Differentiate Ourselves?!
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Before getting to know why international managers have to differentiate
themselves, we’d better know the advantages of homogeneous teams made up of
people from the same race, gender, social background and age - often provide equal
access and participation of members, as there is less chance for exclusion. Members of a
homogeneous team will have an easier time of comprehending each other's verbal and
nonverbal communications and will have more shared experiences in common. The
similarities can, to some extent, avoid misunderstandings, prejudices and, arguably,
speed up work processes and the completion of tasks, although this is not always the
case as personality conflicts can occur within homogeneous teams as easily as within
heterogeneous teams. There is evidence, such as within educational programs for gifted
students, that homogenizing groups on the basis of intelligence provides a good
environment for high achievers to progress at a faster pace than is possible in mixed
ability groups.
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There starts a question. Despite these advantages, why do we need a
heterogeneous team? There is, of course, lots of advantage when we have a
heterogeneous team. However, if an international manager underestimates himself and
his power which can bring dynamic and creativity, the advantages of heterogeneous
team will never appear. In other words, international managers should differentiate
sometimes.
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1. Advantages: Diversity
When an international manager tries to differentiate themselves from the local
workers, we can expect such advantages:
1) Creativity increases when people with different ways of solving difficult
problems work together towards a common solution. There is no one best answer to
any question--the more ideas you can obtain from different people, the more likely
you are to develop a workable answer. Other cultures can offer insightful
alternatives one culture might not have considered. This is a tremendous advantage
of diversity in the workplace.
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2) New attitudes are brought to the business table by people from diverse
cultures. For instance, Americans may want to consider adopting the perspective
other cultures have about time. American culture believes that “time is money” and
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http://www.ehow.com/info_8357494_homogeneous-vs-heterogeneous-teams.html5
http://www.ehow.com/info_8357494_homogeneous-vs-heterogeneous-teams.html6

11. “getting to the bottom line” is paramount in business. However, in most other
countries around the world “time is for building relationships” and an integral part of
getting to know the other party you are considering doing business with before
starting a transaction. How much of an advantage would workplace diversity be if
we followed this practice more closely?
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2. Obstacles: Case Study (2) - ‘‘My way or Highway’’
As you see in the case above, there are two main problems which possibly occurs
when an international manager insists to differentiate himself away from a local
environment.
1) Communication Issues: Diversity impacts workplace communication in
positive and negative ways. Between co-workers, diversity can place impediments in
the way of effective communication, which can directly dampen productivity and the
cohesiveness of small groups. Spending time with diverse employees can break
down communication barriers over the long-term, but first impressions and co-
workers' orientation periods can be difficult to control when cultures clash.
2) Integration Issues: Social integration at work can only be influenced to a
small degree. The formation of cliques and exclusive social groups is a natural
process that can be impossible to control at times. Because of this, companies can
experience informal divisions in their staff, creating a situation where culturally
diverse employees avoid exposure to each other during break times and after work.
Although there is nothing fundamentally wrong with this scenario, it can hinder the
effectiveness of sharing knowledge, skills and experience, thus curbing productivity
growth and the effectiveness of teams.
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Mr. Dupont, who had a unpleasant experience in South Korea, is now transferred to
Tokyo as a marketing director specialized in French market. This time he knew how to
cope with everything, he tried not to loose his identity. As expected, that was what the
company expected from him working in the branch in Tokyo. He provided positive
diversity in the department, and it automatically increased productivity.
However some problems started to occur. He always speaks in English as he
doesn’t speak Japanese, but some local workers seem like having difficulties using
English. And also, Mr. Dupont feels lonely and somehow isolated from his Japanese
colleagues…
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http://www.ehow.com/info_8357494_homogeneous-vs-heterogeneous-teams.html7
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-disadvantages-diversity-workplace-3041.html8

12. 3. Strategies: How to differentiate ourselves efficiently?
Actually there are several things that we have to be extremely careful when we
want to distinguish ourselves from the local colleagues when operating abroad.
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1) We must not be any dogmatic thinking in particular assuming that is only
best way, ‘my way’.
- When we became dogmatic, it makes strong barriers which9
prevent harmony with other workers and also can be considered as ignorance or
even disregard for others.
2) Linguistic efforts to understand the language and acquire an enough language
level are required prior to differentiation of oneself. As we saw at the very beginning
of our report, language is regarded as ‘a vehicle of culture may influence the thinking
and behavior.’ A number of companies in the southwest United States, for example,
prefer to hire bi-lingual customer service reps to have less conflicts between spanish
and american co-workers.
3) We must take care of our body language, not only what you speak.
Whenever we are around other human beings, communication is taking place. We
are never not communicating. The average person speaks for a total of about 10 to
11 minutes a day and the average sentence takes only 2.5 seconds. But human beings
make 250,000 facial expressions per day.
The experts tell us that non-verbal signs10
have five times the impact of verbal signs.
4) The way of lateral thinking helps us to think more diversely and leads you to
decide how to differentiate more wisely each moment. Lateral thinking is to
reconstructing out of old existing patterns. It doesn’t need to be correct in every
process, we can also bring any irrelevant information and use them. Lateral thinking
is a process and way of thinking which doesn’t deny any ideas, we don’t assume or
expect to happen but welcome the unexpected interruption, and there is no even
category, label, segment fixed. Lateral thinking has power to generate various
alternatives.
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Conference <Expatriate and Managing Abroad> / Professor VU-HOANG9
http://www.thenextwomen.com/2012/05/02/international-management-skills-10
importance-understanding-cultural-differences

13. IV. Solution: Mixture of Two Strategies!
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Until now we learned about the strategy to blend in with a local environment and
to differentiate ourselves as well. But in reality, we cannot cope with every single
situation only with one strategy. For instance, in you’re having a meeting at branch in
China, would you cling to your position as a foreigner? In that case, if you’re not
blending with other local colleagues, you will need more energy and time to get your
message out to others even though your idea is good enough. On the other hand, if you
don’t make any difference with other Chinese colleagues, it’s almost like loosing your
own identity and the reason why you are there. Then, now we have to ask ourselves,
when and in which situation should we try to blend in, and to make ourselves different?
In this chapter of our report, we’ll provide proper solution for that.
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1. Glocalization
Glocalization
Glocalization (a portmanteau of globalization and localization) is a term denoting the
adaptation of a product or service specifically to each locality or culture in which it is sold. It is
similar to internationalization. The term “glocalization” is a newly coined blend of
globalization and localization refers to a concept to describe individual, group, organization,
product or service that reflects not only global standard but also local one.
The increasing presence of McDonald's restaurants worldwide is an example of globalization,
while the restaurant chain's menu changes in an attempt to appeal to local palates are an
example of glocalization. Glocalization means a case in which a global product is transformed
into another shape in order to meet the needs of local consumers.
For more examples, McDonald’s tried to satisfy the tastes of Korean consumers by making
Korean-style of hamburgers such as ‘Bulgogi burger’and ‘Kimchi burger’.
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The concept of Glocalizaton does not only apply to the company scale but also to
individual scale. You have to know how to optimize yourself to your environment
without loosing your identity which can be your own strength.
The "glocal strategy" concept comprises local, international, multinational, and
global strategy approaches. It differs from the global strategy approach, since it
explicitly recognizes the importance of local adaptations and tailoring in the marketplace
of business activities. In addition, it comprises typically international and multinational
strategy issues.
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Wikipedia ‘Glocalization’11
<Glocalization of Business Activities: A ‘’Glocal Strategy’’ Approach> / Goran Svensson12

14. Now you know that you have to ‘glocalize’ yourself properly. Our next strategy
will explain about how your ‘Glocal strategy’ can be implemented in reality depending
on where you are.
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2. The 4 Cultural Dimensions
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Blend in with a
local
environment
Differentiate
ourselves
Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory is a framework for cross-cultural communication,
developed by Geert Hofstede. It describes the effects of a society's culture on the values of its
members, and how these values relate to behavior, using a structure derived from factor analysis.
The theory has been widely used in several fields as a paradigm for research, particularly in cross-
cultural psychology, international management, and cross-cultural communication.
We analyzed by each 4 dimension and figured out which strategy is more fit and efficient between
two efforts - to blend in with a local environment and to differentiate ourselves - depending on
where you work according to the 4 cultural dimensions.
This does not mean that you only need to try to blend in with a local environment when you
are in a country of strong masculinity such as Germany. It shows that your effort to try to blend
in with the environment would be more stressed compared to when you are less masculine
country.
Hierarchic Distance
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Control of Uncertainty
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Individualism
Masculinity

15. V. Conclusion:!
To the Wiser International Management!
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It’s already the last page of our report. We studied about two different attitudes
whether to blend in or to differentiate ourselves, and it was a good opportunity to think
about our incoming future. We will probably work as an international manager or at least
at international and multicultural workplace. We might have to choose our attitude every
moment and take the action in the short term and in the long run.
Thanks to this given good opportunity by our beloved professor, Mr. VU-HOANG,
we could spend lots of time thinking about our future attitude. So actually our work was
not only about those two attitudes but also about our future.
Then at the end of our work, we can’t help asking ourselves. Is there an answer for
our question? We remember vividly that when we tried to search on the internet some
theories and cases concerning our subject at the beginning of our work. We thought there
were already given answers on the internet and what we had to do is just to get that
information. But it was not like that at all. There was not at all given answers anywhere.
At the last resort, we had to ask ourselves. We made all the cases in our report by
ourselves, revising the lessons of the professor VU-HOANG, and created new theory on
our own. Even though it was not perfect and written in poor english, we can’t deny that
this process gave a number of insights and lessons.
We should say that there is no equation like mathematics which we can apply to
every situation when it comes to international management. However, there are still
some clues and indicators if we look at them carefully which tell us where to go and
what to do. This ability is not something that we can gain by one-time learning - but
what we have to learn for our lives maybe.
We would like to finish with one nice figure of speech which describes
international management.
‘‘Managing an international team and business can be a different ball game and at
times may require a different skill set; however the satisfaction you’ll get out of it will be
even greater and it feels like the world is your oyster when you succeed.’’
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http://www.thenextwomen.com/2012/05/02/international-management-skills-13
importance-understanding-cultural-differences

16. Bibliography
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Books:!
• <Les Bienveillantes>, (2006), Jonathan Littell!
• <The Humor Code: In Search Of What Makes Things Funny>,
(2011), Peter McGraw, Joel Warner!
• <Lateral Thinking>, (1970), Edward De Bono!
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Revues:!
• <Glocalization of Business Activities: A ‘‘Glocal Strategy’’
Approach>, (2001), Goran Svensson / School of Management
and Economics, Växjö University and School of Economics and
Comercial Law, Göteborg University, Sweden!
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Internet:!
• http://www.ehow.com/info_8357494_homogeneous-vs-
heterogeneous-teams.html!
• http://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-disadvantages-
diversity-workplace-3041.html!
• http://www.thenextwomen.com/2012/05/02/international-
management-skills-importance-understanding-cultural-
differences
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