7BSP1208: International Business Plan - Managing in International Business - Report Writing Assignment Help

Internal Code: 1IDGA

Managing in International Business

Task: Tuckman (1965) identified four stages of team development, two of them being forming and storming. In the early stages of the project the team met the forming stage as there was little understanding on individual responsibilities. Hofstede’s (1980) study found that British society has a low power distance, therefore managers practice democratic leadership which according to Alharbi (2017) allows everyone to participate in decision-making. Though I volunteered to be secretary I offered others the opportunity for the role. However throughout most of the project I found that McGregor’s (1960) Theory X would have been a more effective leadership style to implement. The reason for applying McGregors Theory X wasn’t because the team individuals were insufficient, but because they appeared to respond better at being provided direction possibly because they were culturally familiar with authoritarian leadership. For future projects it is important not to immediately use authoritarian leadership, as it is important to allow individuals equal opportunity. However, it is important to consider that individuals, depending on their culture’s power distance, will respond differently to the opportunity to work independently. Therefore international managers need to be open minded to those individuals and be prepared to support them if they are unsure about their responsibilities. Crosta and McConnell (2010) state that Tuckman implies that teams cannot reach the norming step before overcoming the storming stage. Abudi (2016) supports this stating that team members will deliver different ideas causing group conflict. However, I found this contradicted with my experience with this team. There was significantly low contribution from individuals on how the project will be completed, which caused the team leader to feel that members were unreliable. Hofstede (1980) found that India and China have a high power distance dimension, therefore decisions by others, especially the team leader, are not challenged. Additionally, Commisceo Global (2017a and b) found that China and India individuals culturally value maintaining respect for others as well as themselves. Therefore individuals from China and India would aim to avoid conflict, and prevent this by restricting their involvement in group discussions. Team participation from all members is important, however as Phatak et al (2005) mentions, managers need to understand diverse cultural values. Therefore, for future projects I will follow Comfort and Franklin’s (2014) suggestion about being transparent when communicating with the team. This includes speaking individually to members and asking them specific questions about a particular part of the project they have the most to deliver upon. I believe this will ensure all members can participate without having to think entirely by themselves if they aren’t conformable with that approach. The process of delivering feedback to employees is an essential job role of managers (Molinsky, 2013), however individuals cultural backgrounds makes the whole process complex when dealing with individual feedback. While I am able to provide feedback to others on projects process, I have drawbacks on knowing how to communicate individual feedback to individuals from culturally collective backgrounds. Similarly, I have weaknesses regarding responding to conflict effectively before it increases and how to approach multicultural team conflict. Therefore I have created an action plan (See Appendix 1) to overcome these barriers, in order to obtain the required skills for an effective international business manager.