Producing ‘Global’ Managers through the Teaching of Cross-Cultural Differences in Business Schools: An Insider Perspective

Abstract

Culture is a set of mutually agreed upon manners that every society follows. Whenever an individual is presented in a different environment and atmosphere a lot of unforeseen situations may happen .Some of these are funny while some can be very embarrassing .Therefore, an understanding of different cultures has become a must in today’s global lifestyle. Cross cultural understanding becomes all the more important in the business world. Most of the companies grow by expanding their horizons and spreading their wings in different countries. Understanding the other countrys culture (language, customs, etiquette, and people) not only facilitates communication in business but also builds bridges between the foreign companies and the local employees. India is fast becoming the centre for global business with new multinationals from every field of business vying to enter the Indian market. Another important trend is the hiring of employees from all over the world. Therefore, to succeed in international markets, sales managers, sales teams and HR managers need to understand how such factors as geography, culture, etiquette, society, people and languages impact on business. In this scenario, it becomes essential that the M.B.A. professionals produced by our business schools produce be aware of the cross cultural differences and also competent enough to adjust to these differences to achieve their business goals. In order to develop a better cross cultural understanding among our students, it is important that we make the teaching of cross-cultural communication an important part of our curriculum and also a feature of our classroom activities. An ideal situation would be the possibility of our students to interact with students and people from different countries .Another way of developing cross cultural understanding among our future managers is by modifying our pedagogy and developing interest of students in all cross-cultural issues through classroom teaching. And this can be best done by the communication skills or soft skills department in a business school. Therefore, in our paper, we will attempt to present the importance of cross cultural issues for business management students and the various methods and activities that have been and can be used within the classroom to develop a deeper understanding of cross cultural differences and produce real global managers for the future.

Keywords : Cross-Cultural Teaching, Global Business Education, Future Managers.

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