Crossâ€Cultural Management in Albania

Cross–Cultural Management in Albania Brunilda Mucollari Daniela Hallaci Jona Likskendaj Arli Barxhani Eraldo Bode Date: 01/20/2014 Course: Organizational Behavior Leadership Instructor: Dr. Perparim Dervishi Part I â€Å"Culture is more often a source of conflict than of synergy. Cultural differences are a nuisance at best and often a disaster.† (www.uscivilizatio.com) Globalization, the land on which Cross – Cultural Management was sawed Intro Globalization is now becoming the future of the world. Humanity is now walking on the path that leads to, what we call â€Å"Becoming One†. Technology innovation is the main factor of this process. It brings people and cultures up together and by doing so they learn and enjoy each other’s way of living. The process seems to be long and basically changing us and bringing in front what we can consider positive or negative effects. People from different cultures in fact might have conflicts when working together, or they might share experiences and improve their selves. Cultures intercept each other to exchange knowledge, traditions and experience and history has taught this to us. On the other hand has also taught us that cultures exchange goods. At this point we come to the creation of a distinct concept; Cross – Cultural Management. Cross-Cultural Management â€Å"Cross-cultural management explains the behavior of people in organizations around the world and shows them how to work in organizations with employees and client populations from many different cultures.† (Kawar, 2012) Multinational companies existed as early as 2 000 B.C.; the Assyrians, the Phoenicians, the Greeks and the Romans – they all had their own version of globalize trading. Multinational Management is getting more and more necessary for all kinds of branches as the global market is shrinking. In the past century operation between advanced industrial countries had it up and downs. Because of the two world wars this partnership came to a halt. This wars, on the other hand gave a boost later on to the global market. After and between the two wars the World Bank was Created, International Monetary Fund and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and after the Berlin Wall fall new markets were opened to the free trade. These new emerging markets gave chances and opportunities to the business sector to increase their revenues. In fact every country has its culture and makes them distinguishable from each other, as in fact every country has its middle class that was and is willing to buy more international products and services. The need to decrease the costs without affecting the revenue but on contrary increase them makes the global entrepreneurs to invest and construct th eir plants in locations that provide lower cost of production. While companies grow and enter the international trade, their size increases with their earnings. When this happens the companies need to established their activity overseas and after than monitoring their activities across the border. This is in fact where cross-cultural management enters on the stage. Under these circumstances more and more the need for management is needed in the operations abroad. Managers often are part of the shareholder’s nationality, in other words an American business in Albania will definitely send an America citizen to manage their operations in Albania. The cultures are different between the two countries and this diversification brings up its problems. Problems â€Å"Cross†?!?! Dealing with people from different cultures and nationalities has its own problems. The main problem that Cross-Cultural Management faces is barriers. Barriers complicate the ongoing of operations and processes and tend to create mostly misunderstandings. The main barriers are: Language Culture Company Culture Language is the first tool when interacting with people. English is accepted as the international language all around the world and business has embraced this idea, but every country uses its own language firstly when dealing and communicating. Having said so, people have to learn first English even though it is not enough. The problem here is that words can lose their meaning when translated and the thought also. Culture also creates a huge barrier by its set of values, language, behavior, business ethics, expected etiquette or expressions. So if a manager operating in a foreign culture does not know the differences in the hosting culture, his or her message can be misunderstood. Company Culture mainly is considered as the norms and expectations that a company implies. This includes policies and specific procedures, the basis of a company’s culture. When a company enlarges its operations it is needed to find a connection between the cultures in order for the company culture to be accepted by the hosting culture. Culture shape Cross-Cultural Management! The vast part of a culture is absorbed by people during their childhood by the interaction with the surrounding people and environment and by doing so it helps people live within their society. Culture can be found on four different levels: National Level has to do with the differences between cultures in a national point of view. It deals with the values that people learn during their early life that becomes unchangeable and saint for them. Organizational level is the culture that is created within an organization and that is superficial. This culture is different from the company culture because it can change from an organization to another within the same country. Occupational level deals with different cultures created within an organization. This means that different cultures can be created in all departments of an organization. Gender level has to do with the cultures men and women create within their gender. This level can be defined as the most common one. In fact all the upper paragraphs are a theoretical overview of Cross-Cultural Management and this is what generally happens around the world but will all this theory feet in the Albanian reality. To give an idea about this point an Albanian case is presented in the second part of the paper. Part II EDUCATIONAL CENTRE RESEARCH Presentation of the Problem There are differences in cultures in general between countries, in addition to this there are differences among working countries as well. The problem is how this affects the way of managing the organization. Educational Centre is a company that operates in six countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Rumania, Montenegro, and Serbia. It is a Greek company and it has succeeded well. It is interesting to see how the different Bookshops are dealing with culture differences. Educational Centre main office is placed in Thessaloniki, Greece and it has branches in six countries. We will concentrate our thoughts on the below: Are there any differences in how the six offices in the different countries are managed? If yes, are they a result of national business culture differences? If not, why are there no differences? Purpose The purpose of this research is to get an insight on how difficult is to manage a company across cultures. The purpose is to come up with a result that will reflect this or with a solution to dealing with differences. Countries of Study The countries in the study are the branches of Educational Centre in six countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Rumania, Montenegro, Serbia Research Method There are different approaches in developing a research paper. We have chosen the qualitative method which is more about having long interviews with a smaller amount of people in order to get more detailed information. The purpose of this method is to receive thorough descriptions and it is very useful when you do not know much of the phenomenon, or very small amounts of researches have already been done, as in the case of Educational Centre. Although the qualitative approach does not give any foundation, which can be used as a generalization for results. The purpose of the research is to get more thorough knowledge and understanding how Educational Centers in six countries , the qualitative approach will be used with a deductive approach. Six branch managers in six countries will be interviewed. The selective selection of the interviews has been on the purpose of getting in contact with people that have great insight on how things work in an Educational Centre. So the analysis of the Qualitative approach will consist: Type of Data: Qualitative data, text sections which illustrate theoretical variables or categories Flexibility: Big Data and analysis: Interpret , in consecutive order and integrated with data collection Use beyond the concrete examination: Transferability All the interviews were intended to be filled in an sent back by email but in the end we had to Skype called and filled in with the answers. What is culture? Culture is a set of basic values, perceptions, wants and behaviors, related to achievement and success, activity and involvement, efficiency and practicality, progress, comfort, individualism, freedom, humanitarianism, youthfulness, fitness and health. Culture is the most basic cause of a person’s wants and behavior, learned by a member of the society from the family, his own life experience and other important institutions; COMPANY CULTURE? Organizational Culture: is the set of values, norms, standards of behavior, and common expectations that control the ways individuals and groups in an organization interact with each other and work together to achieve the organizational goals. The History of Educational Centers The Educational Centers were first opened in Rumania and Bulgaria in 1992 (at that time known as Oxford Centers) providing the exclusivity of Oxford University Press in both ELT and Academic publications. Mr. Petros Papasarantoupoulos is their owner. Later on in 1994 they opened the offices in Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and Moldova. The business has increased rapidly by the novelty it offered in six countries which before 1990 were all isolated to foreign publishing’s and were eager to leering foreign languages which was totally forbidden in communist times. In the coming years the business was going to expand to more than just an International Bookshop. It was going to Provide International Exams and International Qualifications for Teachers which was so much needed in order to meet the international standards. The Vision of Educational Centers Expand and the success of the business was due to a vision which Educational Centre followed: BETTER BOOKS, BETTER SERVICES. This was the philosophy everybody had to be focused how to be better. The Educational Centre Organization The company has such a flat structure. The Central Office is in Thessaloniki Greece and the branches are in the below countries directly depending on the Main office Thessaloniki: Educational Centre Albania Educational Centre Bulgaria Educational Centre Rumania Educational Centre Serbia Educational Centre Montenegro Educational Centre Moldova Results and Analysis It is important in analyzing the central office and the inspiration that this central office located in Thessaloniki is transmitting to its subordinate, Managers in six countries. Out of the questionnaire that is Appendix 1 at the end of this research paper resulted that , The global manager was a skilled one and he almost always took care of all the skills he is required to have in order to be successful. He paid too much attention of the regional differences in terms of subordinate and much more attention in terms of suppliers in international cultures. Attention was paid to his subordinates in terms of respect and always asked for the best possible to include all his managers in setting strategies and being involved in team decisions. So ethical values that they should respect in the company were central to the CEO of Educational Centers . Business Culture Due to the fact that almost all of these countries were mainly coming out of the Communism effects in the 1990s they were relatively quiet new to business culture. While people in Greece, from antiquity, have been quite skilled with business and trade. A new culture was imposed to these people in the all these countries. They were more than open to a new business and especially focused in Foreign Literature. But there was needed a knowhow to settle it in a conservative market. The imposed culture in all these countries has been almost similar but being adapted in the way it could have been most successful. The results given in this table are coming as an analysis of the questionnaire given to the Managers in all these countries, revealed in the Appendix 2 in the end. In the analysis you will see that there are some slight changes between management in some countries due to the slight cultural differences. The Analysis In all these countries as we may see there are a lot of similarities. First of all the structure is flat and the people are freely invited to talk to local managers and express their opinions. Every company uses first name based communications, which makes the atmosphere more warm and human based. The employee seems to be trusted only 10% turnover seems to be present in some countries, which means that people feel comfortable and happy to work for the company. The company pays attention to the worked by organizing trips and meetings which helps so much in building the team spirit. An important impact from the analysis is also the values inside the company. People from the selection phase before entering the job are requested to be honest, responsible, loyal which are important in building a team spirit inside the companies. Although may be slight changes in the order and qualities requested as the most important in a company. But they all are important and they all respect an inspired top management atmosphere. Cross Cultural differences There may be seen slight changes in the way people from these different countries see their colleagues in the other countries concerning the way they express their emotions. Some countries are more open than the others, but what is important is that they all pay attention in respecting their colleagues in other countries. We may also have to take into consideration if these is all the work of them or is an inspired leader to dictate their way? If we base our self at Appendix 1 analysis we will see that the figure of the Top Management shows how much are taken in to consideration the differences between cultures before making a decision and all the skills required to be a good manager in a cross cultural environment. Being a successful manager means: Gather information information about other cultures Have an open-minded approach to different cultures and values Show cultural differences and make the others aware of them and understand and gain valid experiences from them Learn from other cultural experiences and train people to attend cross cultural training and sessions All the above points are some of the most important noticed at the Educational Centre Top Management characteristics, which make him a skilled Global Manager. Results The noticeable result out of the research was that between Educational Centers in these countries tried hard to keep a unique culture, norms and values. The way that this is shown is that in every Educational Centre, everyone is participating in team building activities. The way they are all coping with cultural differences is very inspiring; it may seem somehow restricted to the Top management way. It is how they are working on preserving their own values and norms that are remarkable. From the very first day as an employee you will feel the culture and values within the institution, if you are not in tune with them they will be enforced upon you. So a newcomer will by rule follow the company trainings and then the sister companies trainings until being part of a trained team. The managers also participate in routine checkups to ensure that the staff is living by these norms, the staff answers questions regarding if the managers are working by them as well. You could say that Educational Centre does not fail on the aspect of taking in mind other countries’ cultures. They know about the different cultures in the countries where they enter, in order not to offend anyone. But they go on by imposing a similar culture. It is almost impossible for Educational Centers to offer what market offers, they have to be unique in what offer and their concept – it has been a winning concept so far. The main concerns for these companies, such as Educational centers, are to make sure they have strong culture on their own. They should have clear values and norms and this should be diffused throughout the entire organization. It is also necessary that everyone feels comfortable making their voice heard working in an environment with differences in cultures. If they would not be so open in the organization and having such a flat hierarchy there probably would be a lot more complications. References Publishing References Cross Cultural Management, Ray French , second edition, cipd Ajohannssen and P.A.Tufte 2003 Hofstede , Geert and Hofstede , Gerty Jan 2005 Interviews: B. Mucollari – Educational Centre Albania(Manager) R. Saric- Educational Centre Serbia(Manager) G. Puerda – Educational Centre Romania(Manager) T. Cernoc- Educational Centre Moldova (Manager) Bogovac – Educational Centre Montenegro (Manager) K. Tetova – Educational Centre Bulgaria (Manager) http://uscivilization.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/01/ Kawar, T.I (2012). Cross-cultural Difference in Management.Journal of Business and Social Science , 3(6), 107.

Computers in Sports Essay

Computers in Games and Sports Practically everybody has played sports video games on a computer. It’s fun to pick a team and see how well you can play against a â€Å"virtual† rival. However, the uses for computers in various games and sports go far beyond video games. If you ask a cricket bowler how he throws a ball, he may not be able to tell you. He may say it’s just â€Å"instinct. † It’s something that comes naturally to him. The fact is that there are ways to help bowlers become better bowlers and batsmen become better hitters. And computers are important in making this happen. Cricket players from the major leagues down to city and school teams can now have their batting and pitching analyzed. First, the player’s movements are videotaped. Then, these videotaped images are transferred into a computer. Special application software analyzes the images. It measures the exact angle at which the player is holding his arms and legs. The speed and efficiency of each body movement is measured. This process is called motion analysis. One pitch can be compared with another. This can be useful because the bowler can see how changes in movement affect the result (such as how fast a ball travels). Some systems can even measure pitching and hitting motions during an actual game. This allows coaches to give immediate feedback to players. These computer applications also can be used to compare the movements of two different players. These comparisons, for example, can help explain why different players tend to hit the ball in different directions. There are also computer applications that help coaches keep track of exactly where each ball crosses the pitch. A radar gun can be attached to the computer to measure a pitch’s speed. This information is stored in the computer so that the bowler and coach can study it later. While motion analysis applications are important tools, it still takes a good coach to know how to interpret the results. The coach must look at the information the application provides and then use it to help the player improve. Everybody knows how important statistics (or stats) are in sports. How many games has your favourite batsman played this year? Which player on the Kolkata Knight Riders has the best batting average? The quantity of statistics used in sports is enormous. Without computers, it would be very difficult to keep these statistics up-to-date. Not only are there team statistics, but there are also statistics on each individual player. For example, statistics on an individual cricket player might include times at bat, batting average, and number of runs scored b him. Spreadsheet applications are often used to keep track of statistics. Spreadsheet applications are computer programs that can store and manipulate numbers. For example, they can find the average of a list of twenty numbers. Even small league teams often use spreadsheet applications to keep track of player statistics. Going to a cricket stadium is almost like going to the circus. There are hotdogs, popcorn, and a scoreboard complete with a gigantic TV-like screen. Stadiums, such as the Eden Gardens Kolkata, have very complex scoreboards. The new scoreboard is 56 feet tall and 180 feet wide. It includes a giant screen to add to the excitement. The best-known type of giant screen is the Sony Jumbotron. The pictures on these screens move from the players to the crowd. They show cartoons of the team’s mascot. They may display the words to â€Å"Time Is Up† so that everybody can join in the singing. These scoreboards and giant screens are controlled by an entire group of computers. Each computer supplies the scoreboard with different information. One computer might keep track of statistics on particular players, while another might contain commercial advertisements. These giant screens can even be used for educational purposes. In 2000, the University of Tennessee’s athletics and physics departments joined together to create a group of 60-second videos. These videos were shown on the school’s Jumbotron during home games. The purpose of the videos was to teach fans about the science of football. This was a fun way to join together sports and education. Athletes who depend on speed to win will stop at nothing to reduce their times. Some Olympic swimmers wear full-body â€Å"skinsuits† so they can glide through the water more easily. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise to hear that they use computer applications to improve their speeds. At the U. S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado, coaches use a computer application to develop perfect swimming strokes. This simulation software attempts to copy the way water flows around parts of the swimmer’s body, such as the arms and hands. The swimmer’s goal is to move through the water as smoothly as possible. Water turbulence can slow a swimmer down. The application allows the user to change the positions of the swimmer’s hands and arms. The user can then see how these changes affect the amount of water turbulence. This information is used to design the best swimming stroke. Coaches can then teach swimmers to use this stroke to obtain their greatest speed. Simulation software has also been used to design racing yachts. It can help in determining how to shape the yacht’s hull so that it moves through the water with the least amount of resistance. Computers have many other uses at the Olympics. At the 2010 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, tiny computer chips were used to track skiers. A chip was strapped to each skier’s ankle. Electronic devices were buried in the snow along the track. When a skier passed over one of the devices, his or his chip sent information to the device. This information included the skier’s location, speed, and number. This information was sent to a central computer. Judges and other Olympic officials could then look at it. Do you want to know if the Kolkata Knight Riders have a home game on July 14? Or who the Sri Lanka is playing next Wednesday? Just go to their Web site. Professional, college, and even some high school sports teams have their own WEB SITES. The information available on sports teams’ Web sites is amazing. Some of it includes:†¢ Schedules. Game dates and locations are available. †¢ Statistics. Up-to-the-minute information on teams and individual players is ready whenever you want it. †¢ Team News. Web sites contain coach and player interviews, information on injuries, and so forth.

Political Philosophy Is Utilitarianism the Best Way to...

Utilitarianism states that the moral worth of an act is completely determined by its practicality in reducing negative service and exploiting utility as summed in every sentient being. The utility principle states that an act is right if it produces more pleasure of all people affected by and immoral if it doesnt. It is founded on the idea that happiness and pleasure are naturally treasured and suffering and pain are not, and that all else has value if it is generating pleasure and inhibiting happiness. In his article Marx on Utilitarianism, Ronald West states, â€Å"There are several systems of Utilitarianism, each looking to overcome the flaws within it. For example, the meaning of â€Å"the totality of human pleasure,† even when defined following Mill in terms of the maximum price someone would be ready to pay for something, is problematical. 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Cultutral Gender Roles Essay - 1296 Words

Cultural Gender Roles In most cultures, boys and girls are treated very differently. Despite the differences of gender, upbringing creates gender behavior, including aggression and gentility; societal stereotypes of gender, and most importantly, gender-based discrimination. Throughout history and in all cultures the roles of males and females vary. Relating to the article Girl written by Jamaica Kincaid at a time when womens roles were to work in the home. By examining gender roles, then one may better understand how women and men interact and how better to build relationships at home and in the world of business. At the time that this article was written, women mainly stayed at home and did housework while few of the very poorest†¦show more content†¦In the research done on â€Å"Sex Roles, Pink or Blue: Environmental Gender Stereotypes in the First Two Years of Life,† by Andree Pomerleau, Daniel Bolduc, Gerard Malcuit, and Louise Cossette at the University of Montr eal stated that the physical environment of girls and boys will have an impact on the development of specific abilities and activities in children. In the research, three age groups were investigated and given types and colors of toys and have determined that boys prefer sports and large and small vehicles while girls had more dolls and fictional characters. The research proves that boys are more active and aggressive than girls. The research shows that as early as 18 months of age, children are already predisposed by sex stereotypes by their parents. In the article â€Å"Parental Influence on Children’s Socialization to Gender Roles† by Susan D. Witt states that parents expose their children at an early age of what it means to be a boy and a girl. Witt argues that parents do play a role in gender stereotypes to their children as early on as infants. Witt explains how parents decorate a child’s room. Witt states that children grow and develop gender stereotypes at home. She explains how parents encourage their children to participate in sex-typed activities, sports, and role play. Witt reveals that both parents contribute to the gender stereotyping but fathers have been found to reinforce gender stereotypes more often that mothers. Witt’s audience is