Crossing borders. What competencies are appropriate to ensure greater effectiveness of U.S. employees operating in a maquiladora or other non-U.S. organization?

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Case 3 – Crossing Borders

1.        What competencies are appropriate to ensure greater effectiveness of U.S. employees operating in a maquiladora or other non-U.S. organization?

The competencies appropriate to ensure greater effectiveness of U.S. employees operating in maquiladora, or other non-U.S. organizations, are as follows:

·        The ability to understand the need for an environmental scan, and interpret what the environmental scan highlights, before reaching their work destination. This can help to better prepare employees entering a new culture, revealing to them what they might have to expect. This can also be said for conducting and interpreting demographic research.

·        Employees should arm themselves with cultural intelligence, (they must undergo training and orientation of the foreign culture). This will give them a better understanding of the local population and in turn assist in allowing effective communication with them.

·        Employees must possess a global mind-set, (the ability to develop and interpret criteria for business performance that are not dependent on the assumptions of a single country, culture or context and to implement those criteria appropriately in different countries, cultures and contexts).

·        Employees must be able to balance the needs for global consistency and local responsiveness. Employees must be able to show sensitivity to the culture in which they are operating, and yet be able to operate, (perform their function as an employee), effectively.

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·        Employee must attempt to overcome the language barrier, either by gaining knowledge of the local language, or having a means of interpreting the local language. This can be vital since communication is key to the effectiveness and success of any operation. Employees may at the least want to determine as to whether they are facing a low-context culture, or a high-context culture.

·        Employees need to determine the time orientation of the culture, (if they are polychronic culture or monochromic culture), as this will determine how they direct their subordinates, and in turn how they run the operation as a whole.

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