INTERNATIONAL” MANAGERS
Managers who can operate effectively across cultures and national borders are invaluable in global business. As more and more companies expand abroad, competition for top talent to run new international operations will steadily grow. The 2010s will test the capacities of multinational corporations to react rapidly to global changes in human resources as in all other areas of the company. Global selection systems enable a company to find the best person anywhere in the world for a given position. The system measures applicants according to a group of 12 character attributes. These twelve categories are: motivations, expectations, open-mindedness, and respect for other beliefs, trust in people, tolerance, personal control, flexibility, patience, social adaptability, initiative, and risk-taking, sense of humor, interpersonal interest, and spouse communication. An effective international executive displays a combination of desirable personal qualities. These include adaptability, independence, leadership, - even charisma. What part can management education play in developing the international manager? A good deal. Management education can provide training in international marketing, finance and such international relations. Knowledge areas the international manager will need include understanding of the global economy and foreign business systems, international marketing, international financial management, political risk analysis and the ability to analyze and develop sophisticated global strategies. We can also point to skills such as communication, leadership, and motivation, decision-making, team-building and negotiation. Research indicates that national cultural differences can have important effects. The international manager is said to spend over half of his or her time in negotiation. International managers should know how foreign cultures affect organizational behaviour and management style. They should understand how their own culture affects their own style.
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SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT
No one has had more influence on managers in the 20th century than Frederick W. Taylor, an American engineer. He set a pattern for industrial work which many others have followed, and although his approach to management has been criticized, his ideas are still of practical importance. Taylor founded the school of Scientific Management just before the 1914-18 war. He argued that work should be studied and analyzed systematically. The operations required to perform a particular job could be identified, then arranged in a logical sequence. After this was done, a worker’s productivity would increase. The new method was scientific. The way of doing a job would be no longer be determined by guesswork and rule-of-thumb practices. If the worker followed the prescribed approach, his-her output would increase. Taylor’s solutions to the problems were based on his own experience. He conducted many experiments to find out how to improve productivity. He felt that managers used not the right methods and the workers didn’t put much effort into their job. He wanted a new approach to be adapted to their work. The new way as follows: 1. Each operation of a job was studied and analyzed; 2. Using the information, management worked out the time and method for each job, and the type of equipment. 3. The work was organized so that the worker’s only responsibility was to do the job in the prescribed manner. 4. Men with the right physical skills were selected and trained for the job. The weakness of his approach was that it focused on the system of work rather than on the worker. With this system a worker becomes a tool in the hands of management. Another criticism is that it leads to deskilling – reducing the skills of workers. And with educational standards rising among factory workers, dissatisfaction is likely to increase.
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