International Dimensions ofOrganizational Behavior

Collectivism:

The process of placing heavy emphasis on the group and valuing harmony among members.

Cross Communcation:

Communcations across chains of command also lateral communcations.

Culture:

See Organizational culture; the set of values, beliefs, and norms that is shared among its memders. And Social culture; Social environment of himan&-created beliefs, customs, knowledge, and practices that conventional behavior in a society.

Cultural Contingency:

That the most productive practices for a particular nation will depend heavily on its culture.

Cultural Distance:

The amount of difference between any two social systems.

Cultural Empathy:

Awareness and apprecation of differences across cultures and the way those differences effect business relationships.

Cultural Shock:

Feeling of confusion, insecurity, and anixety caused by a starnge new environment.

Ethomecentrism:

A predispostion to use oneself as the criterion for judging others.

Expatriates:

Employees who work in a nation (and culture) different from their own.

Feminine Societies:

Societies characterized by a border viewpoint of the great varity of roles that both nales and females can play in the workplace and at home.

Geocentric Organizations:

Those which largely ignore nationally while accenting ability in their work related decisions.

Individualism:

The process of placing greatest emphasis on  one's individual rights and freedoms.

Individualization:

The process through which employees successfully exert influence on the socail system around them.

Masculine Societies:

Those defining gender roles in traditional and sterotypical ways.

Multiculturalism:

The successful bwlwnding of two or more cultures when employees from each interact on a regular basis.

Multinational Organization:

Those organizations which do business in more than one country.

Parochialism:

The act of people "seeing" the situation aroynd them from their own perspective.

Power Distance:

Belief that there are strong and legtimate decision making rights separating managers and employers.

Reverse cultural Shock:

The difficutly experienced by expatriates in readjusting to the surroundings of their home country upon their reentry.

Sensitivity Training:

See Encounter group; Unstrutured small&-group interaction under stress in asitution that requires people to become senstive to one another's feelings.

Theory Z:

Model that adapts the elements of Japanses managem,ent systems to the U.S. culture and empasizes cooperation and consensus decision process.

Training Multiplier Effect:

The process by which skilled people develop improved communcations  and human relationships.

Transcultural Employees:

Indivduals who have learned to operate effectivly in several cultures.

Uncertainty Avoidance:

Lack of comfort with ambiguity that drives some employees to avoid and seek clarity.

Xenophobia:

Fear and rejection of ideas and things foriegn to a person.