Chapter Summary

Today’s managers are involved in a variety of boundary-spanning activities: supervising units in different nations or cultures, negotiating agreements with offshore partners and working in cross-functional teams. Boundaries inherently create communication challenges that effective managers need to understand and master.

The chapter presents strategies and related tactics that help managers encourage more effective boundary spanning. Examples include: selecting and training the right people (e.g., creating awareness of one’s personal culture and focusing on the communicative style of the other culture), implementing error correction processes (e.g., using quizzes and tracking organizational processes), encouraging activities that promote shared experiences (e.g., holding company-wide seminars, developing links between role counterparts) and integrating boundary spanning into the structure of the organization (e.g., supporting job switching and job shadowing, redesigning the physical environment).

Outline

Case Study

Case 8.1:  Spanning Boundaries

Purpose:
The purpose of this case is to learn how to effectively span international boundaries.

Situation:
You have been invited into Riccardo Bisconi’s office, who was recently promoted to a new position as VP of International Development. For three generations this construction, architecture and design company has grown into a major player in the U.S. market. Bisconi has been tasked with expanding the company into Europe. His first expansion is to open a small new office in Poland. Three architects and two designers who currently work out of the Chicago market will be moving to Poland for a 5-year stint to get the office up and running. They are excited because of their Polish ancestry and the opportunity to work overseas. However, these employees are neophytes when it comes to international business experience: they have only traveled overseas on vacation and they do not speak the language. Bisconi has called you into his office to set up a coaching program for these employees to ease their transition into this new culture. His charge: “You know I’m a big fan of puzzles. I can’t think of a better puzzle than figuring out how to quickly integrate these people into the culture and quickly getting the new division profitable. I don’t want these employees to feel like they are out there all alone like the adventurers aboard the Endurance.”

Your objectives:

1. Describe the differences between the communicative cultures of Poland and the U.S.
2. Develop a coaching strategy.
3. Suggest some sample tactics that could be used to implement the strategy.

Video Resources

Flashcards

Anthropological mind-set

Anthropological mind-set: An orientation focused on learning about other cultures to create a more skilled, effective and efficient learning experience

Arithmetic/geometric factor

Arithmetic/geometric factor: The concept that describes what happens to the number of communication links when an organization adds departments. When an organization adds departments, the number of communication links increases geometrically.

Collaboration tools

Collaboration tools: Technologies, such as wikis or blogs, which allow employees and others to easily work together on tasks regardless of temporal and/or geographical separation

Collaborative communication

Collaborative communication: Communication that maintains critical relationships, accomplishes tasks, and advances organizational goals by encouraging discussion and creating an awareness of multi-perspective views of various issues and situations

Cross-functional team

Cross-functional team: A project team that comprised of people from different departments and with different functional expertise

Cultural communication dimensions

Cultural communication dimensions: Elements that define a culture’s orientation to communication. Examples include a culture’s orientation to time, space and authority.

Error correction processes

Error correction processes: Mechanisms, such as quizzes or process tracking, which reveal and correct misperceptions and coordination problems

Job rotation

Job rotation: Employees train and assume the duties of one job before moving to another within the organization. It is a more long-term arrangement than job switching.

Job shadowing

Job shadowing: Employees follow and observe colleagues to learn how their work is performed or how their actions affect another area or department

Job switching

Job switching: Employees from various departments switch jobs on a temporary basis to experience and understand each other’s job

Role counterparts

Role counterparts: Individuals in different divisions or organizations who hold the same position (i.e. lawyers to lawyers, production managers to production managers, etc.)

Self-Tests