MGE Papers

Cultural Strategic Thinking Cultural Intelligence for Leaders (2012) states “cultural strategic thinking is your ability to think and solve problems in specific ways when you are in unfamiliar cultural settings and to understand this thinking, it is important for you to comprehend the two elements that make up this foundational piece of cultural intelligence: cognition and metacognition” (p. 80). The text adds “as related to culture, you can think about cognition as the complete knowledge and experience you have gained about cultural situations and your interactions within those situations” (p. 81) and “metacognition (thinking about thinking) is the knowledge you have of your own cognitive processes (your thinking) and your ability: to control these processes through various strategies, such as organizing, monitoring, and adapting; to reflect upon the tasks or processes you undertake; and to select and utilize the appropriate strategies necessary in your intercultural interactions”

Cultural Strategic Thinking:              In some of the organizations I have worked, cultural strategic thinking has played a part in bringing harmony within these organizations, however unless you begin to think about it, may be it is because I have not worked in much culturally diverse organizations, but  cultural intelligence is not something that has always outrightly been at the forefront of the organizational operation, it seems to be left to individual employees to figure out how to relate with each other, having been brought-up from a culturally diverse environment, my cultural intelligence happens subconsciously.             So far, I have observed at least some cultural strategic thinking techniques being used in one or two of these organizations, they include: - Peer Learning:   Peer learning is a widely used strategy in cultural strategic thinking, however like I mentioned it seems to happen subconsciously, I am not sure if corporate events, like quarterly performan

Cultural strategic thinking is being able to think tactically and resolve problems in intercultural settings. Cultural strategic thinking is one of the elements of cultural intelligence which is made up of cognitive and metacognitive components. Cognitive cultural strategic thinking deals with the way and manner we recall information we have stored in our brain when faced with a situation. Cultural strategic thinking is very crucial especially when dealing with multinational personnel because of the diverse culture involved requiring a high level of cultural strategic thinking (cultural intelligence for Leaders, 2013).   Metacognitive element, on the other hand, is a more detailed way of thinking that involves deliberately managing your thinking process such that there is room for improvement. It is flexible because people have the capacity of changing or altering existing information to accommodate new information in other to co-exist in an intercultural environment. It is a g

How does an organization accurately identify the elements of its own culture? A company can follow a variety of frameworks to analyze its culture and decide where it stands. We learned from this week readings, that Hofstede (2001) identified five dimensions, later increased to six (Hofstede-Insights, n.d.), to represent the cultural profiles of organizations. These dimensions were: 1- individualism vs collectivism; 2- power distance; 3- masculinity versus femininity; 4- uncertainty avoidance; 5- short-term vs. long-term orientation; 6- indulgence vs. restraint; From there, the Globe study of House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, and Gupta (2004) concluded that culture could be better described by nine dimensions, the six pinpointed by Hofstede and three more: assertiveness; performance orientation; humane orientation. By using these dimensions it is certainly possible to accurately identify the building elements of an organizational culture. Ho

How does an organization accurately identify the elements of its own culture? A company can follow a variety of frameworks to analyze its culture and decide where it stands. We learned from this week readings, that Hofstede (2001) identified five dimensions, later increased to six (Hofstede-Insights, n.d.), to represent the cultural profiles of organizations. These dimensions were: 1- individualism vs collectivism; 2- power distance; 3- masculinity versus femininity; 4- uncertainty avoidance; 5- short-term vs. long-term orientation; 6- indulgence vs. restraint; From there, the Globe study of House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, and Gupta (2004) concluded that culture could be better described by nine dimensions, the six pinpointed by Hofstede and three more: assertiveness; performance orientation; humane orientation. By using these dimensions it is certainly possible to accurately identify the building elements of an organizational culture. Ho

A company can follow a variety of frameworks to analyze its culture and decide where it stands. We learned from this week readings, that Hofstede (2001) identified five dimensions, later increased to six (Hofstede-Insights, n.d.), to represent the cultural profiles of organizations. These dimensions were: 1- individualism vs collectivism; 2- power distance; 3- masculinity versus femininity; 4- uncertainty avoidance; 5- short-term vs. long-term orientation; 6- indulgence vs. restraint;   From there, the Globe study of House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, and Gupta (2004) concluded that culture could be better described by nine dimensions, the six pinpointed by Hofstede and three more: assertiveness; performance orientation; humane orientation. By using these dimensions it is certainly possible to accurately identify the building elements of an organizational culture. However, I found Robbins and Judge (2013) seven dimensions of culture, that h

Organizational culture often referred to as “corporate cultures” speaks to the culture that is specific to an organization - the culture that makes it distinctive from competitors and non-competitors and reflects the beliefs, values, and assumptions of an organization (Cultural Intelligence for Leaders, 2012, p. 43). The two basic views of organizational culture stem from Edgar Schein who argues that culture is solely required for attainment of competitive advantage where it is perceived as one of the manager’s parameters in the organization of the company and from Joanne Martin who basis her views on a fragmented thinking without consensus about one culture, and thereby, argues that since organizational culture may be inconsistent, ambiguous, and constantly changing it is not possible for management to control it (Laegaard & Bendslev, 2006, pp. 84 & 86). Despite these varied views, we can generally argue that an organization’s culture is made up of many different eleme