Page 139 - DMGT548_GLOBAL_HRM

Global HRM

Notes
Example: The Global Leadership Programme at the University of Michigan provides
external training programmes for a period of five weeks. Teams of American, Japanese, and
European executives learn global business skills through action learning. To build cross-cultural
teams, the programme utilises seminars and lectures, adventure-based exercises, and field trips
to investigate business opportunities in countries such as Brazil, China, and India. The overall
objective of the Global Leadership Programme is to produce individuals with a global perspective.
3. Action learning approach: It is the approach which is applicable to both individual and
organisational learning and is widely adopted in British and international companies.
This approach is based on the assumption that learning is bound up with the process of
management and everyone in the organisation should be engaged in learning. This
presupposes the availability of information in the organisation sufficient to enable learning
to take place throughout the organisation.

Revans (1965) suggests that there are four forces bearing on management decision-making:
(a) The need for economy of time and management effort;
(b) The analytical approach available to the manager, whilst not forgetting intuition
which is the first weapon of management;
(c) The ability to understand and contain variability and risk by the use of statistical
methods;

(d) A greater understanding of human beings as a determinant of success in the
enterprises.
4. Experiential learning approach: Kolb (1976) developed the concept of experiential learning
as a process or cycle comprising four stages. It is:
(a) Concrete experiences; followed by;
(b) Observation and reflection; leading to;

(c) Formation of abstract concepts and generalisations; leading to;
(d) Testing of the implications of concepts for future action which then leads to new
concrete experiences.

He states this as the way learning happens as it is governed largely by the pursuit of goals
that are appropriate to our own needs.

7.3.1 Transferability across Cultures

In the cross-cultural context Hughes-Weiner (1986) qualifies the learning process described by
Kolb as follows:
1. Concrete experience: People from different cultures are likely to have different background
and different experiences.
2. Reflective observation: As a result of different behaviour patterns, socialisation and
institutional and work experiences, individuals from different cultures may make different
assumptions about what they see and understand through their experiences.
3. Abstract conceptualising: Because people from different cultures have different cognitive
frameworks, this may lead them to focus on irrelevant information or misinterpretations
in a particular situation, thus drawing wrong conclusions and theories in a different
cultural situation from their own.

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