Essay Case National Cultures and Management Styles – Management Assignment Help

Assignment Task:

Task:

Petro decided to research cross-cultural management. He was interested particularly in national cultures and wished to compare and contrast differences between Britain, France and Nigeria in terms of their management theory and practices. He spent several days in the university library searching the online catalogue for information on national cultures in order to make comparisons between the countries selected for his project. He also used the Internet search engine Google and was taken by surprise to find over 50 million hits on ‘national cultures’.

He was aware of the research of Hofstede and Trompenaars from his third year studies. Google highlighted 159,000 hits on Hofstede and 77,000 on Trompenaars. Given the numbers involved he quickly realised how time consuming this would be. Discussing this with a fellow student alerted him to the problems of such data. Apart from the fact that commercial and academic information was not easily differentiated, much of the information was not referenced in the way expected for his academic project.

Questions
1. How do you think Petro’s understanding of the literature review changed?
2. What particular skills did Petro develop in the preparation of the review?
3. Do you think Petro would have benefited from the use of mind-maps in researching his topic? Give reasons for your answer.
4. What problems do you think he would have anticipated in conducting research into national cultures which his literature review may not have highlighted?

Case 1a: Isabelle’s research dilemma
Michael Savvas, Aberystwyth University
Isabelle was very thoughtful. She had a puzzled look on her face. The dilemma she had was one experienced by many students in conducting research for a dissertation. Her research was concerned with managers and how they coped with pressure in the workplace. She particularly wanted to find out the coping strategies they used. This required consideration of theory and method and whether the research would have practical relevance. After her preliminary reading around the topic she decided that it was necessary to engage in both the world of theory and the world of practice and that the problems addressed would develop out of the interaction between these two worlds.

Questions
1. How do you think Isabelle’s understanding of theory and method changed in adopting the approach she chose?
2. What particular knowledge and skills did she develop in preparing this research?
3. What problems do you think she would have anticipated in conducting research into pressure and coping among managers that her literature review may not have identified?

Case 4b: Consultancy research for a not-for-profit organisation
Karen Handley, Oxford Brookes University
Thomas’s work placement is at a management consultancy firm, Spectrum, which provides strategic and financial advice to organisations in the UK not-for-profit (NFP) sector. The NFP sector has different segments, the largest of which includes organisations which have a public interest objective, and which are known as charities. These are typically organisations dedicated to improving the quality of life for specific groups or individuals (e.g. children or the elderly), or focused on relieving poverty or distress. NFP organisations are growing in importance in the UK economy, and have an increasing role in the provision of public services (Brandsen and Pestoff, 2008).

Questions
1. How should Elin justify her choice of a case study research strategy to her Project Tutor?

2. Gaining and maintaining access to organisations is an important aspect of a case study research project. What obstacles may Elin encounter when trying to gain access to these organisations? How should she overcome them?
3. What skills will Elin need when carrying out case study research in these three companies?