This ranges from the company's national managers to all the other employees. The reason for this is quite simple and can be explained with the term "cultural differences" which helps us describe a range of issues on which the approach of national individual employees is different than that of the corporatist counterparts that invest in the country.
The first important cultural difference that comes to mind is, obviously, language. The global environment, through the elimination of many of the previous barriers, is an environment of intense communication between different entities. Technology, with the emergence of the Internet, among other things, has also helped spur a communication incentive never seen before in history. However, language is still an important barrier. There are probably around 1.5 billion English speakers in the world and certainly around 1.2 billion Chinese speakers, but they often don't overlap.
It is the same situation in the case of a foreign company investing in another country in search of cheaper resources: language is often a barrier in communication and a barrier in passing top-down a clear message on the company's intentions, strategic objectives and vision, plans for the future in terms of development and employee relation etc. Language, as a component of cultural differences, through its important role as a communication channel, can be a source of frustration and conflict among global acting entities.
Nevertheless, cultural differences can go a much longer way than cultural differences and can often be related to the individuals' approach towards work, their perspective on life, their perception of time etc. We can agree on the fact, for example, that the Italians and Spanish (and in general all the Latin people) have a very loose approach towards time. It is difficult to perceive a German or Japanese entity, for example, outsourcing in Latin America. It is a relationship that can't properly function exactly because the two cultures have different approaches and perceptions on things.
Conflict situations related to cultural differences can arrive not only between the...
We can consider the same situation as previously described with an Italian company willing to commit to a contractual relationship with a Japanese enterprise. Conflict situations can arrive because of different negotiation techniques, different ways of approaching issues etc.
Finally, globalization has helped bring in contact entire cultures and concepts and as we could see especially in the last decades, this often brought about conflict rather than convergence situations. The Arab vs. Western conflict can best be mentioned here. This is no longer a conflict over resources or economic competition, although these can be mentioned as secondary causes. This is a conflict over deeper issues, issues such as perceptions and philosophies, fundamental beliefs and faith. It is a conflict that is thriving in a global context and it is perhaps this very global context that has encouraged and partially fuelled its development.
It is difficult to draw conclusions on whether we are going towards a convergent point through the globalization process. In my opinion, diversity, both at an individual and cultural and national level, is too great to support such a thought. People will always remain diverse and this diversity is bound to be an obstacle towards a convergence that can often be seen as deleting individual identities.
On the other hand, at least in economical terms, we seem to be well on the way of achieving a certain integration in a system of trading goods and services, as well as capital. The economic global environment has certainly reached a convergence from many points-of-view and can be related to such a scheme. The conditions that have made this possible find their answers in the economic rather than social spheres and, as previously mentioned, the effect on other structures will probably be less significant.
Ritchie, Mark. Globalization vs. Globalism. International Forum on Globalization. On the Internet at http://www.itcilo.it/english/actrav/telearn/global/ilo/globe/kirsh.htm
