Global Leadership Prior to denoting a specific plan for outlining how Jiango, a senior vice president for Deronde International, a French fragrance company looking to expand its international interests into emerging markets, it is critical to denote the executive's strengths and weaknesses. Doing so will reveal a significant degree of insight into what the apparent gaps are between him and his predominantly French colleagues and result in creating a course of action that can account for such differences in global and cultural competencies that are apparent. Such differences are fairly common in international executives (Nardon and Steers 2007, p. 47). To Jiango's credit, he appears to be extremely knowledgeable about culture from an international perspective. He was largely hired at Deronde due to his "intimacy" (Nohria 2009, p. 32) of knowledge regarding Asian markets. There are also passages in "From Regional Star to Global Leader" that intimates he is familiar with other non-Westernized cultures including South American ones. It is also worth noting that the executive is determined about accomplishing his job -- either at Deronde or elsewhere -- and that as such it is clear that he is willing to reevaluate his perceived intolerance of Western (particularly French) culture. Other telltale signs throughout the aforementioned article that indicate his principal weakness in failing to integrate or perhaps even value Western culture is the fact that he is routinely absented from Deronde meetings, both formal and casual, informal ones.

The preceding analysis of Deronde's cultural strengths pertaining to non-European civilizations and his weakness of failing to integrate or incorporate ideas from European and French culture reveals that the best way to augment his strength and balance out his weakness is to utilize Westernized culture and input in his advertising ideas. The most readily accessible way for him to do so would be to actively solicit and add input from his team of fellow vice-presidents. These individuals, Yves, Antoine, and Elyse, appear to have the same degree of intimacy for Westernized culture as Jiango does of non-Westernized culture. As such, Jiango should be actively seeking to learn about Westernized...

There are other examples of expatriate executives who immersed themselves within a foreign culture such as Debra, who traveled to the U.S. To Sao Paulo and was able to utilize the cultural distinction to her advantage by utilizing tactics in which she: "quickly embraced her new staff, her new environment, and her new task." This quote strongly suggests that Jiango must turn around his experience in Paris by expressing the same sort of ardor towards things French, and his utilization of the inner circle of vice presidents is the best way to start accessing those resources that are closest to him (Javidan et al. 2010, p.110).
Once Jiango is able to establish a desire to learn about Westernized culture in a format from his closet executives so that he can appreciate its values in terms of creative and efficacious marketing approaches, he should expand his knowledge to those cultural nuances existing outside of a highly structured and strictly regulated professional environment. Doing so would allow him to expand his professional and personal network and knowledge regarding French culture so that he could interact with "local experts both inside and outside the company…to build personal relationships" (Javidan et al. 2010, p. 110. Fostering these types of relationships will assist the Chinese executive two-fold. Not only would it broaden his appreciation for Western culture in a way so that he could better incorporate it with his international marketing objectives, but it would also allow him to bridge some of the professional and personal gaps that exist between him and his colleagues. Although most Westernized cultures conduct business in formal, professional settings, a fair amount of it takes place in informal networking sessions. By expressing his passion and desire to immerse himself with Westernized culture, Jiango is more likely to get invited to informal social networking events which would bring him ideologically and professionally closer to his colleagues.

The relationship between networking and socializing is critical for an individual seeking to learn…