1.0. Introduction

Today with the rise of business competitiveness and customer demands the importance of management practices for their efficiencies and effectiveness becomes a major issue of concern for the companies. In such respect, the importance of international management practices remains the crucial component for attracting a higher number of customers and financial profitability more firmly and appropriately. This not only helps the companies to ensure their long-term business competitiveness and customer engagement. Moreover with the rapid rise of consumer centric business practices companies are also facing extreme challenges to ensure proper engagement of management practices is there in both the regional as well as international business environment. This not only will provide relevant working practices more efficiently and effectively in the contemporary global and multicultural business environment. It also helps in providing opportunities for self-evaluation and personal development relevant to contemporary international management practices more firmly. The current report is therefore focusing towards identification of various contemporary international management practices and their efficiencies in maintaining higher standards of business performance

2.0. Section 1: Self-evaluation of Current Competencies

2.1. Management Competencies in a Multicultural Environment/ Cultural Intelligence

Today with the rise of business competitiveness and the issues of competencies, both companies and individuals are actively incorporating a number of management competencies to ensure higher levels of business performance and career growth frameworks management of cultural competencies are therefore firmly understood to be the ability to interact effectively with people of diversified cultural backgrounds (Srivastava, Singh, and Dhir, 2020). The concepts of Cultural competencies are therefore also understood as the framework that organizations and the individuals have incorporated within the workplace for ensuring better scopes to manage and to enhance their effectiveness in diversified cultural frameworks. Hence, to understand the framework of cultural competencies, one must need to incorporate an idea of cultural practices more firmly and appropriately. Researchers like Chamberlain, (2005) have a strategic understanding of culture. Which in his word is the “values, norms, and traditions that affect how individuals of a particular group perceive, think, interact, behave, and make judgments about their world.” These factors therefore include a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes and policies that companies and individuals need to incorporate more firmly and appropriately (Sharma et al., 2020). For dealing with vital sets of frameworks that need to come across systems, agencies and among the professionals to enable that system, agencies and professional activities to work more firmly and appropriately in cross-cultural situations.

Cultural competencies in the contemporary environment remain the most crucial and important component for ensuring higher levels of organizational performance enhancement and the overall growth of business competencies. These factors are also defined as the level of knowledge-based skills and intelligence that are being required for providing effective business efficiencies in the contemporary competitive management practices. I must work towards widening my scope for enhancing the cultural competencies and ensure safer engagement with international management frameworks. This is because the inclusion of cultural as well as management competencies in the international business environment certainly widens the scope for ensuring higher standards of business practices and overall career success. In order to widen the overall professional career growth opportunities (Buckley, Doh, and Benischke, 2017)

I just need to work actively towards engaging with different sets of management competencies to ensure proper intelligences in the cross-cultural as well as multicultural frameworks. Moreover the factors associated with the cultural competencies have both the positive and negative impacts on the personal career growth perspectives. This is because cultural differences create a scope for ensuring overall development of multicultural intelligence among the individuals and ensure proper frameworks are developed to meet the changing demands of the multicultural workplaces and customers (Szkudlarek et al., 2020). Hence, development of management competencies to meet the changing demands of multicultural perspectives will certainly benefit me in my professional career growth opportunities. Cultural awareness in the contemporary competitive business environment is certainly an important and vital component to ensure higher degree of business efficiency and also enables business leaders to address an extensive set of challenges within the international business environment.

Success in the contemporary business environment remains executive to lead cross-cultural teams of individuals with different working styles, personalities and perspectives. These factors are also becoming a major factor for my overall career growth frameworks. Moreover, for the development of a global mindset. Again, the development of cultural intelligence in the competency and a skill that enables individuals to function efficiently in cross-cultural environmental perspectives. Moreover, the factors associated with the multicultural workplaces in the contemporary internationalized business environment is certainly a major issue of concern for me to ensure proper sets of professional career growth opportunities. It will help me in developing culturally appropriate and capable ways of adapting these behaviors to the norms of other cultures more firmly and appropriately (Beugelsdijk et al., 2020).

2.2. Communication across culture/ cross cultural negotiations/ working with language diversity

With the rapid rise of international business environment communication between diversified and multicultural business competences more firmly and appropriately. Moreover, culture in contemporary competitive business also remains a major factor for ensuring higher degree of business competitiveness. It also involves the “discussions of common and conflicting interests between persons of different cultural backgrounds who work to reach an agreement of mutual benefits.” Culture in the international business environment also remains a major factor for ensuring business efficiencies and effectiveness. This also is very much associated with the enhanced business communication between multicultural perspectives (Beugelsdijk et al., 2020).

Communication from the cultural perspective also very much dealt with a number of cultural norms including physical touching, verbal communications, non-verbal communications as well as values, norms and ethics that needs to be respected by each of the cultures which develop professional communications within the contemporary competitive business environment. In the contemporary business environment, particularly in the international perspective cross-cultural negotiations are certainly becoming a major issue of concern to gather higher standards of business competitiveness. It is therefore above and beyond the issues of personal negotiations styles and techniques, one must need to consider the effects of cultural differences. Such impacts and effects generally are associated with the communication issues, increasing possibilities as well as business communications in a much professional and creative manner to meet the changing demands of the customers (Eden and Gupta, 2017).

Figure 1: Factors of multi-cultural communications

(Source: Tian et al., 2018)

As mentioned above the issues of cross-cultural negotiations must also firmly be understood as the importance and effectiveness of communications in the negotiations must be developed by the individuals working in the international business management environment (Tian et al., 2018). This is because engagement with the wider ranges of communication strategies I must incorporate to ensure proper developmental frameworks and to meet the changing customers and clients demands.

These factors are also becoming a major issue for me to ensure proper sets of business developmental opportunities and to resolve growing challenges of multicultural as well as cross-cultural communication barriers that I am facing. Communication for me will become even more vital while developing professional career growth opportunities. Again, from another perspective, the issues of cross-cultural negotiations with the contemporary globalized business negotiations, one must understand about the way through which culture consists of vital sources of socially transmitted behavior patterns, attitudes and norms as well as values of a given community (Tian et al., 2018). In such a framework a proper set of business development and the enhancement of professional career in the international business environment must need to be incorporated through proper sets of cross-cultural negotiation strategies and communication frameworks in the multicultural perspectives.

I also need to work towards widening the scope for ensuring proper sets of cross -cultural negotiations need to be worked on to ensure proper engagement in an international business environment can be incorporated. Moreover proper understanding of cultural performance and the strategic framework of counter parts in the international business environment will certainly help in making my professional career development strategy minor appropriate and efficient.

In my future career developmental perspectives, ensuring proper engagement of proper sets of cross-cultural communications, cross-cultural negotiations as well as the working strategies along with the cross-cultural contexts is certainly a major issue of concern for the companies as a whole. In such frameworks the development of each of these perspectives are certainly important for me to gather and to manage the frameworks more appropriately and helps in widening the scope for cross-cultural negotiants in the international business management perspectives (Shah, 2019). Today, international businesses are actively incorporating wider ranges of business developmental opportunities through the inclusion of cross-cultural business developmental perspectives to meet the business objectives in the foreign marketplaces to make tiger control over foreign subsidiaries. Hence, the factors associated with cross-cultural norms development must be incorporated to meet the business requirements and to ensure positive frameworks. This will only provide me a scope for meeting my personal career growth opportunity and to ensure overall employability in a much appropriate and efficient manner (Michailova, S. and Holden, 2019).

2.3. Multicultural team working

This is also one of the most important and vital elements for the contemporary competitive business environment to ensure proper business efficiencies and effectiveness. It not only widens the scopes for overall business competitiveness and builds strategic perspectives to engage with diverse ranges of cultural as well as leadership frameworks. Multicultural teams in the contemporary competitive business environment, particularly in the international business environment, is certainly an important issue of concern to make their workplace more positive and motivated to take on any kind of challenges (Lakshman, Lakshman, and Gok, 2020). Moreover, such frameworks not only help in ensuring proper sets of business competitiveness and ensures safer engagement of the organizational perspectives by the team whose members originates from diverse cultural backgrounds and from various countries around the globe. This not only widens the scope for competitive business frameworks and ensures proper engagement with the customers of diverse backgrounds and widens the brand values more firmly and appropriately.

Moreover, team working whether it is multicultural or omni cultural is certainly an important and beneficial skills and talents that employees must need to possess with, it not only widens the strategic approaches for the companies to widens creative frameworks, improvement of overall business productivity, improved reputations and the fewer sets of conflicts are some of the most important reasons towards maintaining higher degree of business competitiveness. Due to such wider ranges of benefits, I must work actively towards achieving a higher degree of business competitiveness through widening the skills of team working. I must also incorporate the multicultural perspectives of team working and that will certainly become a differentiating factor in a company. Moreover the fundamental condition that I need to achieve using multicultural team players and overall professional development to enhance the Global Corporate Culture. This will allow me to interact with a higher number of team working and creative enhancement scops more firmly and appropriately.

Moreover I must also need to work on the strategies for ensuring overcoming language and cultural barriers. This needs to work on encouragement of the team members for learning others languages and the cultural values to meet the job requirements. These will also widen the scope for better communication and decision making. Both of these skills are very much important in the contemporary business environment to meet the changing customer demands and strategic perspectives to develop customer engagement. I must also work towards considering different cultural communication styles to understand and to achieve the business as well as professional career developmental skills more firmly and appropriately (Ross, 2019).  This must include both the verbal and non-verbal communication styles which are very much crucial to understand diverse communication styles between cultures and speak to colleagues according to standard business rules.

Today with the rise of business competitiveness and challenges to deal with changing customer requirements and the competitive environment, companies are also looking forward to those candidates who are capable enough to deal with team working activities in both the omnichannel as well as multichannel perspectives in the globalized business perspectives. These will also ensure proper engagement with the business competitiveness and overall productivity of the organization (Michailova and Holden, 2019). From such frameworks, I must also meet the contemporary business and job requirements to develop the employability through multicultural team working as well as minimization of cultural barriers.

3.0. Section 2: Self Development Plan

3.1. Cross Cultural Communications

Concepts

In a modern diversified world, various major issues of communication may take place regarding the extra dimensional aspects of cultural complexity. Each and every culture around the world has its own specific set and structure of several intentions and assumptions of the people following that particular culture. In my own experience, I have seen that people of different cultural backgrounds face a lot of major problems and difficulties when it comes to real face-to-face interactions and direct communications. None of the parties can get to the exact point of the other party and hence it leads to some of the major misinterpretations among them.

Now this does not mean that there are no other barriers of cross-cultural communication other than different languages. People face a lot of difficulties such as not understanding the cultural practices and beliefs of the other culture and hence they cannot act as expected and achieve the desired results. The same thing happened with me also when I had to connect with Japanese culture, being an American. While we practice an independent form of culture, Japanese do not do that, and they are quite formal regarding their behaviors with others. That naturally made me fall into a false position when I became a little liberal and casual regarding mine as well as others’ performances working under me. Hence, it is quite essential to develop the status and condition of cross-cultural communication around the world and take essential measures to mitigate the barriers associated with it. That is what my goal is, and that is discussed later in this reflection in detail. The theories and literature review discussed here are also aimed at improving cross-cultural communication around the world.

Hall’s theory of cross-cultural communication

Edward. T. Hall, an American anthropologist, found this theory of cross-cultural communication, after he started believing that the main differences in which the members of different cultural backgrounds sensed the reality around the world’s cultural practices served as the main reason for major misinterpretations of the most fundamental concept of culture, i.e. the cross-cultural communication. He developed the theory of proxemics, in which he argued that the human perceptions of space are well patterned and molded by specific cultures, although that is derived from various sensory apparatus which are shared among all the humans of that culture.

This is the main area of developing cross-cultural communication, and according to me, this sensation of the actual reality can be achieved by the people of different cultures when they think beyond the picture, and increase their area of perception through this sensory apparatus, as proposed in this theory. Apart from this, the theorist also argues that the differences in the cultural frameworks which are used to organize and define that particular space travel to the internal set-up of all the people at a deep and unconscious level. This may result in serious miscommunications and hence failure of important communications and makes it immensely difficult to understand the particular culture in cross-cultural settings. From this perspective, I feel that this problem can be resolved by identifying the three levels of spaces, as proposed by the theory- intimate space, social and consultative space and public space, and deciding the level of internal traveling as per the spaces. This would be delegated as intimate space- deepest level, social space- moderate level and public space- lightest level.

Literature review

Communication is defined as the sharing of timely and meaningful information with the help of both formal and informal means. Research suggests that effective communication possesses the essential components of reliability and relevance and it takes place in a timely and gradual manner. Communication has been recognised as one of the most crucial and fundamental factors which is highly responsible to influence the expatriates and other business professionals traveling abroad, where they need to develop effective communication with the concerned people of that particular country. In order to solve this problem, research suggests that the international expatriates should be able to interact in two or three languages which can be clearly understood and spoken by the other party as well. According to researchers, if language is not known and if the culture is not understood, the message behind that may not be effectively appreciated. Facial expressions also play an important role while interacting with people of different cultures. According to me, a firm should hire personnel from the host country who are familiar enough with the culture of the native country and also have knowledge of the host country culture. Scholars have suggested that managers need to adapt to the particular culture, before hiring suitable employees, apart from being only technically expert.

SMART Goals

Goals	Specific	Measurable	Achievable	Relevant	Time bound
Efficient communication systems	Making the communication systems efficient	Increase the efficiency of communication systems by 15%	Using the tool Brosix to make the communication systems efficient	This goal will help to make the interactions better and specific	Making the communication systems efficient by 31st March, 2022.
Cultural difference awareness	Increasing awareness of cultural differences	Increasing awareness of cultural differences by 12%	Training the employees to become aware of other cultures	This goal will help to reduce the cultural misinterpretations	Increasing awareness of cultural differences by 31st March, 2022.
Effective team building	Developing a strong and united team	Making the team stronger and united by 20%	Making them interact with each other with a positive attitude	This goal will be useful to understand each other better	Developing a strong and united team by 31st March, 2022.
Learning cultural etiquettes	Make the employees know better about other cultures	Increase their knowledge of cultural diversity by 18%	Provide cross cultural training to the employees	This goal will benefit by increasing respect for each other	Learning cultural etiquettes by 31st March, 2022.
Establishing clear rules	Establishing rules of respecting each other’s cultures	Establishing the cultural rules up to 20 points	Identify the different requirements of each culture	This goal will help to reduce the chances of arguments and major disputes	Establishing clear rules by 31st March, 2022.

Table 1: PDP

(Source: Self-Created)

3.2. Multicultural team working

Concepts

The concept of team working is certainly an important and effective element of a competitive business environment to understand and to meet the changing business scenario. Teamwork in the globalized business environment strategically fosters creativity and innovation that is being blended with contemporary strengths, improves morale and provides greater flexibility within international workplaces. Teamwork is whether omni-cultural or multicultural allows the employees and team player to take greater responsibilities for overall control of the workplace and to meet the organizational objectives. Multicultural workplace which can be referred to as the practices and strategic alignment of team workers from diversified cultural backgrounds and helps in leading the team by improvising the Morales of the employees. This is so, by gaining more authority and ownership over the projects and tasks assigned to the team workers.

To accept the other cultures, I did not leave my own culture. As per my thinking I have to become more flexible and improve my willingness to accept other cultures beliefs and develop effective relationships with the other cultures’ people. I have to go out of my comfort zone and try to create effective cross-cultural communication. To clutch with this idea, I was trying new techniques of doing things which help me to better understand the point of view of others.

Be open minded

As before I think that there is only one right way to do the things I use and the others are wrong for me. From my personal point of view, being open-minded is the best way to learn more about an idea I have. An open-minded attitude exposes new viewpoints and makes the effort to understand and I learnt to implicate it in my communications also (Graf, 2004). My attitude impacts positively on my decision making and transfer to another person works with me. But I was facing difficulty while communicating with the close-minded individual. As per my opinion, if we ask questions to the people around us about our idea then we find good opportunities and a range of thoughts from others. So, asking for an option was the best way of communicating in a cross-cultural environment for better options. So, for effective cross-cultural communication I have to convey my idea in an understandable way to the other cultures.

Facilitate meaningful conversation

I found that in a cross-cultural work environment there was a main problem with the differ languages of the people. No one is perfect in understanding all the languages. So, I understand that for effective cross-culture communication I used English as a universal language to communicate with others. I also focused on the common word which they use regularly in their conversation (Kolb and Kolb, 2005). And I also tried to use those words for better understanding of our point. These conversations help us to improve the relationship among the workplace. This conversation improved my understanding and an appreciative attitude toward the others. It will help me to create strong relationships at the workplace. As per my opinion, being curious about the happenings and asking questions for the better understanding of the others’ opinion was a good quality for effective multicultural communication. It was also helpful for me to create a comfortable environment among cross-cultural surroundings.

Theory

Tuckman’s Theory

This theory was developed by the psychologist Bruce Tuckman in 1965. The theory focuses on the manners in which a group of an organization handles a specific task from the very beginning till the completion of the project (Sharma et al., 2020). The stages which Tuckman enlisted under the formation of a team, be it of same culture or multicultural are listed below:

Forming

This includes the formation and assertion of the team. In this step, the team members try to behave independently on their own and they do not know each other at this stage. This is more seen in the multicultural teams as the employees are not at all aware of each other’s different cultural backgrounds and practices.

Storming

Team workers must need to brainstorm their activities and ensure proper sets of business engagement perspectives to ensure productivity. This will not only widen the scope for overall productivity but also ensures career growth perspective.

Norming

Norming also actively works towards developing from initial formation of the team through to the completion of the project. The team members therefore must need to work towards widening the scopes for achieving the business objectives more firmly and appropriately.

Performing:

This is the final stage of the entire project that also needs to be performed appropriately to meet the job and project requirement. This stage therefore needs to be ensured more firmly towards meeting the job requirements.

Figure 2: Tuckman’s Theory

(Source: Self-Created)

SMART Goals

Goals	Specific	Measurable	Achievable	Realistic	Time bound
Overcoming language Barriers	This is very much effective to ensure higher degree of business effectiveness and career developmental framework	It can be measurable through the engagement of training sessions	To obtain higher standards of career growth framework this must need to be achieved	Language barriers strongly hamper the quality and efficiency more firmly and efficiently. Hence, this must be realistic to ensure overall career growth	2-3 months
Considering different cultural communication styles	This must also need to incorporate a strategic set of career development perspectives.	This can be measured through proper sets of professional communication styles and its development	This can also be achieved through dedication and professionalism	Learning cultural and communication styles in multicultural workplaces certainly helps in motivating the co workers	4-5 months

Table 2: PDP

(Source: Self-Created)

4.0. Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be said that, engagement of business management in the international business environment is certainly a major issue of concern to gain a higher number of business as well as career growth opportunities. When the business professionals possess a common culture among them, along with a common context of communication, then the communication has more potential of being effective and yielding much better results. However, research has also warned that despite the fluency of other languages, miscommunications can happen extensively among the business professionals from different cultural backgrounds. I think that these issues may be solved by making the expatriates interact in the preferred language of the customers, irrespective of their native business location.