The role of national culture for human resource management and leadership within an international context

Abstract

Over the last decades, globalization has brought many positive effects for the companies operating overseas including exposures to new cultures and belief systems. However, such international exposure has also brought certain problems in terms of cultural differences from different markets. Expatriates (international managers) when running international operations and managing foreign teams come across many obstacles caused by differences in national cultural systems, therefore it is important to have a good understanding how cultures differ from each other and what is the best way to approach each one of them in the right way. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to determine how intercultural differences affect human resource management in an international context and how expatriates should adapt their leadership styles to the requirements of local markets. Moreover, the paper elaborates on differences between domestic and international management styles and on the differences between leadership styles across different regions.