Cultural diversity management A model for managing cultural diversity in international joint ventures

Businesses in the 21st Century face a wide array of complex opportunities, including expanding into global markets, developing innovative products and practices in order to remain competitive, and attracting and retaining the most talented workforce possible. As a result of intensified foreign competition, soaring capital investment costs and the ever-growing demand for new technologies, strategic alliances are becoming an attractive strategy for corporations. International Joint Ventures are one of the most popular forms of strategic alliances. However, globalisation means that organisations are increasingly being forced to deal with people who come from different cultures. Therefore, how effectively organisations perform, depends in part on how effectively they can work across cultural divides. Although organisations cross international boundaries seemingly easily, cultural boundaries are not so easily bridged. This work focuses on what culture is, how it can be grouped into dimensions, the influence it has on management, and, based on the latest literature, formulates a model for managing cultural diversity in international Joint Ventures.