Symposium on
Business as Usual? A multi-cultural perspective on conducting business across countries
Symposium on
Business as Usual? A multi-cultural perspective on conducting business across countries
A Symposium on Multi-cultural Experiences of Industry in India and of Indian Companies Abroad with a Focus on India and France
It is common to find, in today’s globalized world, organizations with operations and markets spread across several countries. It is also well recognized that many local realities need to be addressed by such organizations. Some of the most important realities are about differences in people’s perceptions, their culture, and different preferred ways of managing their organizations. At the same time, the organization would strive to act as a single cohesive and efficient unit.
The Renault-Polytechnique-HEC Chair in multi-cultural management and company performance was established in 2007 at the initiative of Mr. Carlos Ghosn, President of both Renault and Nissan Motor Co., with a view to study and explore such issues. The Chair is a partnership between Renault Foundation, École Polytechnique and the HEC Paris School of Management and links up with leading institutes in India (Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad) and Japan (Keio Business School). The Chair aims to “understand and implement managerial practices adapted to different economic realities as part of the dialogue between cultures and for economic performance”. In this way, the Chair has used an innovative methodology by inter-meshing the perspective and expertise available in an engineering school and the one present in management schools with the students themselves coming from different national and cultural backgrounds.
As part of the Chair’s activities, students from these institutes jointly carry out projects on topics of strong relevance to business performance. Each study highlights the role played by multi-cultural issues and their management in obtaining better performance at local and multi-national levels. The range of topics studied over the last four years include studies of consumer perception and market potential, differences in use and interpretation of standards and regulations, factors affecting retention and growth of employees, and comparison of organizational practices within and outside the company. In each case, explicit and often insightful comparisons were made across France and India, and France and Japan. The studies used a variety of tools, ranging from questionnaire surveys to examination of rich qualitative data for their analysis.
One of the objectives the multi-cultural Chair is the creation of opportunities for sharing and dissemination of knowledge available through its activities. Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad has been the Chair’s partner institute for India, is organizing a Symposium for this purpose. The Symposium is supported by the Renault-Polytechnique-HEC Chair and the French Embassy in India.
This Symposium aims to bring together experts from different countries and different fields related to multi-cultural management. Its primary focus is on corporations conducting business across India and France. It would like to examine issues related not only to the actual management of multi-cultural corporations, but also related to methods for developing a better understanding of these issues in people working in the organizations. While the Chair has used one innovative methodology, it is likely that others have tried other innovative methods for similar objectives. It would be worthwhile to share and pool these experiences in order to evolve more effective ways to deal with these issues.
The symposium will consist of talks by recognized experts from relevant fields and sharing of experiences and insights by those who have worked in this area. It will explore perspectives from multiple disciplines relevant to multi-cultural management.
Executives with strategic roles as those from functional areas, and researchers are expected to benefit from the Symposium. The Symposium also aims to facilitate discussions among people to explore possibly new and better methods of multi-cultural management and education/training.
Another expected benefit is the creation of a mutually-supportive network of cross-cultural researchers and business-folk who might benefit from that research. This would probably have long-term benefits for both stakeholders.
| November 10-12: Pre-Symposium Activities and Meetings | ||
| November 14, 2011, Monday | ||
| 11:00 am – 11:15 am | Inauguration and Welcome | French Ambassador to India Director-General, Ecole Polytechnic Director-General, HEC Renault Foundation Representative Director, IIMA |
| 11:15 am – 12:45 am | Keynote Address | Prof. Maurice Godelier |
| 2:00 pm – 5:45 pm | Session-2: Multi-disciplinary perspectives
on multi-cultural management 3:30 pm – 3:45 pm: Break |
|
| 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm | Symposium Dinner | |
| November 15, 2011, Tuesday | ||
| 9:00 am – 11:15 am | Session–3: Renault Multi-cultural Chair – Student Projects and Experiences. | |
| 11:15 am – 12:45 pm | Session–4: Industry Experiences – Learnings from Practice | |
| 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm | Session–4: Industry Experiences – Learnings from Practice | |
| 3:15 pm – 4:15 pm | The way forward: Exploring new ways to increase cross-cultural understanding – Panel Discussion | |
| 4:15 pm – 4:45 pm | Valedictory and Conclusion | |
Ms Sugatha Nair
Wing-12 A
Indian Institute of Management
Vastrapur
Ahmedabad (Guj) - 380015, India
E-mail: sugatha@iimahd.ernet.in
Ph: +91-79-66324911
Website: www.iimahd.ernet.in
