International Organizational BehaviorThe world is changing and as is the case with companies. Companies are no longer stead fast on the theory of recruiting workforce from one geography for their work to be done. At the end of the day, the businesses especially the ones which have an unconventional business model believe in the work being done, it does not matter who does it. In such a scenario, recruitment of workforce has become a global activity with at least 25-30% of a company's workforce being made up of employees recruited offshore. It is quite natural for companies to boast of employees from a cross section of cultural backgrounds. With that comes the challenge of managing and practicing Organizational Behavior in such companies. Study of International Organizational Behavior enables the professionals to implement and manage organizational behavior practices in cross cultural business models. Why is International Organizational Behavior so important? With a company made up of employees from diverse cultural backgrounds, one cannot enforce an organizational behavior initiative as a standard across all. There might have to be some exceptions made here and there. More often than not, these exceptions are made in the way how the organizational behavior practices are handled. For example, if a company setup in the United States of America has many employees from the country of Philippines, the company cannot expect immediate adherence to its policy of communicating in English all the time. My interaction with Filipinos tell me out of experience, that when two Filipinos meet, Filipino national language takes precedence. The company would have to deal with this in a slightly different manner. Though, it is understood that organizational behavior principles will have to be applied universally in the company, professionals would be able to do that if they know more about International Organizational Behavior. How can one do International Organizational Behavior studies? What are the benefits? Studies in International Organizational Behavior can be completed by a professional or a scholar on the same lines of an MBA program. Many institutes across the globe offer these courses for students. One such school is the International School of Business (ISB) which offers MBA and PhD degrees to its students. After passing the course in International Organizational Behavior which could be completed in the classroom or the e-learning setting, a professional would be able to critically examine cross-cultural models. More importantly, the feasibility and the overall value-add of an organizational behavior practice in such a business model could be studied by such students. International Organization Behavior is the latest buzzword amongst companies who wish to cut costs by hiring a cross-cultural workforce. If this is implemented well, the company can indeed look forward to its expectations from a cross cultural workforce met. |