Abstract:

Managing a company in the 21st century is an increasingly complex process, especially in the globalized world in which the role played by international cooperation is continuously growing. Management theoreticians and practitioners unanimously observe that nowadays a company’s success to a great extent depends on its employees, as their knowledge, skills, experience and motivation exert a huge impact on the implementation of its goals and strategies. Hence, cross-cultural management, i.e. managing employees of different nationalities and with different cultural roots, is so important in the work of contemporary managers. Effective cross-cultural management requires managers to understand the essence of multiculturalism and to respect different values and cooperation rules that are present in culturally diverse teams. Cross-cultural management is a difficult and responsible process, in which both dialogue and a clash between various cultures may occur, the latter obviously posing numerous challenges for managers. The study described in the article (individual in-depth interviews) devoted to challenges in cross-cultural management was conducted among managers working in international companies in three European countries: Italy, Spain and Poland. The main aim of the article is to identify challenges in cross-cultural management as reported by the respondents based on their knowledge and experience. The results obtained in the study (the interviews with the Italian, Spanish and Polish managers) together with the analysis of the subject literature indicate that challenges in cross-cultural management in contemporary organizations exert a strong influence on working in a multicultural environment and on managing employees in culturally diverse teams.