The following report is related to the reflection of my recordings in logbook and self evaluation of my skills, attributes and competencies. This assignment gave me opportunity to use the expertise approach of our text book i.e. Understanding Cross-cultural Management by Marie-Joelle Browaeys & Roger Price. Moreover, with the help of some useful frameworks from the text book, I have shown results of my own progress since starting of International Business Management course which will definitely play an important role in my career as an International Manager. Since, to be in an international university, it includes study with colleagues and tutors from different ethnic origin. In this report, I’ve reflected that how the module “Management Competencies in Multicultural Environment” helped me in my realistic life. In addition, I have evaluated my mid-semester SMART development plan and presented a new SMART plan for next six months.

Self Evaluation and Development:

The most fruitful self-evaluation depends on rigorous honesty; look at what you have accomplished and what are the remaining goals. Self Evaluation is the process to learn by the use of specified strategies to achieve academic goals on the basis of self-efficiency perceptions. It is a process to evaluate own characteristics and plan the tasks and goals to be achieved in a strategic manner.

I am the person who always set his goals and objectives according to the circumstances. At present, my achievement is to organize myself to play role of International Manager in a respected company. Since, I was studying about international management practice and cross cultural issues, I read a lot about managing with people of different ethnicities and acquiring capability to adapt their culture and effectively learn skills. But still I have some areas which I need to develop to be a successful individual (hopefully manager) in my future career.

According to my recordings in my logbook of the six weeks, my aim was to do progress in many areas in which I was lacking. So I evaluated myself with different perceptions following the mid-semester SMART development plan. I realised that my research skills were not up to standards and for that during the last six weeks I used all the feasible resources offered by the Sheffield Hallam University. In addition, I took help of my international consultancy project manager and some of my classmates who had good quality of research skills in them.

In my opinion, this particular report was a big challenging task because exploring own strength and weakness is not as easy as it appears to be. But while working on this report I realised how important and useful is to recognise own strength and weakness. Therefore, now I would be doing self-evaluation with the help of academic theory and concepts which will help my personal development.

Self Evaluation of Attributes:

The attributes that came to my mind while self evaluation are positive “Can Do” attitude, flexibility, focus and good listener, quick learner etc. I assume that these are some important attributes to be presented for successful international manager or an entrepreneur in this globalised competitive market. “Students from international business schools are well prepared to work globally due to their linguistic ability, their willingness to study abroad, and their experience in working in multicultural teams”(Schneider and Barsoux, 2003)

1. Flexibility:

   The word flexible in itself has a great importance in context to international management practice irrespective of field of management. This characteristic is highly noticed during the interview sessions in MNE’s (Multinational Enterprises). This factor has given me great opportunity to be offered a post of permanent employee in my part-time job, as at the time of joining, I was recruited as a temporary employee through agency. This scenario i.e. during initial few weeks at my part time job while I was under training, quite number of times I was asked for working over time and I never use to refuse; my manager found that I am a quite flexible and quick learner regarding the work. In addition, I never use to avoid university seminar and lectures. This evidence proves the flexible nature of mine.

   Positive “Can Do” Attitude:

   This characteristic has equal importance and demand in the international management practice. This “can do” attitude has ability to convert many difficult or impossible tasks into attainable with bit of effort. I got this positive attitude when I joined my father’s business of construction materials. This attribute has helped me to raise level of good will for my father’s firm. The evidence for this goes two years back when I completed first year of my bachelor degree in commerce. My father suffered from heavy financial losses in his business as he couldn’t complete one government project on time because of less availability of labour. Later, when I came to know about such losses occurred, I decided to join his firm and help him out to gain confidence and emerge as a better competitor in the market. I helped him out to fill tenders with my academic knowledge. This positive attitude helped my father’s firm to regain the position of best competitor as he got back the most desired tender during that course of time.

Self Evaluation of Skills:

The development of key skills is mere important to succeed in our course and further in employment. According to (Lasserre 2003) few skills among the important which I evaluated in the past six weeks and need to improve are as follows:

1. Professional:

   First of all, the skill which I want to improve now in me is to present myself in more developed professional manner. This is because as now I am on the verge of finishing the course after which I will be applying for professional jobs. So for that reason I need to develop the way I approach to people and present myself. In addition, in this globalised competitive corporate world, I cannot take any risks by leaving a bad impression at the time of interview or meeting any professional individual.

   Cultural knowledge:

   At present due to large number of migration of professionals the MNC’s or MNE’s have got diversified employees belonging to different ethnicity and cultures. Therefore, it becomes essential to have knowledge about different cultures. Also, we need to accept the level of thinking and respect the cultural values in order to build a better relation with the people or colleagues from different regions of the world. The cultural knowledge gives a self confidence in a situation where an individual doesn’t know anybody else. It also gives an upper hand when doing business internationally or managing across cultures. During this course I learnt a lot about British Culture, Chinese Culture, and some parts from EU. The model of Professor Geert Hofstede (1980) developed a dimensional approach to cross cultural comparisons. He gave five dimensions namely:

   • Power Distance (high/low) [PDI]:

     the factor distinguishes between the levels of hierarchy accepted by the society

   • Individualism/Collectivism [IDV]:

     the factor tells the importance of the individual in a group and the loyalty towards oneself.

   • Masculinity/Feminity [MAS]:

     tells about importance of work goals compared with personal goals.

   • Uncertainty Avoidance (high/low) [UAI]:

     tells about degree of tolerance for uncertainty or instability.

   • Time Orientation [LTO]:

     tells about the importance of virtues related to past and present or virtues related to future.

   Negotiation:

   This particular skill is considered to be problem solving exercise. One should have negotiation skill as it is a process in which conflicts are considered, ideas are thought to be sorted out and solutions of some kind are found out. During the negotiation process the factor that really matters is the style of negotiation. The individual should be more explicit, exact and direct when dealing with range of issues. The style of negotiation should not cause frustration for both the parties. The framework Weiss (1994) drew shows in structured form of culturally approachable strategies that can be adopted according to the level of knowledge which each negotiator has with other culture.