Difficulties And Problems That MNC Have

Firstly, communication is one of the most challenged problems that the MNCs have to deal with. Basically, the staffs in a MNCs come from many different countries and they speak in different languages so the language barrier is the most serious problem. Even though they work in a same company and also speak a same foreign language (which might be English, French, Japanese and Chinese), but meaning misunderstanding still lead to problems. The most common miscommunication is often caused by language and the problem occurs when people have poor translations or lack of perception of the communication’s meaning (Deresky and Christopher, 2008). For instance, there are many differences between American- English and Australian- English such as the different of “cell phone” and “mobile phone”. Nowadays, there are more than hundred of different languages that are used as native languages all over the world and English is one of the most common one which is often used in MNCs. Charles (2007) described that English have been considered as a universal language in the business world. English is not the most spoken language in the world as a mother tongue, but it is the language that foreigners speak the most. It is estimated that 80% of people who speak English are not native English speakers. On the other hand, domestic companies do not have this communication problem. Most their staffs are from the same country and they speak the same language which is their mother language so they do not have the communication barrier. Beside of that, speaking the same native language can help the staffs understand each others without translations so that the miscommunication never happens in domestic companies’ organizations. Furthermore, the communication in MNCs’ environment is also affected by the non- verbal language or body language. In some cases, body language is more important than words. Barbour and Koneya (1976) stated that 55% of message which were broken down was from the body language such as gestures and facial expresses. This means that the non- verbal differences are also a problem for a MNC’s organization. In order to develop the cohesiveness of multi- national organization in term of communication, the managers and staffs should improve the communicate skills so that they can have more than enough abilities to communicate effectively. According to Dwyer (2002), the members of a multi- national organization should make the conversation openly so they can share their intentions, feelings with others. Moreover, they can also give their feedbacks to the information directly. Thus, the communication problems can be solved right after the broken down occurs.

Secondly, there is also a problem in cultural differences that produce difficulties for MNCs. Multi- national staffs have many variety background cultures. This cultural difference influence the behavior rules, communication style and emotion display. It is important to realize that culture can also define differences between groups. Culture identifies particular groups by their similarities as well as their differences. Moreover, there are many religion and beliefs among those multi- national staffs. Beamer and Varner (2008) mentioned religion and beliefs also have an impact on the cultural diversity of people. Some cultures place divine powers at the center of events while other think humans are the main actors. In contrast, domestic companies do not have to face with cultural shock. Their staffs can understand each others clearly and fast because they have the same background culture which leads to the same behaviors. On the other hand, according to Hofstede (1980) differ in behaviors and actions of individuals are also influenced by cultures. For example, in Asian cultures, members of a department have to follow the leaders even they know that their leader might be wrong. But in Western cultures, members in one office have the right to raise their ideas and opinions no matter if their ideas are different with their leader. The individual’s responses are showed differently in a similar situation depending on the cultures. Some reactions may found completely inappropriate. For example, in Southern cultures, where people tend to speak loudly and even shout and this behavior could be perceived as a lack of respect from people from Asian cultures. To solve the cohesiveness and inclusion of the multi- national organization in the view of culture, the managers need to analyze the main points of the cultural differences so that they can deal with them in order to understand their staffs clearly and deeply.

Finally, one of the problems that MNCs have to face in order to deal with the cohesiveness of the multi- national organization is the team work style. MNCs cannot be managed by one person and they need teams which members who can provide sufficient knowledge, experiences and leadership ability. To meet the needs of different markets, teams should consist of members from different cultures. Kirkman and Shapiro (1997) noticed the influence of cultural diversity through the level of power distance. Self- management depends on low power distance or high power distance. Low power distance cultures prefer the authority to manage the decisions by themselves. In contrast, high power distance cultures prefer a clear structure so they will be confused and humiliated by a decentralized decision-making process. According to Alder (2008), the misunderstandings among multi- national teams can happen every time and every where in MNCs. Alder gave an example to show how responding from team members and the leaders were affected by the different cultures. In this example, when an Australian leader asked his Indian teams’ member whether the project could be done on time or not. The Indian member who belongs to Asian cultures responded a “YES” answer to satisfy his leader even he knew that it was impossible to complete the tasks on time. However, the leader- who belongs to Western cultures which were very clear and direct with the answer was very disappointed when he found out the results were not as good as what the Indian member reported to him. As the result, this misinterpretation might cause many problems for the project. In contrast, domestic organizations have no problem with their teams. All their teams can have the same language which is the main factor that causes the teamwork misunderstanding. Especially in Asian cultures, there are many companies that do not have the groups work. All the members in one staff work independently and just have to respond their tasks to their managers. Moreover, the common goals of domestic companies are usually identified and developed perfectly by its staff because they have the same orientation and the same objective which is not only sub serve for each member but also for their society or their country. Nationality strongly affects people’s thinking. A team with all same nationality members who will have the same national spirits so that team will have the same motivations in order to develop the organization. In order to build up a successful team including of members from variety cultures it is important to observe some sensitive factors such as culture and language. Govindarajan and Gupta (2001) pointed out that the best way to build an effective team is considerations to establish trust among team members which will assist each other mutually to concentrate to a common intention. Trust is consolidated by understandable cultures, frequent communication or the experience of team members and so on. Through that comprehension, everyone in team comes closer to interact to reduce misunderstand and also avoid conflict among group.

In conclusion, there are many difficulties and problems that MNCs have to get over in order to expand their business in foreign countries. The most serious problem which MNCs often have more than domestic companies do is how to improve the cohesiveness and inclusion of the multi- national staffs. The main problems that the MNCs’ managers should carefully consider about the staffs are different languages, different cultures and different teamwork styles. Those three problems just often happen in multi- national organizations so if the MNCs’ managers can fully control and balance the differences between languages, cultures and teamwork styles, they will have chances to maximize the abilities of the MNCs’s staffs.