Questions:

Your company has just formed a strategic alliance with a company from another part of the world. Your company has appointed you to lead the transition team, which includes executives from Canada, Mexico, Singapore, and Switzerland. The team must make many decisions about the alliance right away. What would you do as a team leader to ensure that the decision making process in the transition team quickly becomes as effective as possible? What decision making concepts and principles are applicable to this scenario? Is there a decision making model that would work best when working with top executive from different countries and different cultures?

Where is your culture located on Hofstede's original four dimensions and on universalism/particularism? How does your organizational culture differ from your national culture on each dimension?

What is the external environment? Why is it important for leaders/managers to be knowledgeable about it? How does a shift from a static to a dynamic and complex environment affect an organization? Discuss some examples.