Challenges of Cultural Diversity for Multinational Corporations: Analysis of the US Through the Major Value Dimensions

Globalization is a process that converts separate national economies into an interconnected global economy. Multinational corporations (MNCs) have investments, operations, and marketing activities in several countries. It is important for MNCs to be successful when working with people in other countries to be able to plan how to relate to and adapt to people from different cultures. The significance of cultural factors is often seriously underestimated. Understanding the nature, characteristics, and factors of a particular culture and how these affect work and organizational processes is extremely beneficial for international managers. Thus, they can develop appropriate policies and decide how to organize, lead, and control in a particular foreign environment. Such a process of adaptation to the environment is necessary to implement strategy successfully. Also, it promotes productive engagement in a workforce with a rising level of domestic and international cultural variety. This research aims to overview the drivers and consequences of globalization, as well as the operation of MNCs. Further aim of the research is to analyze the US through the major value dimensions (proposed by Hofstede, Trompenaars, Hall, Lewis) that define cultural differences among societies, as well as to provide managers with some practical examples and guidance to consider when managing the international workforce. The research focuses on the US, being the largest and second largest country regarding Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows and outflows, respectively, in Q3 2022, as well as being represented by five corporations among the world’s 10 largest corporations by number of employees.