Multicultural management: the example of BNP Paribas

Extract

[...] The consequence of that is that the lack of mobility between the branches of BNPP can limit the contact and the effectiveness of the international mobility program$ Last but not least, BNPP could apply the results of Harvard studies in their manager's program especially dealing with multicultural environment. This study especially worked on the new digital working with multicultural teams, which actually completely meets with todays way of working for Banks. [...]

[...] This operation was concluded by the exchange of shares between BNPP and Paribas. In terms of management this operation was dealt on a really short period of time and required huge management skills to be performed, especially given the fact that Paribas had a lot of cultural differences especially as a large part of its management was from Netherlands. This resulted in two concrete multicultural management method that proved to be effective and very efficient. First, the rule of 6 month weeks days insisted on the necessity to run merger at a strong speed, in order to avoid the actual merge to be slowed down by natural resitances of the two companies cultures and employees. [...]

[...] This international mobility is, in itself a mark of understanding of how the multicultural management needs to be addressed. In fact, by making people from different culture meet, work together, the basic knowledge of other culture's approach of work and company spreads and increases which facilitates further integration and multicultural management. This development of the international mobility also enhances the capacity for managers and staff to adapt to a multicultural environment and to adopt correct behaviors when dealing with those type of environment. [...]

[...] However, some recommendations can be maid in order to improve the already existing system. First, it is to be noticed that the high management of BNPP still is very cultural homogenous. Even if this can be considered an asset in terms of decision making process, it is also an inconvenient when dealing with multicultural environment. Then, it is interesting to notice that the repartition of departments of BNPP is the result of history. As a consequence, some countries are more focused on certain services and products. [...]

[...] It incudes especially securities services and access to financial markets for those clients. Proprietary trading, which contains all trading activities executed by the bank on their own books. All of these activities, and especially the last two ones, need a high degree of cooperation between managers, traders and brokers from different nations and languages but also from different companie's cultures as those activities were often created in another context before they were created The management strategy of BNP Paribas relies on a series of values that are meant to help developing the activities and to make the company more profitable on the long run. [...]