Creating Boundary Spanners’ Cross-Cultural Competence through Co-Leadership

Abstract

Globalization has meant that boundary spanners are facing tough demands as corporate leaders. Leaders are under pressure to ride out global recessions, global financial crisis and setbacks of their company in the global network. This chapter discusses how leaders could rethink traditional approaches of competition via a successful trans cultural co-leadership strategy by investigating one important component of synergy creation, namely mutual cultural adjustment. The results suggest that successful acculturation enables leaders to function both as locally embedded and globally embedded managers. Through co-location and cooperation over a long span of time, the co-leaders studied were able to develop similarities of culture characterized by universalist approaches that dominate in the global financial business. The actors also adjusted their personal culture toward a strong achievement orientation while building an honest partnership including emotional responses and instant feedback to confirm their communications.