Bobak Moazami MBA Business Administration

 

For years it has been widely understood that the internationalization decisions made by companies or individuals are complex and constrained by uncertainty. While prior studies have shown that heuristics can facilitate decision-making in complex and foggy environments, the role of heuristic decision-making in internationalization decisions has not been studied in depth until today. Throughout the years of study, Bobak Moazami used a qualitative and inductive approach to track the progress of heuristic decision-making processes. Mr. Moazami achieved this by studying companies as they conduct their first moves towards internationalization, explicating the influence of context-specific experience on developments. Bobak realized that emergent theoretical models indicate that while heuristic decision-making has a positive impact on strategy development, most managers are unable to grasp this at the beginning of their first iterations. Bobak Moazami found out that the positive impact appears only after a certain level of context-specific experience is accumulated and when the stimulus of an unexpected event triggers its transformation into usable models.

During this investigative work, Mr. Moazami realized that inspecting the decision-making paths of individual managers is not a straightforward task as it requires gathering, interpreting, and exposing cognitive processes that are hard to observe with the naked eye.

However, these days, companies continue to expand across borders and the global marketplace becomes increasingly more accessible for small and large businesses alike, the future brings ever more opportunities to work internationally. Managers today, like Bobak Moazami, are taking a different approach to the problem mentioned above

Multinational and cross-cultural teams are constantly becoming ever more common, meaning businesses can benefit from an increasingly diverse knowledge base and fresh insightful approaches to business problematic situations. However, along with the benefits of insight and expertise, Moazami points out those global organizations also face potential stumbling blocks when it comes to culture and internationalization of business.

Moazami also discusses how there are a number of ways to define culture: put simply it is a set of well-known and accepted norms shared by a diverse society. But in an international business spectrum, what is common and accepted for a seasoned professional from one country, could be very different for a colleague from overseas. Recognizing and understanding how cultural differences affect international business in three core areas: communication, etiquette, and organizational hierarchy can help you to avoid daily misunderstandings with colleagues and clients from other countries. Thus, excelling in a globalized business environment.

Bobak Moazami also realized that organizational hierarchy and attitudes towards upper management can also vary greatly between different cultures. Whether or not those in middle-management positions feel comfortable speaking up in company meetings, questioning senior decisions, or expressing a different opinion can be determined by cultural norms. Often these attitudes can be a reflection of a country’s social values. We all need to understand that this hierarchy aids to define roles and responsibilities across the company’s organization. Bobak explains that this also means that those in senior management positions command respect and expect a certain level of formality and respect from “lower” team members.