Cultural and language differences often cause severe difficulties when trying to maintain human performance standards across international boundaries. Different political and value systems also cause managers problems when reacting to control problems. A multinational firm must pay special attention to both the planning and control functions of the Administrative Science approach to management. Many factors are associated with the increased complexity of controlling multinational operations. Both the geographic and the cultural distance that separates operations can contribute to control problems.
Different cultures tend to have different communication habits and differing frames of reference.
Many international firms require direct, facetoface interaction among home and host country managers. These allow the direct and explicit monitoring of operations and activities in the geographically distant operations. The design of indirect, information systems which are meaningful and relevant to the multinational operations becomes another tool for controlling foreign operations. With the growth of many new arrangements for international operations, even more ways of monitoring operations will have to be developed. Multiple success measures, which are relevant to the cultures in which a multinational firm operates, will be necessary in any international control system designed to monitor the operations of entities which operate across national borders.