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Cobalt Systems and SiverLight Electronics

Decent Essays
1. Present the discrepancies of business practices, policy and strategy between the 2 countries Cobalt Systems is a multinational corporation present in more than 50 countries divided into regions. Cobalt Systems is a highly centralized organization as all the operations throughout the world are overseen by 13 US based ‘Management Board’ members. The company large number of layers between the Management Board and the local employees (hierarchical organization) doesn’t allow much room for empowerment. It is an ethnocentric company with a people oriented culture that provides all its local employees around the world with extensive training in order to socialize them to the Cobalt culture. Moreover, Cobalt Systems insists on fully…show more content…
SilverLight wants its employees to do things the ‘Silverlight way’ and join the ‘SilverLight family’ for the rest of their careers whereas Cobalt wants all its employees around the world to adopt the Cobalt culture. Cobalt sees its subsidiaries as national assets that have to be closely protected from competitors and therefore fully owned by Cobalt whereas SilverLight is seen as a Korean pride by the Koreans and the government and is cross-owned by a multitude of firms forming the SilverLight Chaebol. Cobalt’s world operations are overseen by 13 US based Management Board members creating a hierarchical organization whereas SilverLight is part of a horizontal multi-industry organization (the SlverLight Chaebol) and he still closely tied to the government due to historical reasons. 2. Using the cross-cultural criteria defined in class, list the expected discrepancies in the behavior of the Korean and US negotiators. For western companies and American ones in particular, time is money. However, in Asian cultures time is no relevant at all. It is probably why it was the Korean company rather than the American one who decided to take a break in the negotiation process. Therefore, the American negotiator will have to learn to take his time and not rush the conversation directly to business matters. It is important to know that Koreans want to get to know the people they are going
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