Case 1
Chinese company Fuyao Glass Industry Group decided to purchase an old abandoned General Motors factory in 2014 creating 1,500 jobs for a Dayton, Ohio suburb. The decision was made to be closer to their key customers. However, a culture clash has arisen on the factory floor. Since almost all the workers are American, they have taken issue with the Chinese leadership and their commitment to running under American standards. After the American president and vice president was outed the plant has “more of a Chinese feel” said worker Duane Young (Scheiber & Bradsher, 2017). He said the Chinese have little interest in training or engaging with American employees. This may be in part due to cultural norms. The company currently faces a
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This will form the basis of my suggestion on how to improve the situation. Representatives that have been elected by the workers need to meet with the key managers. Key differences need to be recognized by both parties. Team members should be able to voice their concerns to management about what they believe the role of a manager should be. In return, the Chinese managers should explain to the workers why they act certain ways towards their employees, no matter how harsh it may be. Team members and managers should be willing to discuss their issues and cultural norms to provide an outlet for a solution. If not, the problem will continue with no intervention. Chitakornkijsil comments on this issue stating that “Cultural differences can create the potential to make intercultural communication very difficult, and sometimes utterly impossible” (Chitakornkijsil, 2009) Another solution could be to replace the Chinese managers with American managers. However, this would disenfranchise the Chinese managers. The tension between the Americans and Chinese would not be relived by replacing the managers. Hence, the discussion is necessary to begin broader discussion within the company about how the managers act in their roles and how their culture influences them. The most important concern, in my opinion, is safety and needs to be stated simply to the managers.
Safety is perceived very differently in
Cross cultural conflict can also be a factor in the workplace. The United States is an extremely diverse place, as a conglomeration of people from different races, religions, cultural backgrounds, personalities, educational experiences and learning styles. This diversification leads to more women, various ethnic groups, and immigrant workers working together in a more diverse tapestry of associates even when the corporation is located and operating only in the United States. In increasingly diverse corporate America, doing
In the case “Managing a Global Team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems, Inc. Tsedal Neeley states that lack of inappropriate communication, leadership and decision-making is root of the crisis of HS Holdings. Generally, cultural diversity is based on many things one being the idea that certain characteristics should not be completely disregarded but regulated and valued as important. With this in view, diverse cultural issues can result in organizational problems. First, we must view your techniques to manage your global team and recognize the primary root of the problems. Secondly, you will need to identify who should be responsible for the crisis of HS Holdings because of miscommunication and inefficient leadership. Thirdly, defining roles and job descriptions is extremely important in an open work environment and
The differences between Chinese Culture and American Culture are immense. Both cultures have very different values and norms, and these differences come out within the negotiation between Buckeye Glass Company and the Xia Xian Glass Factory. Both parties during this negotiation had different objectives and ways to get what they wanted out of the proposed joint venture.
Corning has a diverse product line that includes glass, ceramics, tableware, cookware, and auto parts. In order to offer such a diverse portfolio of products, Corning constantly reevaluates its production capabilities and deploys resources to improve productivity. The manufacturing and engineering team was developed internally and tasked with the responsibility of process change and improvement. The M & E team plays an integral part in Corning’s ability to garner new market share and leverage existing opportunities. For instance, the M & E team participated in numerous projects throughout Corning, but its core responsibilities include internal consulting, product quality assurance, and the smoothing the transition of products from R&D to production. The M & E team’s function is to solve problems by implementing long term solutions that facilitate process and quality improvement.
The primary subject matter of this case concerns the issues faced in an U.S. company with a large percentage of immigrant Latino workers and the resulting interaction with their original Anglo workforce. There are numerous cultural misunderstandings in this case study between Anglo and Latino workforce. The Human Resource Department is unclear how to address the issues facing in the company.
Many corporate are now conducting training on cross-cultural communication for their workforce. In the US, opinions of cultural experts are invited before taking a judicial decision. In short, every person or organization can make small steps to minimize this
China is one of our biggest labor competitors. The reason many US companies go to China for outsourcing is again, because of their workforce’s willingness to operate at low costs. Michael Zimmerman describes this as a disparity in worker “tolerance”. Where the low wages found in China are “far lower than U.S.
As a manager one would have to examine their views and cultural biases before trying to implement cultural literacy to their employees. Once managers and professionals become culturally literate then the cultural bridges at work can be formed. This can happen by
Mismanaging cultural differences can render otherwise successful managers and organisations ineffective when working across cultures. As stated byOsland (1990, p. 4) ``The single greatest barrier to business success is the one erected by culture''. Hofstede (1983) defines culture as "the mental programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another" (Hofstede 1983 p. 25). Through the comparison of Chinese culture and Australian culture using Hofstedes five cross-cultural dimensions: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and long-term orientation an insightful view into the differences and similarities of the cultures can be obtained (Chong & Park 2003). Human Resource Management
“Inside the factory, amid clattering machinery and clouds of sawdust, men without earplugs or protective goggles feed wood into screaming electric saws, making cabinets for stereo speakers” (Goodman and Pan 1). In the article Chinese Workers Pay for Wal-Mart’s Low Prices by Peter Goodman and Philip Pan the mistreatment of the migrant workers in China is evident. These kinds of behaviors are taking place all over in China. The abuse of the Chinese work force has reached terrible proportions and created unlawful conditions because of the demanding economy of China, and other countries’ needs of the goods; however, the companies that are centered in China are working to make sure their workers are treated fairly.
In the case “Managing a Global Team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems, Inc. Tsedal Neeley states that lack of inappropriate communication, leadership and decision-making is root of the crisis of HS Holdings. Overall, cultural diversity is based on the idea that cultural identities should not be discarded or ignored but rather maintained and valued. In view of this, diverse cultural differences can result in organizational problems. Firstly, identify your techniques to manage his global team and recognize the root of problems. Secondly, identify you should be responsible for the crisis of HS Holdings because of miscommunication and improper leadership. Thirdly, defining the important role of open work environment and diversity play in the case in order to focus on improvement of this two. Fourthly, finding out short-term development and long-term development for James to match solving organizational problem. At the end, summing all findings in a conclusion . Mentioning Greg, he is an unquestionable technical elites. After he earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from Stanford University, he chose to work for the Sun Inc. Within four years, he had risen in the Data Protection and Recovery Department. Five years later, he achieved the Sun outstanding Manager award. (Neeley and Delong 5) Now, James works on a global team management position where he is struggling with team management. Within the team there was a lot of stress being built up
Managing subordinates with different cultural backgrounds and working styles from your own is very hard because it makes your decision as manager subjective. Managers tend to evaluate the attitude of the subordinate not his performance and any differences are seen as problems. This creates tension at workplace, atmosphere of low cooperation. Dealing with situation like this should be done with reflecting mind set and self regulation. The manager should step back, explore the issue, weight positives versus negatives, accept the person the way he is and try to be objective in his evaluation. Dealing with “different” subordinate involves paying specific attention to the concept of “psychological work contract.” According to this concept the employee will maintain the high production, low grievances if the manager guarantees and respects the norms of the employee informal culture (let the employees alone, make certain they make adequate wages, and have secure jobs). The issue is that subordinate’s norms of informal culture are altered and usually managers keep requiring the same input without keeping his part of the contract. Understanding the different cultural background and accepting the different working style should help you in taking rational decision. A manager should not be thinking about a problem employee but
In this era of Globalisation, cross cultural management is the biggest challenge that is faced by the organisations. Within the business context, cross culture refers to interaction between different cultures. Cross cultural management refers to managing the employees from different cultural background in one environment (Adler, 2008). Cross culture management is a significant issue within the organisations as the success of an organisation depends upon the smooth interaction of the employees. This paper is aimed at providing insight on the cross cultural management and the main issues and challenges relating to cross cultural management. For the purpose of this paper, two articles, “Cross-cultural Differences in Management”, by Amman & Jordan
Managers were concerned about knowing and understanding each and every perspective of their employee’s cultures. As they know that without studying or knowing the culture, coordination cannot be built between the employees. It is the existing perspective of managers dealing with cross-cultural management (Sultana, 2013).
There are two sides to the problem, the Chinese and the American, and Ray is the only one who can see both of them. The reasons for these two points of view are the socio-cultural differences that exist among countries. Culture is what defines a country and it can be composed of the language, values, religion, models of conducts, and beliefs, among others. There are many cultural differences between China and the U.S. China has a strong sense of hierarchy and respect towards figures of authority. For example, the vice president of a company might decline to participate in a very lucrative opportunity if it meant going over the president and his boss. This is a behavior that many Americans would find difficult to understand because their priority would be to make money. Another example is the role women play in business world. Even though the number of professional Chinese women has grown, men still think they are inferior, which is why when they see a woman succeeds in a position usually occupied by men; she earns great respect (Fang, 2008). This is actually something that other countries looking to enter Chinese market can use to their advantage. These and the many other cultural differences that exist between China and the U.S. explain why they see the problem in a very different way. Based on these differences, if Rocky River decides to pull out of the venture, it will be very difficult for the Chinese to trust the