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Wyoff and China - Luquan: Negotiating a Joint Venture

Decent Essays

1- What are the major challenges of working in a country with a different culture (give examples from the case)?

There are four main challenges for Sealed Air when they expanded their business into Taiwan. i. The first challenge is culture differences. At the beginning of the case. When Paul Huang was in the training course he was too quiet. He didn’t even want to participate the group presentation. Furthermore, he didn’t like the meal provided, he would rather than eating just candy bars.

ii. The second challenge is different government styles. By the time when Sealed Air enters Taiwan, the government sought to maintain its “Chineseness.” One of the most important things for this “Chineseness” is Confucianism, and to be …show more content…

In this case Taiwanese government is modest. They prefer to be told what to do rather than only be given suggestions to choose from and adapt. It decreases significant uncertainty for SAT.

iii. To overcome the challenge of long distance, both countries could establish two emergency contact offices for the two locations. These offices are available to communicate anytime and even ready to fly over immediately to each other.

iv. Sealed Air need to prepare for all kinds of economy uncertainties by communicating frequently with local governors. Think about every possible risk and set up plans to deal with them. Everybody knows you take more risk you benefit more. As the rapidly growing of the economy. Sealed Air will must benefit a lot from it.

In conclusion, Kayser didn’t do a good job at the beginning, because he didn’t get a really good understanding about the Chinese culture, and he didn’t even prepare for it. He thought too easy to operate the new company in a new country by only hiring a Chinese sales manager. However, he learned from the mistakes and get successful eventually.

3- What's your takeaway from this case?

It is very exciting to expand a company globally, and it will also create a lot of new opportunities. However, it is very different to do business in different cultures especially in eastern cultures. In this case when Kayser arrives Taiwan he thinks

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