Marlene Cook has been newly appointed as the Senior Director of New Product Development
Situation:
Marlene Cook has been newly appointed as the Senior Director of New Product Development in a New York-based multinational manufacturing company. She is informed by her CEO that the company is restructuring to rationalize some of its R&D, IT infrastructure support, product testing, and manufacturing functions by migrating them offshore to other countries. Although there are several factors responsible for this decision, three main reasons provided by the management are the possibility of a 24/7 development cycle as a result of time zone difference, greater availability of talent outside of the U.S., and lower labor costs associated with hiring employees elsewhere.
The company has some previous experience in international business, but it has been mainly engaged in only sourcing raw materials and components and exporting finished equipment to some countries in Europe and Latin America. The company does not have any experience in working in virtual global teams for new product development work.
The company has decided to locate the offshore R&D facility in Fort Collins (USA); carry out product testing in Vancouver (Canada), have an Information Technology infrastructure support facility in St. Petersburg (Russia), and the final manufacturing and assembly facility in Guadalajara (Mexico). While each new location will employ local employees, several existing managers and experienced engineers will also relocate from the United States to those offshore locations for a period of 6 months to a year to facilitate knowledge transfer. The program manager for each of the four countries will be located in the U.S. and will report to Marlene Cook.
To be successful, the company will utilize a model in which they will follow the corporate values based on the U.S. culture but will also need to mold their business practices in accordance with the local cultural models in each foreign location. Therefore, they are considering assessing the cultural variability across the countries involved.
Based on what the CEO has learned from his/her industry peers, he/she does understand that the running of the global virtual team is not going to be easy. The company has no prior experience in this virtual mode of high-level product innovation, development, or manufacturing work. Therefore, Marlene Cook was chosen to investigate the idea and prepare a detailed project report which will guide the formation of the virtual teams and their successful operation.
Final Term Paper Deliverables
Marlene Cook has chosen you as a cross-cultural consultant to investigate and present a report providing a comparative cultural assessment of the four countries (Canada, Mexico, and Russia) with the United States.
1. The project report should address the following outlines:
o Provide an Executive Summary.
o Provide demographic information for all four countries. A table showing four countries side by side might be helpful. A good source of demographic information is the United States Statistics Division or the CIA World Fact Book. For each country, be sure to address (Include a map and a flag of all four countries in the report):
? Language(s)
? Predominant religion(s) and the key guiding principles of each
? Cultural diversity in each country
? Gender issues
2. Provide a summarized comparison of the national cultures of Canada, Mexico, Russia, and the United States in light of the three important dimensions of national culture by Hofstede listed below. You should have three tables, one for each dimension, showing a comparison between the four countries. (Hint: Each dimension should portray and discuss all 4 countries together.) Discuss the most important cultural attributes for each dimension that may help your client’s understanding of cultural differences for all locations. Compare them with the United States. Discuss positive and negative cultural attributes in the context of global teamwork. The dimensions are:
o Power Distance Index (PDI)
o Individualism versus Collectivism (IDV)
o Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI)
3. In light of the above, provide proper explanations to the following questions:
o What are the rationale and drivers for the recent growth of global virtual teams? What justifications can be given for the company’s decision to migrate some product development, testing, IT infrastructure, and manufacturing work to another country?
o What are the most likely major opportunities and challenges for this global virtual team?
o Since the other teams will be based in Canada, Mexico and Russia, what cross-cultural differences are likely to impact the good performance of this global virtual team? How would they cause any positive or negative impact on the company’s overall business mission? What recommendations should be made for fully understanding and bridging these cultural differences?
o Provide an example of a multinational firm that has expanded into any of those countries and how it dealt with any cross-cultural communication issues. If possible, you can interview a manager who works for a multinational firm involving operations in any of the four countries.
o How would mutual “trust” be a significant potential issue among members of the global virtual team? How to positively address any trust-related issues?
o Based on your findings and responses above, develop a communication protocol for all members of the global virtual team.
o Provide guidelines for general best practices for sustaining a high-performance global virtual team.
4. The term paper report should be between 12-15 pages (double-spaced, 12 point font size), not including the cover page and references and appendices.
Citations and Works Cited
Be careful to cite your sources in your text and to properly list them on a Reference page in accordance with the APA 6th standards. Web addresses cited should be active. No less than 5 sources to include the course textbook.
Reference course textbook:
• Steers, R. and Osland, J. (2020) – 4th Edition. Management across cultures: Challenges, Strategies, and Skills. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 978-1-108-71759-5 Paperback.
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