LA498 2

Please make an initial post and respond to the 3 posts. There are 4 total. Must be complete ASAP and no later than 8 PM PST.

Use references and attachments.

Case study: G2Q is a multinational company specializing in the commodification of water. In response to company shareholders’ demands for higher revenue, the company has adopted increasingly aggressive practices in its quest to acquire controlling rights to regional water resources around the globe. As part of that initiative, the company secretly proposed a profit-sharing agreement with some local leaders in a South Pacific location in exchange for the right to divert more surface and spring water to expand their bottled water production. This has resulted in local protests and work slowdowns at the local plant, which in turn decreased productivity and financial losses.

In an attempt to return to profitability, G2Q brought in managers from company headquarters to displace indigenous people previously hired in supervisory and leadership roles. None of the incoming managers speak the local language, and most complain about what they consider to be substandard living and working conditions.

Most of the employees are members of ethnic minorities from the host country with distinct differences in cultural norms and language preferences. For example, some behave as though they speak no English, while others refuse to make eye contact with managers. Still others appear to agree with everything managers say, then ignore their directions.

One former manager who quit, married a local, and lives in a nearby village has advised the incoming managers that “things are done differently over here” and cautions them against rushing to judgment. That presents a dilemma, as the company CEO has promised all managers a sizeable bonus if the plant regains its formerly profitable status within two years. Otherwise, the company will close down that location, firing the managers and leaving hundreds of people with little hope of finding other employment.

Directions for initial post:

Note: There are three distinct threads used in this discussion. You must post in the designated threads as follows: post in the “Issues” thread Monday through Wednesday; post to the “Consensus” thread on Thursday and Friday; and post to the “Strategies” thread Saturday and Sunday.

Take stock of varying perspectives of the situation, starting with your own. What do you think about the situation presented in the case study? Why do you feel as you do?

Issues thread: Individually, draw upon the literature and byWednesday contribute an informed position about issues noted in the case study. Here’s a list of possible issues to jump-start the process and to inform your work:

EthnocentrismIn-group favoritismOutgroup biasCultural inequitiesIntergroup conflict

Organizational valuesEthical decision-makingEconomic impactSocial JusticeCross-cultural theory

Consensus thread: Consider your own perspective about these issues (back to step 1), and then consider how reviewing the literature (step 2) affected your perspective. (In other words, how did learning about other views influence your own worldview?) Share this with your group, and listen to the views and ideas of group members.

Consensus thread: As a group, reach consensus by Friday about the factors listed in step 2.What are the ethical implications of the decisions and actions of the company, managers, and employees? Who's affected, and how?How do these decisions and actions demonstrate (or not demonstrate) social responsibility?

Respond:

I think that ultimately it was the lack of ethical leadership that led G2Q down this path. The company pushed increasingly harder to gain water rights, to the point that it made deals behind the backs of stakeholders. Continuing in this way by bringing in new managers opened the door for more ethnocentrism and cultural bias, and a major clash is occurring because of the organizational values (e.g. greed) that are being advanced. The organization should maybe reconsider the incentives it is giving its employees; as noted in cases such as the exploding Ford Pinto debacle and the 2008 housing crisis (Bazerman &Tenbrunsel, 2011), when ethics are put on the back burner by a company's leaders then the culture will adopt the same outlook, with detrimental results for all involved. Upper management needs to start considering inclusion of all demographics in how it addresses the conflict going on.

Reference

Bazerman, M. H., & Tenbrunsel, A. E. (2011). Ethical Breakdowns. Harvard Business Review, 89(4), 58-65.

Respond:

Alice,

I agree that the company should offer incentives to the indigenous employees in order to make them more willing to take initiative and become real team players. The employees and the managers alike would certainly benefit from cross-cultural training to rid themselves of their ethnocentric ways and become more open minded to new cultures without using their own as a means of comparison. Understanding, awareness, and collaboration would become obtainable if the employees and managers put their differences aside and put the values and goals of the company before their own. 

-Rachel

Respond:

COLLAPSE

I agree with Alice that the main issues addressed in the literature were ethnocentrism, intergroup conflict, and authentic tolerance. From my own perspective, the first assumption I made was that the managers were to blame for not taking diverse cultures into perspective. But then as I read the posts from my group members and reviewed the literature once again, I noticed that all parties were not up to par with taking consideration and adjusting their own customs in the work place.

The company itself was short sighted by not considering how sending managers into a different region with various cultures would affect the work ethic of the group as a whole. The managers should have gone through training sessions to understand how to work in a new environment unlike that of what they are used to. Second, if the managers noticed the indigenous workers not following through with orders, than there must be more factors that need to be taken into consideration if it is not on an individual scale, but is occurring with all indigenous employees.

So the managers should have held a meeting with the workers to discuss the issues they were facing and come up with a solution to solve them. Then there is the indigenous workers who, if they did not understand what was being asked of them, should have sought clarification. And if an indigenous employee feared losing his or her job by addressing the managers, then that employee should have gathered with their fellow workers as a group to come up with a solution on how to approach the managers. 

By not taking action from the start or when issues began to arise, the actions they did take, or lack there of affected the workers on an individual scale and the company on a corporate level. If the company failed to succeed in the region, there would be the loss of profit, the indigenous workers would lose their positions, and the managers would probably be sent to a different region where they would be confronted with the same problem due to lack of understanding of the indigenous peoples of the area. 

All of the managers and employees had a social responsibility to come together and make things work in order to advance the benefit of the company. By taking no action, things would just get progressively worse and there would be more intergroup conflict as no one would reach any accord on how to proceed with the company's best interests in mind. At this point, things would be going straight downhill. Until someone steps up and decides that it is their responsibility to the company to resolve the situation, then change could be made and cross-cultural accommodations could be met.

-Rachel