Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CASE STUDY
With the expansion some problems came up, like the working in teams and providing incentives for individual employees. Management in the US promotes performance pay while the parent company emphasises other aspects of employment relations, like participation of employees through works councils. In the US both management and unions hold the opinion that work and organisational matters should be negotiated upon when labour interests are at stake. When management from the parent company attempted to introduce teamwork, local management of subsidiaries in the US had a different perception of teamwork facilitating the rotation of jobs and increasing flexibility rather than creating more autonomous work groups. Until 2007 the CEO of Home Furniture was Finnish. Since then, a new British CEO has been making attempts to improve communications throughout the company. Not only the language of communication changed to English throughout all operations of the company; also the way in which policies are developed and implemented changed. This new communications strategy, which is carried by the headquarters, does not always appear to be in line with the management style in some other countries, like India and other Asian countries. Another issue the new CEO has to deal with was negative publicity on working conditions in some countries. Some NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) have made allegations about unpaid overtime, and health and safety issues within some of the production and sales facilities. These allegations relate to mainly Tunesia and China. Also, especially the Finnish press reported on cases of union busting in some US branches. One of the first decisions the new CEO took was the creation of an HR executive at corporate level. With the start of this HR office an investment was made in a training centre in Tampere. Both the HR executive and the CEO are aware of the need to create a corporate training programme. HR is also aware of the problems the company may experience as the result of variation in reward schemes across countries. The CEO feels, however, that a main task for HR would be to develop instruments of motivation which are relevant for the various countries where the company operates.
CASE ANALYSIS: The questions below make reference to the case study Home Furniture ltd.. Students must answer the question from section A and one from section B: either question 1, 2 or 3.
SECTION A Provide the new Home Furniture CEO with advice on the policy she should adopt when operating in various countries and employing people from various countries. Refer to the various concepts and outcomes of research on management across cultures.
SECTION B 1. Provide the new CEO with some guidance on formulating a communication strategy for Home Furniture taking into account the fact that its operations span many different cultures. As it should assist the company as a whole it is most important to guide the new CEO with formal communication what information should be sent to whom within the company and who to consult with various decisions? You could also advice on how to deal with informal communication and the meaning of it for doing business across cultures. 2. The sophisticated nature of logistics and the innovation and development of products at Home Furniture mean that its employees are required to work in teams. Advise the new CEO on what he should take into account when forming multi-cultural teams from various countries where Home Furniture has offices, stores, and production units, and how to manage those teams. What problems could be expected when working across the countries mentioned in the case? Think about motivation, leadership and reward and communication. 3. At the office in London there are many employees who do not belong to a dominant group of employees with regard to gender, ethnicity, age and ability etc. You are asked to develop a policy for diversity management. a. What are your arguments for developing a policy so what is your basic view on diversity and why would or could it be relevant (what is the rationale)? b. What are the elements of the policy on cultural diversity and what HRM-instruments - like career progression, reward and training - could be applied to the company. In other words, what are the main elements of your suggested diversity policy and its implementation?
NB: although the perspective may be very practical the students are required to refer to various theories. This should be done with the use of proper Harvard referencing with both a list of references and in-text referencing. All other requirements apply, like building up an argument and linking practices and policies to theories. Students are recommended generally NOT to use internet sources, as most of them contain unreliable, and usually very poor information.