Case Study on Intercultural Management

Running Head: CASE STUDY ON INTERCULTURAL MANAGEMENT
Case Study on Intercultural Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1CASE STUDY ON INTERCULTURAL MANAGEMENT
Case Study 1. Kelly’s assignment in Japan
Qs 1) In the current case study Kelly faced various difficulties due to cultural,
environmental and traditional differences between two countries. In this case the difference is
between the European culture where Kelly was born and brought up and the Japanese culture she
knows less than enough about. She came to Japan with high ambitions and expectations as a
representative of her company. Her husband and children also came along with her to a new
country only to face problems, imbalance, language clashes and above all, cultural clashes. She
was not properly welcome by the Japanese colleagues, their silent response and not agreeing to
do individual presentation disrupted her expectations and mindset. In this respect professor Geert
Hofstede presented few dimensions of cultural diversity which affect employee behavior. The
power distance index, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity, indulgence vs
restraint, uncertainty avoidance index is important (Saleem and Larimo 2017). Employees get
affected by the unequal distribution of power, the entire workforce gets affected due to the
individual –minded workers and team-focused workers which happened with the Japanese
employees who preferred team work and Kelly asked them to do individual presentation. The
clash started from this difference.
Qs 2) The management of the company in which Kelly works in Boston, should have
trained her before sending her on such a serious project. According to Pakdil and Leonard
(2015), it is the primary responsibility of any business organization to train the expatriate for a
long time regarding the customs, backgrounds, culture, language, behaviors and standards of the
new country. They must have made her familiar with the business cultures in Japan, regarding

2CASE STUDY ON INTERCULTURAL MANAGEMENT
what they prefer to do, how they prefer to work, how they will respond to a woman program
manager, their dining habits, Japanese road guides and many other minor concepts which made
the life of Kelly and her family difficult in Japan.
Qs 3) Since Kelly landed in Japan without any proper training from the part of the
company, Kelly should have first navigated the new office terrain, tried to observe her Japanese
colleague because the Japanese culture does not allow to question colleagues or senior managers
in a team meeting. As a senior and experienced program manager she should have researched a
bit on the internet regarding the basic Japanese work culture and etiquettes according to the
views of Chatman and O’Reilly (2016). She lost the contract because she committed the mistake
of putting the business card given by the client CEO without even giving a glance at him. In the
Japanese business culture, this is highly disrespectful. She could have succeeded in making the
deal for which she had come all along from Boston, had she made herself culturally intelligent
beforehand.
Qs 4) The first decision I would have taken if I were at the place of Kelly is not to leave
the country out of desperation. It is true that the situation was high for Kelly and her family and
without proper training it was becoming depressing to even communicate with the Japanese
people, leave aside the business project development. Caught in this situation firstly I would
have tried to rebuild my distorted confidence and adopted every measure to know the country
culture where I was sent as an expatriate. Keeping in mind that cultural differences are an
integral part of any organization, I would have focused on starting from the beginning to know
what the business people want, how they want and how I can develop my cultural competency,
inclusiveness and cultural intelligence.