Analyzing Cross-Cultural Management: The AmKor Technologies Case Study

This case study analyzes the cross-cultural management challenges faced by AmKor Technologies, a joint venture between an American and a Korean company. The case focuses on the conflicts between the American vice president, Davenport, and his assistant, Bird, who embraces Korean culture, leading to communication issues, differing management styles, and challenges in implementing performance-based promotion. The analysis examines key issues such as clashing cultural values, communication barriers, and the impact of these issues on employee loyalty and organizational performance. The case also explores alternative courses of action, including developing cultural ethics and norms, improving communication structures, and addressing the challenges of managing a multicultural workforce. The study highlights the importance of understanding cultural differences and implementing effective strategies to manage a diverse workforce in a global business environment. The solution also provides an interview with a person to highlight cultural differences, and the application of Hofstede's cultural dimension theory.

MANAGING ACROSS
CROSS CULTURES

TABLE OF CONTENTS
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
Cultural interview and personal profile.......................................................................................1
TASK 3- CASE ANALYSIS...........................................................................................................2
Important facts surrounding the case study.................................................................................2
Key issues in the case study.........................................................................................................3
Alternative course of actions.......................................................................................................4
Evaluation of each course of actions...........................................................................................5
Recommendation of the best course of action.............................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

TASK 1
Cultural interview and personal profile
While on a business tour to Dubai I met a person in hotel who has came for an interview
in a company. But due to some reason the interview was postponed for next day. So, I
approached him and asked him to take an informal interview. His name was John Thomas and 25
years old. I asked him about his education so he said that in Bachelor he has done B. tech in
mechanical branch and recently completed Master’s in MBA from a reputed university. He said
he lived with his family and there are total 4 family members that is father, mother, younger
sister and him. He is now looking for a job and came to Dubai for this purpose on visit visa. He
was an Indian. The interviewee country is located in South Asia and is second most populous
country in the world. In country their live different ethnic groups who follow different religion.
The people speak different language and follow various ethics and cultural beliefs. The
interviewee also said that there are several types of people that live in country. Each one is
belongs to certain caste, creed, etc.
John Thomas said that he values cultural beliefs and ethics mostly and his parents values.
Moreover, he believed in faith. The thing he does not value is superstitions. I noticed that John
Thomas was of speaking was very distinctive. He was speaking with respect and giving example
of people of India. He was not interrupting in between and this showed his way of behaving with
other people. Furthermore, his main attribute patience and optimism in considering things. I
noticed that he was very positive regarding his job and future. There were many likes and
dislikes in him. I identified that John Thomas like to celebrate festival and worship. He also likes
to play games and travel. But on contrary he dislikes to waste time.
The main thing that I noticed in John Thomas that he highly valued cultural ethics and
norms. Also, in India cultural group is having distinct roles. Here, Hofstede’s cultural dimension
theory can be implemented to identify cultural differences. The power distance shows unequal
distribution of power. It means that in society men are responsible for doing job whereas women
role is to manage family. In addition to it, he was responsible to take care of his family after his
father. The degree of individualism is low in India which means that individual is influenced by
opinion of one’s family, work group, etc. I noticed that communication pattern of John Thomas
was mixed that is he was speaking English but not to high level. Alongside this, Indian people
too much believe in religion rituals and superstitions and for them time does not stand as
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valuable. For example- people are highly influenced by the religious leaders they postpone major
events of life if they feel time is right for the event. So, this reflects their perception towards
time. However, I also noticed that John Thomas to some extent believed in superstitions. He told
me about this as well. John Thomas perception of space was not negative. This was reflected
through his way of observing things and perception regarding it. Therefore, I realised his way of
approaching things and to what extent John believe in superstition. Moreover, he was saying
God’s name during interview. This reflects his religious values and rituals and how much he
believed in them.
TASK 3- CASE ANALYSIS
Important facts surrounding the case study
This case study is about American biotechnology, Inc. company (ABI) which is the
fastest growing biotechnology company in America who recently created a joint venture with
Hangul Business Group (HBG) which is Korean company headed by Lee SeungHo. This new
joint venture company was named as AmKor technologies. This new company was largely
responsible for serving Korean business community and after its creation Lee Sanghoon was
appointed as founding president for the company. There are various facts that are surrounding
this case study.
Cultural and organizational environments
As this was joint venture of American and Korean Company, the organizational and
cultural environment was divided into two different culture employees i.e. half of them were
American and half of them were Korean (Deresky, 2017). After AmKor's creation Davenport
was appointed as vise president for the new company and he arrived Korea for the same. While
he was an American but worked with Korean workforce and also focused on expanding Korean
operations. Davenport's assistant Alan Bird was also an American but during his high school he
was slightly influenced by Korean language. Due to expertise in languages he entered in US
Army and was stationed in Korea. He was largely influenced by that country and made many
Korean friends. After his discharge from Army he joined ABI. When he returned to Korea as an
assistant of Davenport, he started admiring the country and their working culture. He started
feeling embarrassed about American culture and determined to do something.
Challenges in multicultural work groups and teams
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Davenport made changes in personnel policy where there was a shift from seniority-
based promotion to performance-based promotion and because of this shift all the Korean
employees took Bird's advice on this. Bird started justifying Korean employees concern and
didn't understand Davenport point of view and started justifying Korean practices (Tjosvold,
2017). Davenport explained bird that the new demands of global competition required a high-
performance corporation and for this it was important to make changes in the promotion patten.
Due to these changes there was also a shift in loyalty of American and Korean employees. Most
of Korean employees supported Bird and did not support Davenport. So due to this it was
becoming difficult for Davenport to work and take decisions in favour of the organizations.
Communicating and managing workforce across cultures
There was a significant change in Bird's attitude and his behaviour. He started to
communicate with all the employees in Korean language despite of the fact that everyone
working in the organization were bilingual. Even with all the American employees he started
communicating in Korean language (Bird and Mendenhall, 2016). He didn't paid attention to the
fully paid home leave policy for American employees. He started socializing with Korean
employees and focused on solving their key issues. Slowly all the changes made by Davenport
were understood by the employees but Bird always opposed the new ideas and innovations made
by Davenport. Due to this there were conflict in view point of Bird and Davenport and as a result
it was becoming difficult for Davenport to manage the workforce.
Key issues in the case study
The main key issues identified in the case study were faced by Davenport as these issues
were not only issues for Davenport but they were also main area of concern for the organization
as well (Thomas and Peterson, 2017). It was analysed that the main key issue was conflict in
view points of Davenport and Bird as one focused on overall development of the company and
another focused on keeping Korean culture alive within the organization. These issues affected
the overall performance of the company and their strategies as well. Davenport focused on
improving the overall performance of the Joint venture as per the global competition. But all the
decisions made by Davenport were not supported by Bird (his assistant) as he supported Korean
culture, values and ethics and due to this, his opinions always conflicted with Davenport's
opinion. Like Davenport made some changes in personnel policy because of the new changing
demands of global competition required a high-performance corporation and for this it was
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important to make changes in the promotion pattern of the employees as seniority based
promotions would not improve the overall performance of the employees but performance based
promotions, yearly appraisals will help in enhancing the overall performance of the employees
which will eventually help in increasing the performance of the organization (Peretz, Levi and
Fried, 2015). But this idea was opposed by Bird. According to the bird this change was against
the Korean culture.
Another issue occurred when Davenport dismissed a Korean manager as he lacked
initiative, leadership, and general competency. But this dismiss made by Davenport was not
supported by Bird and he defended the manager and said that the company had never before fired
a manager before and that manager had been loyal and honest towards the company. Not only
this as per bird it was partially companies fault as they retained him for the last five years
without helping the man to improve. However, Davenport fired the manager but he came to
know that Bird had immediately requested another HBG company to hire him. Davenport felt
that this would be a main issue for the company further as Bird was getting emotionally attached
towards Korea and Korean culture, due to which is efficiency and abilities were getting affected
(Havold and Oltedal, 2018). Another issue that was faced by the organization was when
Davenport intended to send Bird back to California as he felt that Bird's presence in Seoul was
becoming a threat to the growth and development of the company. There was no doubt that Bird
had the potential to be a good effective international manger but for that he was required to pay
attention to the growth of the company more than Korean culture and values. This was an issue
for the company because Bird had got many offers from other Korean companies and his transfer
back to California could have forced him to resign from AmKor and join another Korean
Company. Company also realized that Bird was important for the organization as if he was
relocated he might end up working with their competitors like LG Chemicals or Samsung.
Alternative course of actions
There are various couse actions can be taken in order to resolve the issue in such a way
that the requirement of relocating Bird from Korea to California and both bird and Davenport
can work together within the organization understanding and supporting each other for the
development of the company. Not only this the requirement of sending a new Executive
Assistant were sent from San Jose would not be needed. There are various alternative course of
actions that can be taken to resolve the issues such as:
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 The managers of Amkor technologies can apply develop cultural ethics and norms. It will
be manage culture at global level (Ting-Toomey and Dorjee, 2018).
 The company can identify challenges and take effective and proper measure in order to
resolve it. This will enable them to continuously motivate employees and reduce the
impact of their performance and organisational culture.
 The behaviour of employees can be measured and observed. It will be useful to identify
conflict between them and resolve it. Furthermore, by this it will be easy to identify their
culture and how their work is affected due to it.
 There should be proper and systematic communication structure established. This will
ease in communication across culture (Deephouse, Newburry and Soleimani, 2016).
Evaluation of each course of actions
Each course of action explained above are beneficial in different ways. In other words
implications of all the course of actions is completely different (Mesman, Van IJzendoorn and
Kondo-Ikemura, 2016). Each action has their own risk, benefits associated with them and based
on the case study there will be only one suitable course of action that can be used as an
alternative to the Davenport's request. Evaluation of each course of actions has been explained
below:
 First be developing cultural ethics and norms at AmKor technologies has its own
implications. There is no doubt that it will help in managing culture within the company
at global level and will help both Davenport and Bird to work together without any issues
but it has some issues and risks associated with it. Such as developing cultural ethics and
norms within a company with both Korean and American employees is a tough task as
cultural ethics and values of both the countries employees are different. So, it would be
extremely difficult for both the countries employees to adopt common ethics and norms
and work with them.
 By motivating employees and reducing their performance impact on organizational
culture and its growth. No doubt that motivating employees will help in improving their
performance which help in improving organizational culture but motivational factors for
American and Korean employees is completely different which will make it difficult for
the organization to maintain a positive organizational culture (Larson, Hobbie and
Learned, 2016).
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 Continuous observation of employees behaviour can help in identifying the conflict issue
among employees but it will not help in resolving the issue accurately or will not help in
identifying measures through which it can be resolved.
 Proper systematic communication structure can help in maintaining communication
within the organization and will also help in understanding as well as clearing the
difference in point of view.
Recommendation of the best course of action
The best course of action recommended for this issue is Proper systematic
communication structure. This structure will help in understanding each others point of view and
developing a proper communication channel within the organization so that internal issues does
not affect the growth of the company.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bird, A. and Mendenhall, M.E., 2016. From cross-cultural management to global leadership:
Evolution and adaptation. Journal of World Business. 51(1). pp.115-126.
Deephouse, D.L., Newburry, W. and Soleimani, A., 2016. The effects of institutional
development and national culture on cross-national differences in corporate
reputation. Journal of World Business. 51(3). pp.463-473.
Deresky, H., 2017. International management: Managing across borders and cultures. Pearson
Education India.
Havold, J.I. and Oltedal, H.A., 2018. Culture and maritime safety. In Managing Maritime
Safety (pp. 53-70). Routledge.
Larson, K.L., Hobbie, S.E. and Learned, J., 2016. Ecosystem services in managing residential
landscapes: priorities, value dimensions, and cross-regional patterns. Urban
ecosystems. 19(1). pp.95-113.
Mesman, J., Van IJzendoorn, M. and Kondo-Ikemura, K., 2016. Is the ideal mother a sensitive
mother? Beliefs about early childhood parenting in mothers across the
globe. International Journal of Behavioral Development. 40(5). pp.385-397.
Peretz, H., Levi, A. and Fried, Y., 2015. Organizational diversity programs across cultures:
effects on absenteeism, turnover, performance and innovation. The International
Journal of Human Resource Management. 26(6). pp.875-903.
Thomas, D.C. and Peterson, M.F., 2017. Cross-cultural management: Essential concepts. Sage
Publications.
Ting-Toomey, S. and Dorjee, T., 2018. Communicating across cultures. Guilford Publications.
Tjosvold, D., 2017. Cross-cultural management: foundations and future. Routledge.
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