Reflective Report: Ethical Dilemma of Nepotism in a Tanzanian Project

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report analyzes nepotism in a Tanzanian project.

LIFESTYLE ASPECTS RELATED TO
NATIONAL CULTURE
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................. 3
JONES'S LIFESTYLE ASPECTS...........................................................................................................4
NATIONAL CULTURAL ASPECTS OF TANZANIA...............................................................................5
JONES PRACTICES NEPOTISM IN HIRING........................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................. 9
REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................10
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INTRODUCTION
This reflective report has been present to discuss the dilemma of Graham Steinberg, VP at the
US-based Hydro Generation, whether he should returning Brett Jones as a project liaison
specialist or not. The dilemma is born based on contradictory two situations, according to the
first one, Brett Jones has been a very satisfactory employee in the previous tenure of the
project, delivering all project on time and within the budget. On the other hand, he has been
accused of employment practices of nepotism in hiring manpower for the project which was
one of his responsibilities. According to Jones, he did that in order to gain support and leverage
from the natives and locals of the country pertaining to the project requirement and his
possibly long stay at Tanzania. In many situations, the actions of Jones have been seeming fairly
justified but in a larger perspective and overall terms, the practice of nepotism at any level and
because of any reason is by definition unethical to the US norms of the project. This discussion
will try to understand how the life style and background of Brett Jones and the cultural
dimensions of Tanzania made him utilise the practices of nepotism and favouritism in the
process.
The reflective discussion will identify how the cultural dimensions affect the decisions of people
at the personal and professional level with the help of standard models and theories like
Hofstede's cultural dimension theory and Fons Trompenaars Seven cultural dimensions. These
theories will provide necessary insights on what factor influenced the decisions of Brett Jones
and how is he still managed to maintain his performance measures at satisfactory levels. In the
end, the discussion will try to solve the dilemma and suggest some recommendations for Jones
on how he can do what he does without using the practice of nepotism and still be an as
effective employee as he is.
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JONES'S LIFESTYLE ASPECTS
Jones, considering his age and professional skills was well suited to work in Tanzania more on
that he showed interest in working on a project in Tanzania voluntarily which made the
situation very easy and quick. During his graduation at the University of Michigan, Jones
learned a great deal about African culture and was totally fascinated by it. Evidently, he took
African culture as a major in his graduation. His experience and understanding of African
culture became more solid when he went to Kenya and served as a UN Peace Corps. In Kenya
Jones worked with a small business start-up and learned business manners and conducts of the
African nation. In those events, he also did many trips and routine visits to Uganda and South
Africa. In this time of his life, he developed a core philosophical understanding with the culture
of Africa from a foreign perspective and how people live and sustain their culture even in the
worst possible situations. In these scenarios, he developed a sense of disdain or disagreement
with the managers and other employees who came from western countries and the US and
isolate themselves from the core cultural environment of the nation may be because of their
subconscious sense of discrimination. They didn't like to live among the natives and kept
themselves to the posh and first-class hotels.
The notice of his involvement in the cultural events of the region was taken by the VP Graham
Steinberg when Jones said to be participated and paid a significant amount to the locals in their
cultural religious rituals. In that event, Jones paid about $17,500 to the local groups to perform
their rituals with sacrifices of animals in order to make some goddess happy and leave the place
which was under coverage due to the dam project. In the hope to get mixed in the culture and
society of the region of Tanzania, Jones, instead of living in some fancy hotel or posh area like
his co-worker, lived in a more of a middle-class neighbourhood of Tanzania.
He was fond of the African culture and when he joined HG after finishing his MBA from the
University of Boston he made sure that his senior managers recognise his predilection to work
with the Tanzania Project that HG had in its bucket. Jones had developed his principles
regarding how to behave and conduct in Tanzania based on his previous experience and
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encounters with people African country. His principle was simple, not to come in limelight or
trying to get famous and respect the culture as you learn it more deeply. However, in the eyes
of his co-workers and managers, who also belong to the western nation, he had become a
native from his actions and thoughts but from the perspective of actual natives of Tanzania, he
was still a foreigner who has come to drain their country of its resources. This is the general
perception of the native public of Tanzania. History of Tanzania has seen a long tenure of
suppression, discrimination, slavery and forceful indulgence in irrelevant wars by people of
western countries (Noorderhaven and Tidjani, 2001). This behaviour and perception of the
people of Tanzania are obvious and justified. The behaviour of Jones with the native people was
found much more friendly and cordial than those of other employees and managers. He
believed that to gain more favour and support from the natives and local authorities of
Tanzania, he has to give something to them too. This concept of Jones gave birth to his
practices of nepotism and favouritism.
NATIONAL CULTURAL ASPECTS OF TANZANIA
Tanzania is an East African country borders with Uganda and Kenya and the Indian Ocean at the
east. The population of the country is according to the last census of 55.5 million with Swahili as
their major spoken and official language (Davidson, 2014). The cultural environment of
Tanzania is very rich in terms of diversity and respect among the differences they have. They
have their tribes and clans and based on their rituals and cultural belief they conduct their
regular affairs and business. A better understanding of the culture of Tanzania can be made
with the help of a standard and effective cultural theory called Hofstede theory of cultural
dimension. This theory has 6 cultural dimensions which define the background and present
conditions of the cultural construct and how their cultural predictions make and impacts their
decision in their daily lives. This theory is, however, more of a comparative tool which is used to
do a comparative analysis between cultural differences of two countries (Hofstede, 2009).
Here we will try to understand the national culture of Tanzania with the help of Hofstede
dimension,
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POWER DISTANCE INDEX: This index shows the extent to which people of a country believe that
there is a high and unjustified gap between people with high power and those with less. It is
about the unequal power distribution among individuals and a group of people and some
ethnic or religious similarities. In Tanzania, this difference is not very high or even considerable
when it comes to the locals and natives but this power distance can be seen in action when
people of foreign nationalities isolate themselves and sometimes treat locals inferior (Forson et
al., 2016).
COLLECTIVISM VERSUS INDIVIDUALISM: This is a quite insightful dimension in this case since it
represents that to how much people prefer to be recognized as a group or family rather than
individuals (Hofstede, 2009). This dimension can show how and why the practice of nepotism
has been firmed its roots in the HG employment process. From the available information
regarding the cultural perspective of Tanzania, this dimension has a pretty high ranked among
others. People in Tanzania are more likely to get recognised by their tribe and clan than
individuals and they work and serve to protect and grow their families and tribes.
FEMININITY VERSUS MASCULINITY: This dimension in direct terms shows the gender gap in
society. Is the social structure of the country allows women to appear as a hero, a role model?
Do they keep assertive context regarding the role of equal contribution of females in the
society? These are some of the questions which can help in understanding the cultural stance of
Tanzania on this dimension. On a common notion, Tanzania is a conservative nation and
women there, are limited to supply and provide food and care to their families however there
are no such beliefs regarding the inferiority of female or gender-based discrimination except
the religious community particularly Muslims. The Muslims of the community are most
conservatives of all and as these are the founding principles of their religion, they do not
consider women as contributory elements in anything.
UNCERTAINTY AVOIDANCE INDEX: this dimension refers to the proportion of people of the
country who don’t like or feel comfortable with uncertainties and unexpected change. In simple
terms, it shows how much people fear change and creates barriers to prevent it from
happening (Hofstede, 2009). Evidently, it is very high in the context of most of the African
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countries including Tanzania. They are very conservative regarding their culture and beliefs and
take every external and west driver change and trend as an attack on their cultural
establishments.
LONG TERM VERSUS SHORT TERM ORIENTATION: This dimension shows how the decisions and
actions of people of a country are influenced by their past events and incidents. This dimension
also shows how much people are oriented to make long terms choices and do they plan for long
term or short terms growth and development. This dimension of monumentalize the beliefs of
the people of a country. The people of Tanzania are still challenged to get things for their basic
survival needs and more than half of the population still lives below international standards of
poverty so in that situation they don’t really get time for making long terms goals and plans. All
they expect to have and get from the future is food for their family and a shelter to live under.
However, in comparison to the United States, they are above in this dimension ( Nuijten and
Anders, 2017).
INDULGENCE VERSUS RESTRAINT: This is another important dimension which supports the
discussion with relevant context. This dimension shows to what extent the social structure and
belief system allows a person to enjoy and celebrate life independently (Hofstede, 2009). It is a
mix of different sets of freedom which is allowed to practices by the society of the country to
some extent. Tanzania has a strong social structure with a number of moral constraints. People
don't leave a chance to celebrate and embrace their culture as their identity but they show
strong obligatory expectations regarding the same beliefs. Every tribe and clan of the region
have their distinct set of beliefs and customs regardless of their religion which was forced onto
them by foreign invaders in the past. So in that complexity, they try their best to maintain that
distinctness among other tribes of the region, the whole African continent (Vavrus and Bartlett,
2012).
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JONES PRACTICES NEPOTISM IN HIRING
These predilections of Jones regarding the culture and keen hunger to get involved and become
one of them made him justify his action of nepotism. Before understanding the core reasons
and situations which supported his act of nepotism, we need to first learn about the situations
and relations of Jones with locals of the area. As the per capita income of the country is $1,100
to the known data, they are subjected to take the opportunities provided by the HG along with
benefits which are much better than the local employers in the area. Also, regarding the job
market in Tanzania, there is a huge number of people available and very less opportunity in
comparison. The job advertisement also doesn't have a unified platform or any sort of online or
standards selection process. It is more of a word-of-mouth style for rolling of the information
between powerful families of the community. Coping with the trend and available system,
Jones started to hire people with the help of his local connections and developing new relations
with the powerful families of the country by providing jobs to their relatives.
A perspective of this situation also says that since the availability of basic resources for running
the business at that place and establishing an office is quite difficult to achieve, the connections
that Jones made by his practices can come pretty handy, ultimately benefitting the company.
The availability of resources like telephone, electricity line, a place and machines like PC, fax,
copy etc. were found quite difficult which is also notices by the VP of the operations. Jones
played an important role in helping out with the help of his connections and speeded the things
fast and in sequence making the operations possible with achieved efficiency in the first place.
Steinberg had this idea that the practices of nepotism and favouritism are common and legal in
Tanzania but they are not at all legal in the US law and ethical conduct. Jones was not only
providing jobs within families of influential people of local authorities in Tanzania but he was
also paying them a much higher amount for their service. With the per capita income that low,
they would have been agreed on much lower pay saving the cost form the company. This raised
some serious questions and threats regarding if the word of this situation reached higher levels
of HG. Also, there were already some raised issues from the management of the HG in Tanzania
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that it is very unorganised and irresponsible. HG as an operational entity in Tanzania was not
seemed to show competency in handling locals of the country which i9s barely holding from the
end of Jones and his efforts.
CONCLUSION
Although Jones has fair reasons most of which supports the operations of the HG in the
country, to practice the nepotism activities in the hiring process, there lies an ethical remark
and a moral obligation which are exactly made to protect the events like this in contradictory
situations. Jones is a good and fairly competent employee who is more than capable of
handling all the business and local people-related issues in Tanzania and his past performance is
a live example of this. There is however a solution which could be suggested here, with the help
of which Jones can abolish his practice of nepotism and can also is able to maintain the
operations without any complexions. In that, Jones should come up with a competitive
selection plan and bring all of his favoured candidates under that process. Since most of the
candidates will be from equally influential families, they will not have any issues in letting their
relatives prove their competence for the job. In the process, HG will get competent employees
who will understand the value of the job and since they have fought competition to get the job
they will understand the value and will stay for a longer period with the company. With these
recommendations, Jones can be allowed to work for the next project of the HG, since his
experience from the previous project is a much more valuable asset than any other educated
employee from the west.
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REFERENCES
 Davidson, B., 2014. Modern Africa: A social and political history. Routledge.
 Vavrus, F. and Bartlett, L., 2012. Comparative pedagogies and epistemological diversity:
Social and materials contexts of teaching in Tanzania. Comparative Education Review,
56(4), pp.634-658.
 Firfiray, S., Cruz, C., Neacsu, I. and Gomez-Mejia, L.R., 2018. Is nepotism so bad for
family firms? A socioemotional wealth approach. Human Resource Management
Review, 28(1), pp.83-97.
 Savage, C.R. and Palmer, C.T., 2016. The culture of Honor and Nepotism. Encyclopedia of
Evolutionary Psychological Science, pp.1-4.
 Hofstede, G., 2009. Geert Hofstede cultural dimensions.
 Noorderhaven, N.G. and Tidjani, B., 2001. Culture, governance, and economic
performance: An explorative study with a special focus on Africa. International Journal
of Cross Cultural Management, 1(1), pp.31-52.
 Merry, S.E., Davis, K.E. and Kingsbury, B. eds., 2015. The quiet power of indicators:
measuring governance, corruption, and rule of law. Cambridge University Press.
 Blundo, G., de-Sardan, J.P.O., Arifari, N.B. and Alou, M.T., 2013. Everyday corruption and
the state: Citizens and public officials in Africa. Zed Books Ltd.
 Nuijten, M. and Anders, G., 2017. Corruption and the secret of law: An introduction. In
Corruption and the Secret of Law (pp. 1-24). Routledge.
 Forson, J.A., Baah-Ennumh, T.Y., Blarcom, P., Chen, G. and Peng, Z., 2016. Causes of
corruption: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa. South African Journal of Economic and
Management Sciences, 19(4), pp.562-578.
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