Pharmaz India Case Study: Balancing Values in a Global Context

The case study focuses on Pharmaz India, a financial service center, and its struggle to implement corporate values from its Denmark headquarters in the Indian context. The headquarters emphasizes employee empowerment, open communication, and equal opportunities, while the Indian management style prefers supervision. Amrita, a senior financial manager, and Neils, a recently arrived expatriate, clash over the implementation of these values. They agree on performance-based designations and peer ratings to promote empowerment and communication. While these changes initially improve employee performance, a team led by Balvinder Singh faces challenges due to cross-cultural issues and caste-based biases exhibited by Shankar Savarkar, a competent but divisive team member. The case highlights the need for cross-cultural training, incentives for respecting diversity, and integration of cultural performance into employee evaluations to address team dynamics and promote a harmonious work environment. The case study emphasizes the importance of cultural sensitivity and inclusive leadership in a global setting.

3) Pharmaz India’s financial service is at the crossroads between Headquarters demand and
Indian style of management which works better with supervision. Headquarters located in
Denmark wants implementation of corporate values that promotes employee empowerment,
equal opportunities for employees to develop themselves, and free flow of communication to
share and exchange knowledge and ideas. Amrita, the senior financial manager asserts to Neils,
his superior and recently arrived expatriates, that in Indian context implementing all the
corporate values as global headquarters demand may not be a good idea. Neils told Amrita that
the center’s way of working has created some issues for the users in headquarters and other
subsidiaries and therefore and insists that implementing corporate values is a must. Amrita
suggested to Neils that in order to empower employees designations based on performance
should be created while Neils suggested that to promote free exchange of ideas and information,
peer ratings be introduced and tied to promotion and incentives. Both after long discussions and
introspection agreed to each other’s idea and introduced more performances based designations
and peer ratings (Cardel, 2016).
Things look to have improved a great deal and employees are working towards achieving
promotions without too much of supervision and there are also exchange of ideas and
knowledge. However, one team of Amrita looks to be presenting the downside of peer rating
implementation and empowerment without supervision. Balvinder Singh, the team leader and
Shankar Savarkar, a competent chartered accountant do not gel well and Shankar adamantly
bypassed Balvinder’s suggestion of sharing workloads with other peers on one major and
prospective project.
Shankar is from a Hindu Brahmin Family which is hailed as the upper caste in the
traditional Indian context and he seems to not gel with people of other castes in organization.

Shankar is competent and company needs him but company also cannot let Shankar disturbs
company and team atmosphere and allow his self presumed superiority to flourish.
The issue with Balvinder and Shankar has a lot to do with cross cultural aspect of the
team. Teams in an organization are more often diverse in nature and diversity has its own
advantages and disadvantages with regard to team performance. In a diverse team, cross cultural
issues often crop up (Maclachlan, 2016). The financial service center needs to impart cross
cultural training to promote cultural exchange among its employees. Amrita and Neils should
also tie incentives and benefits for employees who respect diversity and gel well with teammates.
They should give equal points to this aspect and cross cultural performances of employees
should also be monitored in the employee performance scale and tied with promotions and
incentives in order to avoid the issue that Balvinder’s team is facing (Bose, 2017).

References
Bose, B. (2017, 03 10). SHRM. Retrieved from https://blog.shrm.org:
https://blog.shrm.org/sasia/blog/cross-cultural-sensitivity-and-communication
Maclachlan, M. (2016, 11 24). Communicaid. Retrieved from https://www.communicaid.com:
https://www.communicaid.com/cross-cultural-training/blog/importance-of-cultural-awareness-
training/