Vestas Case Study: Stakeholder Engagement and Communication

This report analyzes the Vestas case study, focusing on the challenges faced by Vestas, a wind energy company, in its project in Oaxaca, Mexico. The analysis covers stakeholder engagement issues, particularly with indigenous communities, and communication challenges in managing international projects. The report examines what went wrong in stakeholder engagement, offering recommendations for improvement, including land regularization, long-term land leases, and modernizing agricultural practices. It also discusses communication barriers like language differences, cultural variations, and time zone changes, emphasizing the need for effective communication strategies and risk management. The report also examines learning experiences in and from international projects. The report uses the case study and supporting literature to provide a comprehensive overview of the issues and potential solutions.

Running Head: The Vestas Case Study 0
The Vestas Case Study
(Student Name)

The Vestas Case Study 1
Question 1
The Zapotecas and Huave fishermen were among the most affected communities in the
case. They claim that their earnings would affect the leading to the problem of funds in regular
course of their life’s (Andriof and Waddock, 2017). They claim that the district Mayor Miguel
Lopez castellanos have signed the treaty with the Vestas as accompany who has started its work
in the wind energy production by establishing multiple and in hundreds of numbers the wind
mills and parks around across the globe they claim that they have installed around 48000
turbines for the energy production from the wind in around 70 countries on five continents.
Countries like Italy, Romania, Norway, India, Britain, Spain, Sweden, Australia, United states of
America have a total no. of working employees at a particular stage goes to 17778 in huge
numbers (Barrett, Oborn and Orlikowski, 2016).
They claim that they have given permission by the local government and to perform and
produce energy by developing wind parks. Vestas Latin America & Carriebia employed around
130 local and international employees. This shows that they do not want to kill the local labor or
say service sector by developing their business as beside. The local communities have a great
sign of concern on that the deal which has actually happened on papers and on the verge of
getting started on the round (Herremans, Nazari and Mahmoudian, 2016). The problems of the
local communities regarding this project start are firstly, concerned natives goes with the thought
that the actual need or say the requirement of the local area is being fulfilled in the southern areas
of Mexico and the states related to it and the demand for the energy may not and was never
expected to increase in the near time and there is no scope of big industry coming down the lines
for establishment of their production houses here so no need of bringing such a project down the

The Vestas Case Study 2
line. Secondly, according to a Mexican law ruled in 1975 any industrial construction in the
indigenous area of Oaxaca had to be permitted in writing or say approval of the same has to be
taken by the groups of local community or say the assembly approval has to be taken by the
mayor before giving any permission for the construction (Lim and Greenwood, 2017).
Convention 169 ILO , Particularly says in the terms of consultation with the local or say
indigenous communities or the local people living there is very a necessity. The agrarian Law
has also to be considered in whom process which has no be followed. The sections says that if
there has to be any installation to be done first of all there should be half plus one member of the
actual stakeholders should be present in the assembly and thereafter the resolution will be passed
by at least 75% of the agitators should be in the favor of the motion which has not been followed
by the mayor (Sierra‐Garcia, Zorio‐Grima and Garcia‐Benau, 2015).Thirdly, Huave and
Zapotecas have one more issue in their mid that the Vestas company mislead the local people
there in spreading the actual knowledge and the want of project; they have been misguided by
the officials of the company regarding the impact of the project on the community as a whole.
Fourthly, there are some social and environmental issues related queries in the minds of
communities in the way that the land leads earlier for the agriculture purpose has increased the
unemployment rates, 120 people were employed in LA Ventosa for the construction of wind
mills in 2004 but as the time passes only 11 people were in the employed stage in which half the
women’s were from foreign or say other regions. The rates of dairy products has increased in the
times as there are no more chattel feeding grounds for the locals results in increase in crime and
people losing their jobs. Some measures can be out-upped by the firm Vesta for removing the
hardiness from the minds of locals can be stated as follows: Firstly, land regularization will the
best notified thing for the local people which states that regulating the tenure of land by letting

The Vestas Case Study 3
identified the clear rights of the people from the community by providing them he proper
property rights and the titles so that the they can be ale to defined there land without any cost for
the job. Secondly, the land lease to be extended to a long term contract rather going for the
smaller period of time so that there is confidence developed in the minds of the local community
that the company will not leave the grounds early in the night. Thirdly, land use will be at its best
as the agriculture must have not been done on the full area land but now the company will assure
that the whole land came under utilization and control of the landlord. Fourth, compatibility of
the actual agriculture practices which are being performed in the area will be modernized as
there will be loads of money coming down the street for the people and the development of the
business. Livestock farming will always be kept in mind by the organization as it will be the
most horrifying issue in the minds of the local communities as due to equation of the land by the
organization there will be no more farming done regarding the livestock. So, by no now the
company will provide a separate space for livestock farming as it has been the best and the most
suitable business for the local communities’ to do farming (Sterling et al., 2017).
It can be summarized that VESTAS should take care about the concerns of local
communities and put them in confidence related to their livelihood, wellbeing, culture that the
project in foreign land can go to success without the challenges of local communities. Local
communities should be taken into confidence with starting of international project getting free
flow in the project building and earning revenues without hindrances.
Question 2
There are many complications or we can say that the challenges which are being faced by
the organizations working in the international sector regarding communicating the knowledge,

The Vestas Case Study 4
beliefs, motives actions, missions, visions, product information, market reach, etc. to the local
people or we can go by that the local communities of the foreign land. For the basic part to start
the culture and the traditions are very much different from each other, the consumer wants and
beliefs also the purchasing patterns are also very different as there is environmental factors
working, political factors working, demographical factors working in the scene.
The challenges faced by the sales team form the other foreign land take very much of
time as they have to get into training, expertise, and able to gain knowledge relating to the voice,
tone, language of the local community to get into the correct contact with them so there business
and sales can be promoted in the right direction and place. The main barrier and the challenge in
the international project planning and getting it done is the barrier of language (Ahsan and
Pedersen, 2018). As the first initiation of the project or say at the initial stage of starting of the
project in the international land is to understand the actual local language of the community and
the people so that the actual requirements, paper work, formalities, required documents, etc.
should be gathered and the process can be started in the thing. Here in the case the Vestas
company is from Denmark and the working area for establishment of their plant or say wing
energy park is in the state of southern parts of Mexico where the language is Mexican as the
local language and the Denmark company has to understand or say have to get in to the shoes of
Mexican so that the initiation of the project can be done. Here local employees are not willing to
work for the organization as they are afraid of losing their source of earning lively hood what
they will feed for their families. The language proves to be the most important hindrance in
getting to the hearts of the local community as the native people will only get in touch with the
people of their same language as the feeling of belongingness develops (D’Amico et al., 2017).
Moreover, as the time zone changes from place to place so that there will be surely a difference

The Vestas Case Study 5
of change in the environmental factors and demographic change will also be encountered. Here
in our case Vestas is facing a challenge that the land which is allotted to them by the mayor of
the locality was earlier into the use of cultivation of the crops and they acted as the revenue
source for the locals. So the question arises that the wind park will convert cultivatable land to
uncultivable proving to be environmental hindrances to the VESTAS as an organization.
Environmental challenges can come in any way and in any time. As the foreign land is very
different to operate around as the southern area of Mexico is comparatively high at temperature
but the Denmark nationalistic feel the cooler weather so the employees will face the problem of
weather change (Dunlap, 2017). Furthermore, the employees which will be available or say the
prospective employees of the organization in the foreign land will have a different attitude
towards their working style as they might be doing work in a lazy or say in a less disciplined
manner but the people or the actual older employees might be in a fashion of doing business in a
disciplined manner at with the punctuality and correctness. Here in the case the labor left from
140 to 10 in the number at the end of 1st phase of work in which most of them are from the
female side. The trust of customer gets into the dismantled side (CBS. 2013). Requirements of
better and effective communication in international projects are in context to the case study given
as the knowledge which is related to the foreign land should be at its perfect level. Means to say
that the team working for operations should have a proper knowledge about the actual conditions
of place of project installation and laws and regulations of the contracts and rules passed in. Like
in case study Vestas should have gained the knowledge of the rule passed in 1975 about the
formation of committee for passing the yes for any installation in the disputed area. Cultural
changes should have been primarily settled by the management of the organization as the new
people gets to interact with the people of old thought of their region. Relations should be

The Vestas Case Study 6
managed by the employees of the local community so that they should not leave the job from our
organization. That will be a good sense of trust inside the minds of local people so the Job
turnout ratio can be lessens which in our case has been at very high ratio. Risk management
should be in the first course of line for doing business activities. Risk can be managed by proper
planning with applying of strategic planning techniques and collecting the actual data of the
region for implementing the project infrastructure. Training and skill development programmers
should be conducted at the regular basis before the project initiation for the staff and employees
who are on to the same project so that the staff elated to it can outperform from the rest doings.
Skill development team should be initiated always who will work for the betterment of the staff
and training for the unforeseen circumstances is to be initiated at all times and risk should be
calculated all the time as in our case Vestas has never taken proper steps of training the staff and
skill development of them so the local communities faith can be gained.
It can be summarized Vestas has to improve the communication channels with the local
community members by keeping in the mind about the geographical challenges by keeping data
& record of all conditions and its scrutiny, languages of the local community to be learnt for
better communication channels to be established, training & development of the staff for local
interaction to be done, risk management at priority basis to maintain challenges of
communication so the assed risk can be countered.
Question 3
The challenges faced in learning from international project working are those which can
be said as the problems which will be faced by the organization relating to the learning from the
actual international project completion and initialization of it. Whatever will be the hindrances

The Vestas Case Study 7
faced by the organization in the part that when to start the project, objectives, complexities in
performing it, changes in all factors of influence, etc. organization has to go through the process
of failure or we can say less output from the projected score of the performance or sales or return
on investments.
International projects are a mass learning experience gainers for the organizations who
work globally in the world. Some of the difficulties face by them to grab the actual learning
experience from the work done at the longer side. If the objectives which has been standardized
by the organization has gone on the complex side it would create a havoc or say a panic in the
working environment of the firm there will be a complete chaos among the staff members and
the policy makers of the company as there will be no proper channel of communication on the
objective because the interpretation will be on the different sides from both the parties will lead
the organization towards the lower performances and outputs. The resources which might be
used by the organization should not be in the limited form as there shortage will create a
complex situation among the working conditions of the organization. The shortage of working
capital will create a sudden downfall in the production will create in the shortage of the product
and which will lead to losing of ongoing customer. The research and analysis wing of the
organization will create a challenge as the research and analysis done by them will lead to
positive or negative impact on the performance of organization. Data collected should be precise
manner as lacking of correctness will lead the company to a different way and do a loss. The
political system will create a hindrance in the working of the organization as all the legal
permission will be granted by them only any irregularity will lead the organization into a
political suit (Puig, 2018).

The Vestas Case Study 8
In the case study given here it also have several learning experiences which will tell us
how the organization should take care of several things before starting the project work in
international borders. Some can be explained and discussed here: Land Lease are those which
only goes for the 3% of the land will be used by the wind machine at a time where it has been
installed and the rest land can be used in the different activities by the land lords for which it gets
lease rent. Whereas, in our case in EJIDOS developers have not initiated a plan for discussing the
land lease amount with the locals and the difficulty from other end was to initiate project
developing process which will spread the talks for that land is used in wind park formation.
Some of the points to be discussed why these protest and other occurred are firstly, the local
communities were not properly informed and miss-guided about the use of land the actual
thoughts were hidden the truth never came out. Secondly, Advice was given in the wrong
direction. Third, the actual impacts of wind farms were not spread by the officials in local
communities which developed negative thoughts in them (Aerts, Dooms and Haezendonck,
2017). Another experience was that the geographical and environmental impact was not seen by
the VESTA that the biggest environmental impact on the places where wind farms are being
setup the regulation of the government increases where tourism will grow with environmental
hazards and revenue will also come. OAXACA acts as the corridor for the passage of thousands
birds in Mexico which will be a negative thought or obstacle for the birds to fly they will get
banged by the wind farms. The rest of the land besides used by the wind energy farm can be used
for cultivation but for that extra cost of development will be spent by the organization which will
affect there budgeted expenditure to be with support of locals. Types of Project based learning
methods are challenged based learning or problem based learning in which it is getting engaged
in a process incorporation approach towards the learning from actual bad or say the challenges

The Vestas Case Study 9
face by them in the day to day life of them. It encourages in the learning process by using the
technology or says the data they have and calculate the solutions to the problems and learn from
the same so that the same problem whenever occurred can be countered very easily or the actual
way to perform is known to them (Ullah, et al., 2018). Second, place based learning in which it
talks about the learning process to be followed from the place where you belong means the actual
activities, culture, thoughts, specifications on performance on rituals, etc. one should extract the
knowledge from the same by spending time and motive there so that the learning can be precise
or say the relevancy can be maintained. Serving in the local projects will help more to learn.
Third, activity based learning in which it is a kind of constructive based learning, here the people
learn from the activities they do or perform at the different tasks or the situations they face and
actions they make. They get to learn from the manipulative techniques they use for the situations
(Khodeir, 2018).
From the above analysis it can be concluded that the best project based learning to be
adopted or say the best suited for the VESTA or say the case study given will be the placed
based learning method as in such situations one has to go through the all cultural, environmental,
geographical, political conditions and start living the normal life of a common community local
member so the actual wants and demands of the local can be generalized and the actual thoughts
and the resources will be needed for establishment can be stated very clear and a faith will bring
down the local with you it will help a lot as you will be in the probe of favorites as you are
matching the mentality and thoughts of the locals (Kaewkiriya, Utakrit and Tiantong, 2016).

The Vestas Case Study 10
References
Aerts, G., Dooms, M. and Haezendonck, E. (2017) Knowledge transfers and project-based
learning in large scale infrastructure development projects: an exploratory and comparative ex-
post analysis. International Journal of Project Management, 35(3), pp.224-240.
Ahsan, D. and Pedersen, S. (2018) The influence of stakeholder groups in operation and
maintenance services of offshore wind farms: Lesson from Denmark. Renewable energy, 125,
pp.819-828.
Andriof, J. and Waddock, S. (2017) Unfolding stakeholder engagement. In Unfolding
stakeholder thinking (pp. 19-42). London: Routledge.
Barrett, M., Oborn, E. and Orlikowski, W. (2016) Creating value in online communities: The
sociomaterial configuring of strategy, platform, and stakeholder engagement. Information
Systems Research, 27(4), pp.704-723.
CBS. (2013) Vestas and the indigenous community in Oaxaca, Mexico: Clean Energy Gets
Messy. America: The Case Centre
D’Amico, F., Mogre, R., Clarke, S., Lindgreen, A. and Hingley, M. (2017) How purchasing and
supply management practices affect key success factors: the case of the offshore-wind supply
chain. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 32(2), pp.218-226.
Dunlap, A. (2017) Wind Energy: Toward a “Sustainable Violence” in Oaxaca: In Mexico’s wind
farms, a tense relationship between extractivism, counterinsurgency, and the green economy
takes root. NACLA Report on the Americas, 49(4), pp.483-488.

The Vestas Case Study 11
Herremans, I.M., Nazari, J.A. and Mahmoudian, F. (2016) Stakeholder relationships,
engagement, and sustainability reporting. Journal of Business Ethics, 138(3), pp.417-435.
Kaewkiriya, T., Utakrit, N. and Tiantong, M. (2016) The design of a rule base for an e-learning
recommendation system base on multiple intelligences. International Journal of Information and
Education Technology, 6(3), p.206.
Khodeir, L.M. (2018) Blended learning methods as an approach to teaching project management
to architecture students. Alexandria engineering journal, 57(4), pp.3899-3905.
Lim, J.S. and Greenwood, C.A. (2017) Communicating corporate social responsibility (CSR):
Stakeholder responsiveness and engagement strategy to achieve CSR goals. Public Relations
Review, 43(4), pp.768-776.
Puig, S. (2018) International Indigenous Economic Law. UCDL Rev., 52, p.1243.
Sierra‐Garcia, L., Zorio‐Grima, A. and Garcia‐Benau, M.A. (2015) Stakeholder engagement,
corporate social responsibility and integrated reporting: An exploratory study. Corporate Social
Responsibility and Environmental Management, 22(5), pp.286-304.
Sterling, E.J., Betley, E., Sigouin, A., Gomez, A., Toomey, A., Cullman, G., Malone, C., Pekor,
A., Arengo, F., Blair, M. and Filardi, C. (2017) Assessing the evidence for stakeholder
engagement in biodiversity conservation. Biological conservation, 209, pp.159-171.
Ullah, E., Mall, R., Rawi, R., Moustaid-Moussa, N., Butt, A.A. and Bensmail, H. (2018)
Harnessing Qatar Biobank to understand type 2 diabetes and obesity in adult Qataris from the
First Qatar Biobank Project. Journal of translational medicine, 16(1), p.99.

The Vestas Case Study 12