Cultural Differences

Culturally speaking west believes more on working and achievinggoals individually. They feel proud and happy for theirachievements independently.

Mr. Ahmad was working as a “Manager” in aMultinational Software development Company “Softronix”in USA. He used to distribute all the tasks among the employeesindividually.

Everyone was happy to work for the goals attainment of theorganization and personal fulfillments. The organization is one ofthe leading profit generators in USA. All the employees were happyworking with the organization under Mr. Ahmad’ssupervision.

With this mind set and experience of USA, he was transferred toJapan, where emphasis is given to working collectively.Collectivism is the main feature of eastern culture. Mr. Ahmadadopted the same strategy in Japan and distributed the tasksindividually. It was the point where problems began. Gradually theproductivity of the employees decreased, resulting in low profitsand difficulties in achieving the goals effectively andefficiently. The employees were dissatisfied with the job andgradually turnover increased.

The top management of “Softronix” decided to findout the causes of Mr. Ahmad's bad performance despite of being asuccessful manager in USA.

Q.1: As CEO of the “Softronix” what reasonsdo you see for the poor performance in Japan?

Q.2: Keeping in view the GLOBE framework for assessingthe cultures, what other considerations should Mr. Ahmad look at inorder to assess the two totally different cultures?