Global Human Resource Management

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Assignment 2 Global Human Resource Management Case: Fred Bailey: An Innocent Abroad It had been only six months since Fred Bailey had arrived with his wife and two children for this three year assignment as the director of Kline & Associates’ Tokyo office. Kline & Associates was a large multinational consulting firm with offices in nineteen countries worldwide.

Fred was now trying to decide whether he should simply pack up and tell headquarters that he was coming home or whether he should try to convince his wife, and himself', that they should stay and finish the assignment.

Seven months ago, Dave Steiner, the managing partner of the main office in Boston, asked Fred to lunch to discuss business.

Fred was offered the position of managing director of the firm’s relatively new Tokyo office, which had a staff of forty, including seven Americans.

When Fred told his wife about the unbelievable opportunity, he was shocked at her less than enthusiastic response. His wife, Jenny, thought that it would be rather difficult to have the children live and go to school in a foreign country for three years.

Besides, now that the kids were in school, Jenny was thinking about going back to work, at least part time.

Fred explained that the career opportunity was just too good to pass up and that the company’s overseas compensation package would make living overseas terrific. The company would pay all expenses to move whatever the Baileys wanted to take with them. The company had a very nice house that the Baileys could move into rent-free. Also, the firm would provide a car and driver, education expenses for the children to attend private schools, and a cost of living adjustment and overseas compensation that would nearly triple Fred’s gross annual salary.

After two days of consideration and discussion, Fred told Steiner he would accept the assignment.

Fred and his family had about three weeks to prepare for the move. Between transferring responsibilities at the office to Bob Newcome, who was being promoted to Fred’s position, and getting furniture and the like ready to be moved, neither Fred nor his family had much time to really find out much about Japan, other than what was in the encyclopaedia.

Fred’s first order of business was to have a general meeting with all the employees of associate consultant rank and higher. Although Fred didn’t notice it at the time, all the Japanese staff sat together and all the Americans sat together. After Fred introduced himself and his general idea about the potential and future directions of the Tokyo office, he called on a few individuals to get their ideas about how the things for which they were responsible would likely fit into his overall plan. From the Americans, Fred got a mixture of opinions with specific reasons about why certain things might or might not fit well. From the Japanese, he got very vague answers. When Fred pushed to get more specific information, he was surprised to find that a couple of the Japanese simply made a whistling sound as they breathed and said that it was “difficult to say”.

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After they had been in Japan about a month, Fred’s wife complained to him about the difficulty she had Getting certain everyday products like maple syrup, peanut butter, and good quality beef.

On top of all that, unless she went to the American Club in downtown Tokyo, she never had anyone to talk to. After all, Fred was gone ten to sixteen hours a day.

The next day, Fred had another meeting with a potential Japanese business client.

Again, the Japanese had only the vaguest of responses to his direct questions. The recollection of the frustration of that meeting was enough to shake Fred back to reality. The reality was that in the five months since that first meeting little progress had been made and the contract between the firms was yet to be signed. “I can never seem to get a direct response from Japanese”, he thought to himself.

This feeling of frustration led him to remember a related incident that happened about a month after this first meeting with this client. Fred had decided that the reason not much progress was being made with the client was that he and his group just didn’t know enough about the client to package the proposal in a way that was appealing to the client. Consequently, he called in Ralph Webster, the senior American associated with the proposal, and asked him to develop a report on the client so that the proposal could be re-evaluated and changed where necessary.

Jointly, they decided that one of the more promising Japanese research associates, Tashiro Watanabe, would be the best person to take the lead on this report.

The day before the report was due, Fred asked Ralph how the report was coming. Ralph said that, since he had heard nothing from Tashiro, he assumed everything was under control but that he would doublecheck.

Ralph then spoke with another American colleague, John, who spoke Japanese and also socialized with the Japanese colleagues, including Tashiro. Incidently John and Tashiro had gone out to a bar the other night where Tashiro had told John about the report in question. Tashiro explained the nature of the report that he had been requested to produce. He continued to explain that, even though he had worked long into the night every night to complete the report, it was just impossible and that he had doubted from the beginning whether he could complete the report in a week.

After having heard that, Ralph went straight to Tashiro’s desk. Ralph chewed out Tashiro and then went to Fred, explaining that the report would not be ready and that Tashiro, from the start, didn’t think it could be. “Then why didn’t he say something?” Fred asked.

No one had any answers, and the whole episode left everyone more suspect and uncomfortable with each other. Other incidents, big and small, had made the last two months especially frustrating, but Fred was too tired to remember them all. To Fred it seemed that working with Japanese both inside and outside the firm was like working with people from another planet. Fred felt he couldn’t communicate with them, and he never could figure out what they were thinking. It drove him crazy.

On top of all this, Jennifer laid a bombshell on him. She wanted to go home, and yesterday was not soon enough. Jennifer was tired of Japan, tired of begin stared at, of not understanding anybody or being understood, of not being able to find what she wanted at the store.

Fred Bailey in Japan: An Innocent Abroad – case adapted from Black , J. S. (1996). Fred bailey: An innocent abroad. In M.E. Mendenhall, G.R. Oddou, & G. K. Stahl (Eds.), Readings and cases in international human resource management. (4th ed., pp. 163-170). New York, NY: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

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Assignment Read the case and answer the questions below.

Use the theory from Chapter 9, Price and Chapter 7, Dowling to motivate your answers.

It is recommended to also use other academic sources.

Include references to those sources!

International assignments have long been recognized for having many potential benefits for companies and their executives such as developing international expertise. In this case, the international assignment has great management development potential for Fred, even though the link between international assignments and career advancement is not proven yet (Dowling, 2008, pp. 186 f.).

Fred is exposed to new tasks and challenges on a daily basis which gives him the opportunity to develop new abilities and expertise. In order to work effectively with his new team, he is literally forced to enhance his intercultural competences and increase his human capital (Price, 2011, p. 242). Thus, international executives are often obligated to learn at a rapid pace just to avoid failure and “report their international assignment experience as the single most leadership development experience” (Carpenter, Sanders and Gregersen, 2000).

The main benefits for Fred can be summarized as: higher salary; increased possibility of promotion and a stronger external mobility. As mentioned above, Fred revises a much higher salary and other benefits because of this assignment. The increased chance of promotion can be explained by his development of rare skills. He develops multiple capabilities that are difficult to acquire for domestic executives such as the understanding and appreciation for other cultures or international tax regulations. This increases his human capital, makes him more valuable on the job market and thus increasing the possibility of promotions. Moreover, he becomes more attractive for other companies and gains a greater eternal mobility because many industries are operating globally and executives with international experience are often targeted by executive search organisations for senior positions in multinational companies (Carpenter, Sanders and Gregersen, 2000). His experience also enhances his ability to manage international teams which is argued to be one of the most important skills that multinational companies are looking (Dowling, 2008, pp. 186-189).

Kline & Associates are also benefiting from this assignment. For instance, expatriates such as Fred can assist in training HCNs and communicate the companies culture to them (Dowling, 2008, p. 175).

Furthermore, having executives with international experiences creates a superior internal labour markets for future operations. Most importantly though, the increase in human capital of their top management team can create a significant competitive advantage in today’s global world (Carpenter, Sanders and Gregersen, 2000).

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Carpenter, M. A., Sanders, W. G., & Gregersen, H. B. (2000). International assignment experience at the top can make a bottom-line difference. Human Resource Management, 39(2), 277-285. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.rps.hva.nl:2443/docview/222127035?accountid=130632

4.

The pre-departure training plan already emphasized the importance of cultural awareness programs and some of its benefits for the expatriates and their families. However, Fred nor his family did receive any form of pre-departure training which resulted in miscommunication, originated by a lack of cultural understanding. After six months, this situation has not improved and left Fred and his team frustrated. A proper cultural awareness training is often a critical step in ensuring the success of international assignments and could be the solution to this situation (Bennett, Aston and Colquhoun, 2000). It can help Fred to adapt more rapidly to the Japanese culture and deal with unexpected events. For instance, the situation with Tashiro’s report could have been prevented, if Fred had learned that Japanese people have a high context communication (Dowling, 2008, pp. 176-177). To prevent similar situations, Fred, his family and his team need to receive some form of CCT (Cross-cultural training). This is also supported by Tung who argued that if there is a high level of interaction and large differences in culture, the training should focus in cross cultural development (Dowling, 2008, p.178). The ideal training should be two months or longer and entail assessment centers; field experiences; sensitivity trainings; language trainings etc. (Dowling, 2008, p. 177-178). However, in Fred’s current situation such a training would be too time-consuming and not particle because he still has to work fulltime. Thus, the training has to be structured in a way that Fred and the HCNs can still work. A more practical and efficient training could be for that all employees have to partake in a two day of-the-job seminar which should teach them the most important aspect of cross cultural communication. Additionally, to build up on this seminar, elearning should be used because it provides “just-in-time learning” and can be used very flexibly (Price pp.254-258.).

Bennett, R., Aston, A., & Colquhoun, T. (2000). Cross-cultural training: A critical step in ensuring the success of international assignments. Human Resource Management, 39(2), 239-250. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.rps.hva.nl:2443/docview/222102615?accountid=130632

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