Instructions:
You are the Human Resource Team of a MNC based in your home country. The MNC has
decided that the home country market has developed enough for it to open an operation
overseas. Your CEO has asked your team to prepare a presentation about the kinds of
cultural challenges that this company’s managers will face when launching the new
operation in the chosen country (host country). Ensure that your presentation meets the
following suggestions:
• For the chosen country (host country) of its expansion, include a brief description of
the country’s relevant history, geographical location, socio-economic information,
business etiquettes and protocols.
• You are to use one of the cultural models, as discussed in Lecture 2 (Chapter Two)
such as Trompenaar, Hofstede, Hall & Hall, or the Globe Studies as the framework
for your presentation to examine the following:
• Analyse at least three cultural challenges of your chosen country, in comparison to
those of your home country. Specifically, what cultural differences will need to be
considered prior to commencing operations abroad?
• In what ways do these cultural challenges affect how you would promote your
product (Example, different tastes and preferences require different forms of
promotion or product changes), work with the local people (Example are there
different work habits/practices that might present misunderstanding?)
• Recommendations: What should the company do to avoid these cultural blunders?
Design a HRM best practice framework outlining some solutions or recommendations
with emphasize on the role played by national cultures & institutions and trends in
global corporate governance.
• You will require extensive research to do the above suggestions of this report. There
must be at least six reliable references used for this report (i.e. taking from peer
reviewed journal articles, newspaper reports, government and institutional websites
etc.)
Useful Information:
This assessment item requires you to work in teams of 3 students, conduct research and
present on the cultural challenges faced by managers in a specific country of expansion. The
team can decide on a chosen MNC based on any member’s home country (assuming if 3 of
you are from different countries) and to select a country of expansion that is culturally very
different from the home country. The information in this analysis must be more than a
collection of facts. You should attempt to interpret the meaning of cultural information. That
is, how does the information help in understanding the effect of culture on market/consumer
behaviour? For example, the fact that almost all the populations of Italy and Mexico are
Catholic is an interesting statistic but not nearly as useful as understanding the effect of
Catholicism on values and beliefs of your target market and their behaviour. As a consultant,
you are being paid to tell the company what it should do to avoid cultural blunders. Be aware
that recitation of facts is NOT analysis.
Home country
– Australia
Host country
– DR Congo
Cultural model
– Hofstede’s ntional cultural model
Challenges that your company will face in the host country
– How you are going to recruit, select and train the kinds of employees and/or managers
there?
– How about the way you operate your business there in terms of how to promote/advertise
your products, what kinds of corporate culture to adopt or business structure to have
(hierarchical or team-based)? Decide between the 3 of you, who is in-charge of each of the 3
chosen cultural challenges.
