Primary Markets In Europe And North America

Rank the candidates from 1 to 5, with 1 being your first choice, and enter your rankings on he ranking sheet in the column marked “My Ranking. ” Briefly, list the reasons for each of your rankings. Do not discuss your rankings with your classmates until told to do so. Step 2 (30-40 minutes) Working with three to four of your classmates, discuss the applicants, and rank them in the order of group preference. Do not vote. Rank the candidates from 1 to 5, with 1 being the group’s first choice, and enter your group rankings on the ranking sheet In the column marked “Croup Ranking. Briefly list the reasons for each of the group’s rankings. If your group represents more than one culture, explore he ways in which each person’s cultural background may have influenced his or her individual decisions. Step 3 (open-ended) Report your rankings to the class, and discuss the areas of difference that emerged within your group while you were trying to reach consensus. Questions for Discussion Was your group able to explore openly any culturally based biases that came up?for example, feelings about homosexuality, religion, personality traits, politics? 2.

Did you make any comments or observations

that you feel would have been fully acceptable in your own 3. If the answer to question 2 was yes, how did the action of the group make you feel about your membership in it? How did you handle the situation? 4. What implications do you believe these cultural differences would have in business dealings? 1. Background You are a member of the management committee of a multinational company that does business in 23 countries. While your company’s headquarters are in Holland, your offices are scattered fairly evenly throughout the four hemispheres.

Primary markets have been in Europe and North America; the strongest emerging market is the Pacific Rim. Company executives would like to develop hat they see as a powerful potential market in the Middle East. Sales in all areas except the Pacific Rim have shown slow growth over the past two years. At present, your company is seeking to restructure and revivalist its worldwide marketing efforts. To accomplish this, you have determined that you need to hire a key marketing person to introduce fresh ideas and a new perspective. There is no one currently in your company who is qualified to do this, and so you have decided to look outside.

The Job title is Emcee-president for international marketing”; it carries with it a alarm well into six figures (US$), plus elaborate benefits, an unlimited expense account, a car, and the use of the corporate Jet. The person you hire will be based at the company’s headquarters and will travel frequently. A lengthy search has turned up five people with good potential. It is now up to you to decide whom to hire. Although all the applicants have expressed a sincere interest in the position, it is possible that they may change their minds once the Job is offered.

Therefore, you must rank them in order of preference so that if your first choice declines the position, you can go on to the second, and so on. Applicants: Park L. , age 41, Married with Three Children Park L. Is currently senior vice president for marketing at a major Korean high-technology firm. You have been told expert in international marketing is outstanding. The market share of his company’s products has consistently increased since he Joined the company Just over fifteen years ago. His company’s market share is now well ahead of that of competing producers in the Pacific Rim.

Park started with his present company immediately after his graduation from the University of Seoul and has worked his way up through the ranks. He does not have a graduate degree. You sense that Park has a keen understanding of organizational politics and knows how to play them. He recognizes that because the company he works for now is family controlled, it is unlikely that he will ever move much higher than his present situation. Park has told you that he is interested in the growth potential offered at your company.

In addition to his native tongue, Park is able to carry on a reasonably fluent conversation in English and has a Personal Skill-Building Exercises minimal working knowledge of German and French. His wife, who appears quiet and quite traditional, and his children speak only Korean. Koran K. Age 50, Widow with One Adult Child Koran K. Is a Sikh woman living in Malaysia. She began her teaching career while finishing her DAB (doctorate in business administration) at the Harvard Business School and published her first book on international marketing 10 months after graduation.

Her doctoral dissertation was based on the international marketing of pharmaceuticals, but she has also done research and published on other areas of international marketing. Two months after the publication of her book, Koran went to work in the international marketing department of a Fortune 500 company, where she stayed for the next 10 years. She returned to teaching when Muar University offered her a full professorship with tenure, and she has been there since that time. Her academic position has allowed her to pursue a number of research interests and to write authoritative books and papers in her field.

At present, she is well published and internationally recognized as an expert on international marketing. In addition, she has an active consulting practice throughout Southeast Asia. You have learned through your office in Koala Lumps You sense that part of her interest in the Job with your company is to have the income to guarantee his care should anything happen to err. Her son would go with her to Holland, should she be given the Job, where he will need to be enrolled in special support programs.

In addition to fluency in Malay, English, and Hindi, Koran speaks and writes German and Spanish and is able to converse in Japanese and Mandarin. Peter V. , age 44, Single Peter is a white South African. He had worked in a key position in the international marketing division of an American Fortune 100 company until the company pulled out of his country eight months ago. While the company wanted to keep him on, offering to move him from Johannesburg to its New York headquarters, Peter decided that it was time to look elsewhere.

He had begun to feel somewhat deadened in his position and apparently sees the position at your company as an opportunity to try out new territory. Like your other candidates for the position, Peter has a long list of accomplishments and is widely recognized as outstanding in his field. People in your company who have had contacts with him say that Peter is creative, hardworking, and loyal. In addition, you have been told that Peter is a top-flight manager of people who is able to push his 585 employees to the highest levels of performance.

And, you re told, he is very organized. Peter has a PhD in computer science from a leading South African university and an MBA from Purdue’s Granter School of Business. Peter had been a vehement opponent of apartheid and is still very much a social activist. His high political visibility within South Africa had made his life there difficult, and even now, with the end of apartheid, he would like to get out. His constant male companion, P. K. Kahn, would be coming with him to Holland, and Peter would like your personnel office to help P. K. Find an appropriate position.

Peter speaks and reads English, Dutch, Afrikaans, and Swahili and can converse in German. Tex P. , age 36, Divorced with One Child Tex is currently Job hunting. His former Job as head of highly specialized workstations for sophisticated artificial intelligence applications? ended when the company was bought out by Texas Instruments. Tex had been with his previous company virtually from the time the company was started six years earlier. Having to leave his Job was an irony to Tex as it was largely due to the success of his efforts that the company was bought out.

You sense that he is a little bitter, and he tells you that Jobs offered to him by TTL were beneath him and not worthy f consideration. Tex has both his undergraduate and MBA degrees from Stanford University. In addition, he was a Rhodes Scholar and won a Fulbright scholarship, which he used to support himself while he undertook a two-year research project on the marketing of high-technology equipment to Third World countries. You have learned through your New York office that Tex has a reputation for being aggressive and hard driving.

Apparently he is a workaholic who has been known to work eighteen to twenty hours a day, seven days week. He seems to have little time for his personal life. In addition to his native English, Tex has a minimal madman of French?which he admits he hasn’t used since his college days. Xvi C. , age 40, Married with Five Children Xvi began his career after receiving his MBA from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His first Job was as marketing manager for a German company doing business in Israel.

Zip’s phenomenal success with this company led to his being hired away by an international office equipment company in England. Again, he proved to be outstanding, Skill-Building and Experiential Exercises boosting the company’s market share beyond all expectations within two years. After five years, Xvi was offered a chance to go back to Israel, this time to oversee and coordinate all the international marketing programs for an industrial park of 14 companies run as an adjunct to Israel’s leading scientific research institution.

It has been his responsibility to interface the research component with product development and sales as well as to manage the vast marketing department. Again, he has shown himself to be a master. Highly respected and has extensive contacts in the scientific and high-tech worlds. He is exceptionally creative in his approach to marketing, often trying bold strategies that cost of his peers would dismiss as too risky. Xvi, however, has made them work and work well. Xvi is a religious man who must leave work by noon on Friday.