Step 1: Start with a brief introduction and reflection on the mini cases below.
What were the core issues, players, and factors involved?
This is short and just an overview.
Step 2: Analyse and critically reflect on the following three mini-cases. Please reflect on one at a time.
Mini-case 5.2 “In search of status” on page 134
Mini-case 6.2 “Circles of time” on page 152
Mini-case 13.1 “Netherlands vs Mexico: KLM forced to apologise for ‘racist’ joke tweet following Dutch win” on page 358.
You must respond to the three mini-cases and then write a reflection and analysis of each of these cases.
Questions to consider to start the reflection include:
What do you think really went wrong?
What’s your opinion, your analysis, your individual take on the event(s) that took place?
What theories or concepts were/are most critical?
What are the shortcomings of such theories or concepts?
Please be creative in your analysis.
Step 3: Write a concluding statement where you include a possible strategy What’s your opinion, your analysis, your individual take on the event(s) that took place?that the com Write a concluding statement where you include a possible
Step 4: Include the full reference list in the Harvard
Mini-cases
MINI-CASE 5.2 “In search of status”
An English friend of mine had finished her studies in the most famous grande école of commerce in
France. She did both her undergraduate and her MBA studies there and then she was hired by a well-
known consulting firm in London. She worked there for four years and reached the level of senior
consultant by the age of 33. She was then given an assignment with an oil company based in Saudi
Arabia. Until then she had had no problems in communicating with the client’s team members and
had always produced successful results.
However, with this particular client, she had enormous
difficulties. She worked as hard as she could to figure out the structure of the company, its problems
and possible solutions. Despite her efforts, however, she could feel that her opinions were not being
taken seriously, and that senior managers of the client usually tried to avoid discussing issues with
her. Moreover, she had difficulty in getting vital information from employees lower down in the
hierarchy, so she was unable to come up with the analyses she wanted.
Although she felt she could
really help the company with her knowledge and experience, she found it difficult to persuade the
client to put her ideas into practice. In fact, the better and more innovative her ideas were, the more
difficult it was to get them over to the managers in Saudi Arabia.
Source: adapted from Browaeys & Trompenaars, 2000: case 5.
SPOTLIGHT 6.2 “Circles of time”
In order to find out how different cultures manage time, Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (1997)
asked 15,000 managers from different countries to imagine the past, present and future as circles.
They were asked to draw three circles in a way which represented their feelings about the relationship
between past, present and future (see figure). They could use different-sized circles. When they had
finished their drawing, they would 152 then label each circle accordingly.
This was an exercise based
on the Circles Test devised by Cottle (1967). The figure shows some of the results. The results for
Germany show that the present is important, but is considered to be strongly related to both past and
future. Those for the USA show equal interrelatedness, but the future is most important. As for China,
the three time zones are equally separate and not linked. Finally, Japan: as we can see, the present
closely embraces both past and future.
Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner report that half of the
Japanese managers gave the three circles as concentric.
GERMANY USA CHINA JAPAN Past, present and future Source: Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner
(1997) (examples taken from Figure 9.1: 127).
MINI-CASE 13.1 “Netherlands vs Mexico”:
KLM forced to apologise for ‘racist’ joke tweet following Dutch win Light-hearted tweet from Dutch
airline caused a stir By Charles Reynolds Monday 30 June 2014 12:37 Dutch airline KLM has apologised
for a tweet, it sent out from its official account following the Netherlands victory over Mexico.
Just
after the Dutch completed a dramatic late turnaround against Mexico, to win their round of 16 clash
2-1, the airline posted a tweet of an airport departures sign under the heading ‘Adios Amigos’. Next
to the word, Departures was a picture of a man wearing a sombrero and a moustache. The picture
went viral although was soon deleted after a social media backlash.
Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal,
reportedly tweeted to his two million followers that he would never fly with the airline again although
that post appears to have been deleted with the actor now apologising for a sense of humour failure
caused by the football. “It was meant to be a joke but there was too much negative reaction,” said
KLM spokeswoman Lisette Ebeling Koning. She added that the airline had not meant to offend
Mexicans and KLM went on to issue an official apology on Sunday.
“In the best of sportsmanship, we
offer our heartfelt apologies to those who have been offended by the comment,” said Marnix
Fruitema, director general of KLM in North America. Although the fairly light-hearted joke appeared
to be lost on many people, given the amount of publicity it has generated for the airline, they may not
view the whole exercise as a complete failure. Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal, reportedly tweeted
to his two million followers that he would never fly with the airline again although that post appears
to have been deleted with the actor now apologising for a sense of humour failure caused by the
football.
