案例教学

1. 案例教学

2. Case 1 Find out what was wrong and what factors contributed to the failure of the presentation?

3. In an attempt to locate an outlet for its products in Europe, a large U.S. manufacturer sent one of its promising young executives to Frankfurt to make a presentation to a reputable German distributor. The U.S. company had considerable confidence in the choice of this particular junior executive because the man not only spoke fluent German but also knew a good deal of German culture. When the American entered the conference room where he would be making his presentation, he did all the right things. He shook hands firmly, greeted everyone with a friendly guten tag, and bowed his head slightly as is customary in Germany.

4. Drawing on his experience as a past president of the Toastmasters Club in his hometown, the U.S. executive started his presentation with a few humorous anecdotes to set a relaxed mood. At the end of his presentation, however, he sensed that his talk had not gone well. In fact, the presentation was not well received, for the German company chose not to distribute the U.S. company’s products.

5. Analysis on Case 1 As a matter of fact, there is a difference between Americans and Germans in intercultural communication. Before the presentation, the young American executive had had a full preparation for what he was supposed to talk about in his presentation, to be exact, he had known everything about his presentation.

6. However, he failed to notice that the Germans thought that he was not very serious about the business when he started his presentation with several jokes, though it is quite ok in the States. On the other hand, the Germans considered the American executive too young for such an important job, as Germans value the experienced in their country, while the Americans think highly of those who are competent.

7. Case 2 Why businesspeople are supposed to be punctual for their appointments?

8. A Chinese businessman wrote the following account of his trip to America: For purposes of my visit to the United States, my American friends planned my schedule as they would an American’s. Sometimes, in one day there would be two meetings in the morning and two meetings in the afternoon. These meetings were not at the same place. There were considerable distances between appointments.

9. After one meeting, I had to get to the next one within half an hour. Once I got there, we would exchange “hello” and then plunge right into the topic at hand without much additional socializing. During the talk, we all looked at our watches now and then in order to determine what other subjects we would discuss in the remaining time. When we finished, the chairperson allowed us to leave without attempting to persuade us to stay longer. We all had other things to do.

10. We depend on a map to reach the next appointment location within half an hour. Fortunately, in the US, the street signs are very clear. The signs not only indicate the name of the street but also the range of numbers on that particular block, a real convenience for foreigners who are looking for a building. Generally, the destination can be reached within half an hour.

11. But one time in New York, an accident occurred on the subway; the train didn’t come at all. My colleague and were forced to take a taxi. “I hope we’re not going to be late,” she said anxiously. As soon as we got out of the taxi, she pulled me up the stairs in a run. In the end, we weren’t late.

12. Analysis on Case 2 It is said that American is a society on a schedule. In the United States, while doing business, people have to plan everything in advance. Before you go to meet people for business, you have to make an appointment. No appointments, no business.

13. Plans must be carried out when they have been made. Americans hate being interrupted abruptly without any appointments. So, it is acceptable and understandable that the Chinese businessman had four meetings in a day, as everything had been carefully planned or scheduled, and nothing would occur unexpectedly.

14. Case 3 Explain the following embarrassing situation in the passage to Frank.

15. Frank McDougal had been chosen to set up a branch office of his engineering consulting firm in Seoul, Korea. Although the six engineering consultants who would eventually be transferred to Seoul were Americans, Frank was interested in hiring local support staff. He was particularly interested in hiring a local person with excellent accounting skills to handle the company’s books. He was confident that he would be able to find the right person for the job because his company was prepared to offer an excellent salary and benefits package.

16. After receiving what he considered to be several excellent leads from a friend at the Rotary Club, he was surprised to be turned down by all four prospective candidates. They were very appreciative of being considered for the position, but all preferred to stay with their current employer. Frank just couldn’t understand why all four of these Koreans chose to pass up an increase in salary and fringe benefits.

17. Analysis on Case 3 The unwillingness of these Korean accountants to leave their current employer stems from a sense of loyalty felt by many Korean workers that is not shared by their U.S. counterparts. The vast literature on Japanese business practices suggests that Japanese workers have a strong loyalty to their employers because their lives revolve around the company, and they in fact gain a sense of their own importance primarily though the prestige of the company.

18. However, Koreans, unlike the Japanese, have relatively little loyalty to their companies. There is a good deal of job mobility in Korea, for employees are always on the lookout for better job opportunities. Koreans, however, have a strong sense of loyalty to their bosses within the company.

19. When Korean employees do change companies, they frequently are following bosses who take them along when they move. Even though it may be every bit as difficult for foreign firms to recruit Koreans away from their current jobs as it would be to recruit Japanese, the nature of the workers’ loyalty is different in these two countries.

20. Case 4 Explain why Margaret was treated as she was?

21. Margaret Errington, a corporate attorney for a San Francisco department store chain, was responsible for negotiating leases for their outlets abroad. Because she had been particularly successful in similar negotiations in Europe, she was looking forward to securing attractive leasing agreements from a shopping small developer in Osaka, Japan.

22. She was especially optimistic because of her successful telephone communications with her counterparts in Japan. But when she arrived with her two assistants, John Gresham and Mel Watt, she was told by her Japanese hosts how surprised they were that she should come to negotiate in person. Margaret was usually not included in the after-hours socializing, and frequently the Japanese negotiators would direct their questions to John or Mel rather than to Margaret.

23. Analysis on Case 4 Even though Japanese women receive considerable education, they have not been accepted into the higher echelons of the corporate world. The Japanese negotiators simply were not very subtle in their efforts to disguise their displeasure with having to negotiate with a woman.

24. Case 5 Explain the following basic cultural conflict, the superstition, in your own words. Hopefully you will apply what have learned about superstitions in your explanation or description.

25. For the past three years, Ned Ferguson has served quite successfully as the manager of a U.S.-owned manufacturing company in Taipei. Shortly after Ned’s arrival in Taipei, he instituted a number of changes in the plant operation that increased both production and worker satisfaction. However, within the last several months, a series of what seemed to Ned to be unrelated incidents had occurred. First, there had been a fire in the warehouse, which fortunately was contained before too much damage had been done.

26. On the following day, the wife and two children of the local plant supervisor were killed in a spectacular automobile accident. Finally, within the past several weeks, there had been a rash of minor accidents on the assembly line; quite uncharacteristic given the plant’s excellent past safety record. Ned heard those rumors were running rampant about the plant being cursed by evil spirits, and absenteeism had increased dramatically. To try to deal with these problems, Ned called together his chief supervisors.

27. The American staff recommended that some experts from the insurance company come in to review the safety procedures, which, they argued, would show the workers that the company was taking their safety needs seriously. But the Taiwanese supervisors considered this step to be inadequate and instead suggested that a local religious priest be brought in, during company time, to pray for the workers and ward off any evil forces. Ned and his U.S. staff thought that such an action would do nothing but give official company support to superstition. The meeting ended without any substantial agreement between U.S. and Taiwanese supervisors.

28. Analysis on Case 5 This case illustrates the high value Americans place on science, logic, and rational thought. Since there were no logical links between any of these unfortunate happenings at the plant, Ned and his fellow Americans concluded that they were just an unfortunate yet unrelated series of accidents.

29. The local workforce, on the other hand, believed that sinister forces were at work which required the services of a religious specialist. This belief was the direct cause of Ned’s two managerial problems, morale and absenteeism. Unfortunately, Ned and his colleagues got caught up in their own value system and missed the major point:

30. It makes little difference whether the belief in evil spirits is true or false. Ned was no more capable of providing that evil spirits did not in fact cause this series of events than the local workers could prove that they did. What Ned and his American staff failed to understand was that a) the workers did believe that evil spirits were at work and b) this belief, whether true or false, was causing a major problem for the company.

31. The only reasonable way to solve that problem is to take an action that would enable the workers to perceive that the power of evil spirits had been neutralized and that their safe work environment had been restored.

32. The End