Case Memo Ellen Moore

“It is popular to talk of the “Confucian Work Ethic” when explaining the

successes of [..]Korea. This is not an accurate impression.[3.]

The case was emotional, so I will allow myself to outline not only the facts,

but also to guess the emotions of the team in such cross-cultural perspective.

1. Why has the project run into problems?

The one and the most obvious reason was lack of discussions. The Org. Behaviour

handbook suggests that disagreement and discussions are very important to make

team work successful. Those things never took a place, because nobody spoke up in

the meetings.

Also the lack of common goal (and agreed system how to achieve the goal) was

the reason for conflicts. Two leaders made different instructions to Employees, there

were no clear definition for a long term for them, and no clear instructions what will

each Employee do. Source [3.] states that “Korean managers would like more job

security, more use of job descriptions…” They have pretty high Uncertainty

Avoidance, and Ellen probably was breaking through their “comfort zones”, trying to

make some changes in the organization etc., and thereof she represented undesirable

things. I imagine that I am a Korean person with very high Uncertainty avoidance and

I have two different instructions at one day, and I could not fulfil both. I will probably

feel very unstable and will hate both of my Managers for making me feel as incapable

worker. And much more I will consider faulty that Manager, who interrupted the

usual work flow, so I will hate Ellen.

2. What are the alternatives and what should be done to get the project back on

schedule?

Strong leader intervention and strong directions “from the head office” are

needed. A couple of days on discussions on what should be done and what should not

take a place. After all discussions counterparts will finish the Project thought there is

no hope that they will ever have good relationships as a team. In fact the meeting with

the Director

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