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Riordan's Problem Solution for cross cultural management

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Please assist with this problem so I can complete the assignment:
Develop a response in which you propose a solution to help Riordan develop cross cultural management tactics that meet strategic goals. Remember that your solution needs to focus on the cross cultural management concepts covered in the course (see the mind map in Week Four on your rEsourceSM course page). Be sure to incorporate appropriate citations from your readings and research.

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This is Riordan's Problem Solution for cross cultural management tactics that meet strategic goals in MMPBL 560.

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Problem Solution: Riordan

In today's global competitive business landscape, the successful management of a global workforce is crucial to the success of the entire organization. Success in this arena is contingent on many factors some of which are awareness of and adjustments to cultural dimensions, correctly applied management styles, and effective job design.

Awareness of and adjustments to cultural dimensions is an important aspect of successfully managing a diverse workforce because of the direct impact these dimensions have on management functions. Cultural dimensions determine people's values and ethics inventory, in short cultural dimensions affect how people approach life. People's personal approach to life governs how they approach various aspects of their work and this in turn affects functions of management. Some functions of management that can be affected by alternative cultural values are, planning and scheduling; goal setting and career development; motivation and reward system; loyalty, commitment, and motivation; promotion; organization, communication and managerial style; career development; marketing and communication planning, and quality control (Hodgetts, Luthans, & Doh, 2006). Management teams of multinational companies must be both mindful and curious in order to perfect necessary global management skills such as observance and non-judgmental acceptance of, and taking wise and considerate action toward, host country cultures and the members of those cultures (Harvey, Novicevic, Leonard, & Payne, 2007).

Different management styles are also important in the successful operation of global organizations because they have different impacts in different cultures and situations. The effectiveness of a leadership style may well vary depending on the cultural values of an individual. Multinational corporations cannot use the same leadership style in their various locations around the world, therefore, and expect uniform results. They must instead be careful to use a contingency approach to the application of leadership styles using different styles for different situations as necessary while still being aware of universalities that may make the same leadership styles effective across cultures (Hodgetts, Luthans, & Doh, 2006).

Job design, which includes job content, the practices used on the job, and how the job is connected to other jobs in the organization, is about the actual job to be done and how management wants it to be done. Because different cultures approach life differently, their wants and needs from life and work can be quite different as well. Each country and indeed cluster of countries has their own profile of prioritized needs. To keep employees motivated, multinational companies must be aware of these needs and design jobs that will motivate across cultural boundaries (Hodgetts, Luthans, & Doh, 2006).
Riordan is a multinational plastics manufacturing company that faces the challenges of managing a diverse workforce of Chinese, Indian, Korean and Pakistani employees, who will be working side by side in the company's second Hangzhou, China plant under expatriate American upper management. Riordan's international management team must find a way to ensure that this diverse workforce not only works together smoothly now to get the new plant off to a successful start but also continues this smooth operation well into the future. To help Riordan identify and ultimately resolve its current challenges, this paper will put them through the 9-step problem solving model with the ultimate goal of implementing a measurable solution plan. The solution plan will help Riordan identify the cultural barriers that may hamper the success of its new Hangzhou plant, and where and how to implement changes that will remove these barriers moving the company toward smoother management of an ever more diverse international workforce and realizing the cross-border growth opportunities that lie ahead.

Situation Analysis

Recently, Riordan Manufacturing opened a new production facility in the Hangzhou Province of China. Excessive competition in the province, however, left Riordan without the available Chinese skilled labor the company needed to make the expansion plant a success. This left Riordan no choice but to hire available skilled foreign labor from Korea, India, and Pakistan in Hangzhou and nearby provinces. This situation has presented Riordan with several cross-cultural issues that could affect the production and delivery schedules for the new facility. Riordan would like to adopt a workforce management approach that will turn these cultural dimensions issues into opportunities to ensure that its diverse workforce can begin working together respectfully and effectively and also address employee relations for the long term.

Issue and Opportunity Identification

The first issue facing Riordan is that its workforce at the Hangzhou plant, including management, is from four different countries where cross-border external environments such as ethics are decidedly different and therefore present a potential for conflict. The opportunity here is to create an environment where these various points of view can exist and be expressed freely in an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect.

The second issue is that of different cultural dimensions influencing the workers from different countries. In the Hofstede model, there are four dimensions of cultural values that differentiate people's national culture. These are collectivism versus individualism, uncertainty avoidance, femininity versus masculinity, and power distance (Hodgetts, Luthans, & Doh, 2006).

The opportunity here is to find where the relative commonalities lie among the four countries represented at Riordan's Hangzhou plant so that people can be placed in such a way that they can work most compatibly together and also so that Riordan can forecast how well the implementation of various recruitment and retention policies and practices across national boundaries will work.

The third issue is that Riordan's management styles and job designs have not been adapted to accommodate the different cultures represented at the new Hangzhou plant. The opportunity for Riordan is to design an adaptive system of management style and job design that can adapt to different cultural and situational conditions. This built-in flexibility will help Riordan in future global expansions.

Stakeholder Perspectives/Ethical Dilemmas

The stakeholders in Riordan's second Hangzhou plant are the American expatriate upper management, the Chinese middle management and the Korean, Indian and Pakistani employees. Members of the American expatriate upper management have the right and are interested in positively influencing company policy to attract and retain the necessary skilled workforce for the success of the second Hangzhou plant. Members of the Chinese middle management group as well as those of the Korean, Indian and Pakistani employee groups, have right to be treated fairly and with respect toward their cultural values and according to where they fall within the cultural dimensions spectrum.

The conflicts among these groups can arise out of their respective cultural backgrounds and how these backgrounds influence their approach to work issues and work related relationships. Upper management at Riordan's second Hangzhou plant is from the Unites States (US) where laws and code of moral behavior are based on English common law. The law in the US is agreed upon by general consensus and obeyed and enforced as such. The emphasis of English common law and thus US law is on individual responsibility (Snell, & Tseng, 2001). Some of Riordan's Hangzhou workforce is from China and Korea, where the code of moral behavior is governed by Confucianism. The traits that seem to be common among cultures influenced by Confucianism are the importance they attach to relationships, and the stability of society, both of which are based on mutual corresponding obligations in which junior partners owe the senior ones respect and obedience and, in return, the seniors provide protection and ...

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