Case 1: What Else Can Go Wrong? Essay

Words: 2299
Pages: 10

Case 1: What Else Can Go Wrong?

Summary
Joe Van West is an American who was working as an Operations Manager in Taipei, Taiwan when he got a call offering him a job in Mexico as a President of the Mexican subsidiary of Appliances United. After applying for the job he got approved and moved to the said country. There Van West and his family got help from Antonio Hernandez, President of Manufacturing, with settling down. He and Mrs. Hernandez introduced them to various clubs and influential people. In general The Hernandez contributed a lot to Van West’s accustoming and developed a good relationship.
But things did not stay good for long. Because he could not detect certain problems as a threat at the time, he was now facing
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It is very possible that personal matters have interfiered with business matters. In Mexico relationships on workplaces aretaken with high cosideration and can influence an outcome.
Van West wasn’t only unable to get any kind of support from his subordinate – he also could not critisise him. Since his arrival in Mexoco the two have maintained a good relationship thus the President feels burdened to point out the bad point if his “comrade”. If this situation were to happen in America, he would have dealt with his uncooparative subordinate by now. They would only have a superiour-subordinate relationship with no other expetation tied to that.
This simple lack of information providing due to cultural differences has become the starting point a problem that could lead a company to face a strike threat.

What should Van West have done when he first came to Mexico?
Sometimes looking at the big picture prevents us from seeing other smaller but significant details. When too many of those detailes pile up they can become one dreadful problem. It turned out exactly like this for the new President, Van West.
When he first arrived in the country he shared with his emloyes that he wants to include them in the decision making progress. His idea was to focus on the big issues. Since Mexico is an hierarchical society, the workers could only agree and compliment him on the good approach. However, final decisions should