managing across cultures-‘Individual Major Project Comparative Study

Individual Project: A Comparative Study
4000 words, weighted at 40 per cent of the total course grade

Assume that you are employed in a multinational company that is setting up a subsidiary in another country. You may choose the national culture of both the home office of the multinational and the subsidiary.

You have been asked to write a report, exploring the national culture of the subsidiary and how that culture may influence the expectations, communication, values and practices, for example, of employees and managers in the subsidiary. Consider also, the national culture in which the head office of the multinational operates and where you now work. How are the expectations, communication, values and practices, for example, likely to be similar or different from those of the new subsidiary and what implications may there be for management decision making?

Title
Use the title, ‘Individual Major Project Comparative Study’. Please add an additional subheading that reflects the context you are presenting in the report. Eg: A comparison of cultural factors at Electra car company in both the multinational head office located in Beijing, People’s Republic of China and the subsidiary office located in Sydney, Australia.

*Note that this title is an example only, the nature of the industry in which the multinational operates as well as the two national cultures concerned, will depend on your choices.

Abstract/Executive Summary
Summarise in about 200 words,the key information provided in the report. For example, what you discovered about the two cultures respectively and the main implications that are considered in your conclusion as well as any recommendations. The abstract thus acts as a summary of the whole report, so that anyone who reads it would get the gist of the report without necessarily reading it,in its entirety.

Introduction
Provide a description of the brief to research the cultural factors likely to influence communication, values, behaviour and expectations in the multinational and subsidiary respectively. Explain any aspects of the context such as the locations of the organisations and the industry. You may also explain how the report will be set out and how you searched for information (eg; databases used). The report is to be presented to the senior management team at the home office. This section should be no longer than 200 words.

Critical and Reflective Discussion
This section should constitute the main body of your project. Drawing on the literature, describe and critically discuss what you have discovered about the national culture where the head office of the multinational and the subsidiary are located. Explain how this information is likely to impact uponthe values, communication and expectations of employees in these two organisations in practical terms.You may like to do this by breaking the report down into two subsections. Aim to write about 3000 words.

Conclusion and Recommendations
Summarise the key issues raised and discuss any implications of your findings for management decision making. Identify any potential difficulties or synergies for communication between the two organisations. Make any recommendations about how the senior management team might address any differences related to culture in order to minimise potential difficulties in working together in the future. If your conclusions and recommendations are based on your reading, you must provide in-text references. Write up to 600 words in this section.

Reference List
List all the references alphabetically, following UniSA Harvard referencing conventions. Please do not use websites in your references unless they are government sources. You are expected to demonstrate wide reading (at least 15references) to inform your understanding and analysis of the context. You must support all the points you make with evidence from the literature both in the report itself (in-text referencing) and in the reference list. Your reference list will not be included in the word count for the assignment.

Additional information:

Please cut and paste a blank feedback and criteria sheet at the beginning of your assignment so there will only be one document to download and save the document in your name. Capitalise the surname/family name first following it with your first name in lowercase. Eg; WESTJohn.

You are most welcome to discuss ideas or any questions you have with the lecturer but cannot submit drafts to the lecturer for feedback or marking prior to the official submission date.

You can write within a range of 10 per cent more or less of the word allowance of 4000 words. That is, within 3600 and 4400 words. More than 4400 words or less than 3600 words will attract a penalty of 5 percent for every 100 words beyond the upper or lower limit. The marker will stop reading the report when the word count has been reached so be advised that this will mean that anything written beyond that point in the report will be disregarded