Intercultural Management case analysis

1. Intercultural Management - Final Paper
Fullname: Mai Nam Chuong
ID: 2012-BIS-M-02
Class: VGU BIS 2012
I. Summary:
Case: First week as a Chief
Last October, after 8 years worked for a Software Company, I had decided to
challenge myself in a new career path by entering a Real Estate Service company,
founded by one of my Uncles, as a Managing director. During the last 3 years in the
Software Company, I was promoted and acted as a Project Manager. My daily
activities were almost IT stuffs. There were, of course, some human resources and
finance matters as well. The works went smoothly that time. However, when starting
new role in the Real Estate Company, it was a difficult starting especially in the first
week.
Just two weeks before I joined the company, there was a big team transition in
the company. The former office coordinator (there was not a managing director title
before I came) and some key members quitted the company due to some policies.
Later I found out that they quitted and joined one of our competitors as they got a
much higher salaries and sales commissions. Thus, the company went in a difficult
situation. Even I had a little experience in sales services, I encouraged myself to took
this chance as well as help my Uncle in this circumstance.
I started working on Monday. In this day, the company had a company
meeting as usual. I was impressed with the employees. The biggest team size I’ve
ever worked with was only fifteen people. But sitting in front of me at that moment
were seventy young well-dressed salespersons, both men and women. The Chairman,
also my Uncle, introduced me to the company. He introduced me as a Software
engineer and noted that since thenI would manage the company along with him. After
his quick introduction, I was invited to have a speech. All employees started standing
and clapping loudly. I was a bit nervous but was still able to finish my speech.
After the meeting, I started working with the accountant in the morning to
handover all important papers, contracts and documents of the company. In the
afternoon, there was another meeting with the only one human resource officer. She
introduced me the current human resources situations and some obstacles especially
the movement of employees to competitors and conflicts between members in the
sales department. That evening, there were a lot of ideas came in my mind and I went
to sleep at around 3AM.
Next morning, I drove to the office early even though there was just a short
sleep at night. I spent the whole day to meet almost the employees except the ones
who were absent or had been taking leaves. Asking their names, their families and if

2. there were any concerns about the company’s policies. I was so surprise that none of
them complained about the salary and benefits.
On Wednesday morning, I had the first meeting with all team leaders of the
sales departments. They were all the key members of the company who brought the
most revenue for the company. I expected to meet all of them to understand further
the situations that the Human resource officer told me on Monday. During the
meeting, I told them to share me the ways of how they usually did while cooperating
with other members. There were some positive responses from new team leaders.
However, some of them just looked around the people on the room, kept silent or
even answered the phone calls.More than a half of the employees that didn’t have
responses had been working in the company since it first established 5 years ago. I
collected all the concerns and discussed with the Chairman laterthat afternoon and
evening as he was usually on business outside the company.
Thursday morning, I came to see the people who didn’t have ideas in the day
before meeting, in person. I shared them my ideas to solve the conflicts in their
department and asked for their feedbacks. This time I got a few more responses
however the rest still didn’t have any ideas. Two of them even told me that the
Chairman already took actions but the conflicts were still persisted so I wouldn’t be
able to resolve them. Disappointed feeling happened to me but I still thanked and told
them that I would do the best to support them. I went back home that evening with
more questions about the company situations.
Friday embarrassed me with two unexpected events. In the morning I was
asked to attend a new employee interview as the sales manager came to the office
late. The girl applied in the position of saleswoman. Unlucky me, I wasn’t informed
about this interview and the most critical concern was that I’ve never done a
salesperson interview before. All I had done were IT positions.It wouldn’t be best for
me if I attended the interview alone so I decided to ask one salesperson to go with me
in the interview. Unfortunately, he politely rejected as he needed to go out right away.
Finally, I did attend the interview only with myself. I felt so lonely while taking this
interview. I took a quick look in her applicant form, resume and started asking her
about soft-skills and her expectation when applying to this position.We
discussedsome more questions and ended 20 minutes after that. I didn’t forget to
thank her coming and noticed her that the resultwould be reviewed carefully and soon
informed her. It was even worse in the afternoon. When I was sitting in my room, an
employee knocked the door and came in with his resignation letter. I looked at the
calendar on the wall and whispered to myself “Jesus! It is Friday the Thirteen today.”
I went home early this Friday with a headache and thought would it still be
better for me to continue being a Chief.

3. II. Case analysis:
a. First Situation: Attended the new employee interview on Friday alone.
Assumption:
- The company usually interviewed with only one interviewer so when
he or she was absent, there was no one else could interview the
candidate.
- The managing director role will need to interview the candidate.
- The sales manager forgot the interview schedule.
Issues and recommendations:
- Structural frame: The human resource officer didn’t have a backup
solution. In my opinion, the company should have training courses
for some more people so that they can have the ability to interview
candidates and do the backup in case the main interviewer is absent.
- Human resource frame: The interviewer forgot interview
schedule.In this case, it’s better if the human resource officer remind
the interviewer the day before the interview happens and arranges
other people to support in case the main interviewer cannot attend.
- Symbolic frame: Using this perspective, we see that the human
resource officer thought the sales manager would attend the
interview and just only him. However, when the sales manager
didn’t attend, she thought the new managing director would have the
right person to do the interview. In this case, the company should
have to improve the interview process. In this process, it should be
noted clearly that who might be able to attend the interview.
- Political frame: with the power of a director, I asked one employee
to attend the interview with me. However, he might thought that he
wasn’t suitable for the interview and might felt unconfident when
working with new director.
b. Second situation: Met with key members and met the people who didn’t
give comments in person on Thursday morning.
Assumption:
- The people thought I met them in order to complain them.
- New director just worked with them in a few days and they still
knew and followed the most power person in the company, the
Chairman.
Issues and recommendations:
- Political frame: this group of people might thinkthat the new director
had just worked in the company and at that moment only the
Chairman can have privileges to question them. In this case, before
ending the meeting the day before, the director could remind all the
people that they could possibly be reached at another time to share
the solutions to resolve the conflicts.

4. - Human resource frame:The people thought the director was still new
member and he was still in probation period. So, they didn’t respect the
new director. It is clearly seen that the new director wasn’t given the
power. Situation could be better if the Chairman met the team and inform
them that new managing director would met them, collect feedbacks and
cooperate with them to find out a good solutions for the conflicts.
- Structural frame:The managing director was a new title and no one in the
company knew what privileges this role could have. In this case, the
company should need to define a clear role for each title in the company.
Thus, all of the employee will be aware of the power of the new director.
- Symbolic frame:some of the team leaders worked for the company for a
long time and they brought a large amount of revenue to the company so
they only admired the most power person, the Chairman also the founder
of the company, who led them from the beginning.