Cultural Values
You have just been appointed executive vice president for international operations for an American equipment manufacturing corporation, expanding into the Pacific Rim. Your corporation is serious about its vision and values, which stress diversity and opportunity. Your company has been named one of the 20 best employers by Business Week magazine because of your progressive education and training program and your record of advancing minority and female managers. Working Women magazine has named you in its “best practices” list for the last decade. You have remarkable loyalty among middle and senior managers and the pick of the best MBA graduates because of your managerial reward and recognition system. Your managers are trained to identify, reward and promote talent. Good workers get promoted and provided with educational and training incentives.
One of your rising young stars, and soon to be your third and youngest female VP, call her Sadie Smith, has been assigned to manage your new Asian district, which includes a large plant in the Philippines. This excellent manager has made her reputation by identifying and fast tracking outstanding management talent, especially women.
The local culture denigrates women, and considers them menial and servile. District Manager Smith resents the local standards, and insists on adhering to company values and vision: identify, reward and promote talent. She has personally promoted a number of males, in a number of countries, and her new managers have improved production, reduced wastage, and improved local morale. This has been especially effective in the Philippines, where workers appreciate seeing their own countrymen advance.
But her most promising find is a bright, very hard working woman. Your local plant manager refuses to promote her. He says that women should not have authority over men. Director Smith intervenes: she says that it’s about time that talented Filipino women get a chance; and it is a core value of the company. The woman refuses, but the Director orders her to accept the promotion, which she does.
She actually seems to be effective for the first week. At the end of the week, she asks the plant manager to return her to her old assembly-line job. He consults District Manger Smith, who orders him to tell the woman she must continue in the supervisory role for at least a month to “give it a chance and see how it works out”.
Department of Communication, Seton Hall University