Case Study Expatriate Management At Nokia

The focus of the case is on Cross-Culture understanding, Language barrier, Motivation.

Learning Objective: To remove the cultural shock, language barrier and induce motivation among employees by providing topic based training on positive attitude, local language, local culture and process if any to increase the business effectiveness.

Brief Description of case:

Title- Expatriate Management at Nokia in China

The case says about an expatriate named ‘Paul’, who was sent to china as a manager. He was provided with short pre-departure tips for adjusting in Chinese culture, but ended up as a waste. He struggled with his work environment, language, and culture. This is the case of all those managers who are sent to countries where the language,

By 1998 Nokia was the market leader in mobile phones a position which it enjoyed for a decade.

Then in 2006 Nokia acquired mapping software company to strengthen its location services.

In 2007 it combined its telecom infrastructure with those of Siemens to form a joint venture named Nokia Siemens Networks, which then became the leading telecom infrastructure provider with a focus on offering innovative mobile broad band technology.

Nokia joined hands with Microsoft to strengthen its smartphones market, but then acquired by Microsoft completely in 2013.

In 2013 Nokia saw an organizational restructuring, with new strategy and vision, building on its three strong businesses: Nokia networks, HERE, and Nokia Technologies.

With a workforce of 101982 employees across 120 countries, and sales in 150 countries Nokia is looking to regain its leadership position in the market.

Nokia Network in China:

Nokia operates across 54 offices in Mainland China, with more than 7000 employees working in that region.

In 2009 Nokia touched 13.9 billion Chinese Yuan sales (2.2 billion USD) representing 11 % of Nokia Network’s

He said that staff here needs to be told everything. They need a list of daily tasks to be provided for them to do.

After collecting all the information, smith and his team divided the problems specific to Chinese culture in seven categories-culture shock; language barriers; miscommunication with local staff; staff turnover; empowerment and motivation; and teamwork.

This ended the first phase of his research; the next phase being the evaluation of pre-departure training program.

Pre-departure training program and its flaws:

The managers are selected through the process of interview based on the job description. The selected candidate is sent for foreign assignment. These managers are called as “Expatriates”. They undergo a training called as pre-departure training before they leave. Paul was also provided with such training which included topics like local language, Preliminary visit, language training, practical assistance, TCN and HCN expatriates training. The training used to be of two days and the rigor used to be very low due to the fallacy of less importance and low cost effective area in an organization.

The expatriates where provided culture based