Case Study: Karen Leary Global Perspectives

MGT406: Karen Leary Global Perspectives Assignment

Chongwei.Wang

Nowadays, many managers have to address cultural differences among their employees, particularly when there are some cultural misunderstandings in the company. This was a dilemma that Karen Leary had to face when managing her new employee, Ted Chung. Actually, Karen Leary was not familiar with Ted’s character and Chinese culture (Taiwanese; hereinafter I will use ‘Chinese’ to broaden its cultural meaning). She figured it was simply the cultural difference when there were problems between them. This may have been the case, but Leary made no effort to learn more about the Chinese culture or foster mutual adaptation. She lacked cultural intelligence, which is the ability to interpret cross cultural situations accurately. Thus, she cannot control Ted Chung as a decision maker over him. Besides, it seems that Ted Chung was unable to adapt to the organizational culture of Merrill Lynch. Ted Chung was doing a good job with his one large account, but, he had not yet further developed the market as requested by his manager. After this meeting, Karen has to make a decision about giving him a private office considering current practice of the Merrill Lynch towards giving the private office to the financial consultant. Moreover, we can observe Leary’s worries regarding Ted Chung’s ego and practices from the case.

The cross-cultural and organizational concepts, according to the text, refer to a set of beliefs and values