Module 1 – Case
CULTURE AND HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Assignment Overview
Case Assignment Instructions
Arik Air is one Nigeria’s largest airline and one of the
largest airlines in all of Africa. Their employment situation is a bit unique
in that close to 10 percent of their employees are expatriates. Recruiting and
retaining expatriates to work as pilots or other positions in Nigeria can
require higher salaries than are typically paid to local workers. However,
disparities in wages between expatriates and local employees can lead to
resentment. Overall, the human resource situation for a company that operates
globally and hires globally such as Arik Air can be quite complicated.
Do some research on Arik Air and the human resource
situation in Nigeria. Below are a few articles to get you started:
Arik Air customer base soars (Jan. 31, 2014). AllAfrica.com.
Washington, DC. [Proquest]
Nigeria loses N500 billion annually to expatriate pilots.
(Jan. 24, 2014). AllAfrica.com. Washington, DC. [Proquest]
Fajana, S., Owoyemi, O., Elegbede, T., &
Gbajumo-Sheriff, M. (2011). Human resource management practices in Nigeria.
Journal of Management and Strategy, 2(2), 57. [Proquest]
Now suppose that Arik Airlines has been purchased by an
American company, which now has to develop a plan to address the issue of
hiring and maintaining a well qualified pilot staff and making all of Arik’s
employees feel welcome under the new American parent company. Also, suppose
that you have been tasked with coming up with a solid human resource plan for
the new American owners of Arik Air. You
need to make major decisions such as how much to rely on local staff, how much
to rely on employees from the U.S. or other countries, and how to deal with the
sensitive issue of how an American company manages local employees who may be
resentful of their new owner. In order to do this, you will need to use what
you’ve learned in the background materials in this module as well as what
you’ve learned in the previous modules about assessing the local environment of
a country.
In a 4- to 5-page paper, present a strategic human resource
plan considering the following issues:
Go to Hofstede’s webpage
http://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html and look up the cultural values for
both Nigeria and the U.S. Look up the scores of individualism, power distance,
and uncertainty avoidance. What major differences do you see between the two
cultures? What kind of implications will this have for how the American airline
company manages their Nigerian employees?
Overall what kind of human resource strategy do you think
the American company should take to manage Arik Airlines? A geocentric
approach, polycentric, or ethnocentric approach? Explain your reasoning, and
cite Steers and Nardon (2005) or Rao (2010) as part of your answer.
What kind of mix between Nigerian employees (host-country
nationals), American employees (home country nationals), or third country
nationals do you think should be hired? What challenges do you see for hiring
each type of employee? Explain your reasoning, and cite Steers and Nardon
(2005) or Rao (2010) as part of your answer.
Remember that your paper should reflect an integration of
both what you learned in the background materials about the key general aspects
of international human resource management, and what you’ve specifically
learned about the unique issues involved in managing human resources in an
airline in Nigeria. Your task it to apply the background materials to the
specific issues that would be faced by an American company if they were to
purchase Arik Air.
Assignment Expectations
Answer the assignment questions directly.
Stay focused on the precise assignment questions; don’t go
off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing background materials.
Use reliable and credible sources as your references.
Articles published in established newspapers or business journals/magazines are
preferred. If you find articles on the Internet, make sure they are from a
credible source.
Reference your sources of information with both a
bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a
High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13 and 14 on in-text citations.
Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under “My
Resources” in the TLC Portal.
Module 1 – SLP
CULTURE AND HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
SLP Assignment Instructions
For the Session Long Project for this class, first choose a
country interests you other than the United States (you need to learn about
another culture other than your home culture for this assignment). You can pick
any country you want other than the United States among those included on
Hofstede’s webpage:
http://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html
You will be looking at a different aspect of doing business
in this country in each of your Module 1-4 SLPs. For this first SLP, you will
be focusing on the culture of this country and how it differs with the culture
of the U.S. You can start by looking at the cultural values of this country as
shown on the Hofstede webpage linked above.
Keep in mind that it is controversial to try to quantify
national culture, so don’t rely only on Hofstede for this paper. Do some
additional research and try to find additional information about the cultural
aspects of doing business in your country. Then write a 2- to 3-page paper
addressing the following issues:
Go to the Hofstede webpage and look up the values of
individualism, power distance, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance for both
your chosen country and for the United States. What are the main differences
between national culture in the U.S. and your chosen country? What implications
might these differences have on doing business in your country?
What other information besides Hofstede have you been able
to find about culture in your country? How do these aspects of culture impact
doing business in your country?
Overall, does the national culture of your country make it
easy or difficult to business? What cultural pitfalls might an American company
investing in your country face?
SLP Assignment Expectations
Answer the assignment questions directly.
Stay focused on the precise assignment questions; don’t go
off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing background materials.
Make sure to use reliable and credible sources as your
references. Articles published in established newspapers or business
journals/magazines are preferred. If you find articles on the Internet, make
sure they are from a credible source.
Reference your sources of information with both a
bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a
High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13 and 14 on in-text citations.
Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under “My
Resources” in the TLC Portal.
Module 2 – Case
INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
Assignment Instructions
Before starting the case, make sure to go through the
required reading material carefully. Review the concepts of exchange rates,
currency hedging, and other methods of dealing with exchange rate risk. The
topic of this module is difficult, so make sure you go carefully through all of
the required tutorials and book chapters. When you have finished reviewing the
background materials, apply your knowledge of the material to answer the
following questions in a four to five page paper:
Suppose you are running a very small business that exports
all of its products to Europe, and 100% of your revenue comes from Euros. You
have a family to support and a drop in the value of the Euro could be
devastating to your personal financial situation. What methods do you think
would be best to manage this risk under your circumstances? Refer to at least
one of the required readings from the background materials in your answer.
Consider a large multinational consumer product company with
operations in all major advanced and emerging economies. Now suppose the value
of Indonesian and South African currencies drops dramatically and the value of
the Chinese RMB increases dramatically. What kind of strategic changes in
marketing and/or location of production facilities do you think this company
should take given these new exchange rates? Explain your reasoning, and make
references to Avadhani (2010) and Shackman (2015) in your answer.
Suppose you are a financial manager stationed in a foreign
country, and your boss at headquarters in New York asks you to make a prediction
about the future exchange rates in the country you are currently in. You see
that the economy in the country you are in has started to grow more rapidly
with a lot of new foreign investment. You also see that prices are much lower
in this country than they are back in the U.S. For example, you see that the
price of a Big Mac at McDonalds is half of what it costs you at home. Would you
tell your boss that you expect the value of the currency in this country will
increase or decrease? Explain your reasoning, and make references to Agarwal
(2009) in your answer.
Assignment Expectations
Answer the assignment questions directly.
Stay focused on the precise assignment questions; don’t go
off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing background materials.
Make sure to use reliable and credible sources as your
references. Articles published in established newspapers or business
journals/magazines are preferred. If you find articles on the Internet, make
sure they are from a credible source.
Reference your sources of information with both a
bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a
High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13 and 14 on in-text citations.
Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under “My
Resources” in the TLC Portal.
Module 2 – SLP
INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
SLP Assignment Instructions
For your final SLP, do some research on the currency and
banking situation in your country.
We normally think of currency and banking risks as being
something confined to third world or developing countries. But events in the
last few years such as the Euro crisis or the financial crisis in the U.S. have
shown that not even the wealthy, developed countries are without risks on the
financial side. So it is important for any company doing business in your
country to carefully consider these risks that they face.
After you’ve done some research about financial issues in
your country, write a two to three page paper covering the following issues:
The currency of your country. Is it stable? Does your
country have fixed or floating exchange rates? Does the exchange rate fluctuate
a lot?
The banking system in your country. How safe is this system?
Any recent banking crisis in your country?
Overall does the financial system in your country make it
easy or difficult to do business? What kind of steps would you recommend for a
company doing business in your country to hedge or minimize their financial
risks? Refer to at least one of the required readings from the background
materials in your answer.
SLP Assignment Expectations
Answer the assignment questions directly.
Stay focused on the precise assignment questions; don’t go
off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing background materials.
Make sure to use reliable and credible sources as your
references. Articles published in established newspapers or business
journals/magazines are preferred. If you find articles on the Internet, make
sure they are from a credible source.
Reference your sources of information with both a
bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a
High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13 and 14 on in-text citations.
Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under “My
Resources” in the TLC Portal.
Module 3 – Case
MARKETING AND STRATEGY
Assignment Overview
For this assignment you will looking at two completely
different companies that sell completely different types of products. However,
both companies have strong international potential. As you read about in the
background materials, different types of products lead to different types of
strategies regarding standardization or adaptation and whether you decide to
become a global, multi-domestic, or transnational corporation.
The first business you will look at is Roy Choi’s restaurant
empire. Choi started out with a single food truck in Los Angeles, but soon
gained celebrity status as one of the country’s most famous chefs and the
inspiration for the recent movie Chef. Food trucks soon became huge craze in
Los Angeles, and Choi has since gone on to open up multiple additional
restaurants and even has plans for a fast food chain. His fame and multi-ethnic
cuisine gives him large potential if he ever decides to take his business
overseas.
The second business to look at is Xiaomi, a Chinese
smartphone company that is starting to expand internationally. The smartphone
business is a notoriously tough market with dominant competitors such as Apple
and Samsung. Xiaomi has gained market share in China and is starting to expand
into some neighboring countries. Given the high price of smartphones from Apple
and Samsung, there may be room for a lower priced competitor in the global
smartphone market.
Do a careful review of the concept of standardization and
adaption in Herbig (1998) and the concepts of multi-domestic, global, and
transnational strategies in Jeyarathmm, M. (2008) and Steers and Nardon (2005).
Then do some research on Roy Choi and Xiaomi in the Trident library or other
sources. Here are some articles to get you started:
Walker, T. (2013, Dec 14). Keep on trucking. The Independent
[Proquest]
Frausto, M. (2014, Sep 10). Choi’s eyes bigger than his
stomach? Orange County ter [Proquest]
Larson, C. (2014, Dec). Xiaomi’s resolution: Double its
smartphone sales volume in 2014. Business Week [Proquest and Businessweek.com]
Mozur, P. (2013, Oct 08). How upstart Xiaomi rattled China’s
smartphone race. Wall Street Journal [Proquest]
Once you have finished your research, write a four to five
page paper answering the following questions:
What kind of strategy would you recommend if Roy Choi
decided to expand his food truck or restaurant business internationally? Would
you recommend product standardization or localization? Which overall strategy
would you recommend – transnational, multi-domestic, or global? Explain your
reasoning and apply the concepts from Jeyarathmm, M. (2008), Steers and Nardon
(2005), and Herbig (1998).
What kind of strategy would you recommend for Xiaomi’s
international expansion? Would you recommend product standardization or
localization? Which overall strategy would you recommend – transnational,
multi-domestic, or global? Explain your reasoning and apply the concepts from
Jeyarathmm, M. (2008), Steers and Nardon (2005), and Herbig (1998).
Assignment Expectations
Answer the assignment questions directly.
Stay focused on the precise assignment questions; don’t go
off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing background materials.
Make sure to use reliable and credible sources as your
references. Articles published in established newspapers or business
journals/magazines are preferred. If you find articles on the Internet, make
sure they are from a credible source.
Reference your sources of information with both a
bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a
High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13 and 14 on in-text citations.
Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under “My
Resources” in the TLC Portal.
Module 3 – SLP
MARKETING AND STRATEGY
In the previous two modules you looked at the cultural and
financial situation of your reference country.
Now will be looking at the legal and political environment of your
country and how these factors impact doing business.
As part of your research, keep in mind that several
organizations publish various rankings and indices of political and legal
factors in the major countries in the world. One example of rankings is the
World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators page
(http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/index.aspx#home). This webpage includes rankings on factors
relating the legal and political system such as rule of law, regulatory
quality, and political stability.
Rankings are given from 0 to 100 on each of these aspects.
The World Bank also does some rankings of the ease of doing
business in countries across the world.
Their doingbusiness.org has detailed reports on most countries on
different aspects of doing business.
While they look at many different factors, some of these relate to the
legal system such as ease of enforcing contracts or getting a business
license. It is worth looking up your
country on this webpage to get an idea of how friendly your country’s legal
system is to doing business. In addition to the Doing Business report,
Transparency International does an annual report on corruption around the world
and their rankings can be found at transparency.org.
But don’t just look at quantitative rankings of your
country, do additional research to get an overall picture of the legal and
political system beyond just a numerical score. Once you are finished doing
your research on this country of your choice, write a two to three page paper
covering the following issues:
The type of government and level of political stability in
your country, and whether or not the political
system is conducive to doing business
The legal/regulatory system in this country and whether or
not it is conducive to doing business
The level of corruption in your country, and the impact of
corruption on doing business in this country
SLP Assignment Expectations
Answer the assignment questions directly.
Stay focused on the precise assignment questions; don’t go
off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing background materials.
Make sure to use reliable and credible sources as your
references. Articles published in established newspapers or business
journals/magazines are preferred. If you find articles on the Internet, make
sure they are from a credible source.
Reference your sources of information with both a
bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality
Academic Paper, including pages 13 and 14 on in-text citations. Another
resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under “My Resources” in
the TLC Portal.
Module 4 – Case
MARKET SELECTION AND FOREIGN ENTRY-MODE
Assignment Instructions
Zipcar is a highly successful new company specializing in a
brand new model for automobile rental services, which allows their customers
long-term and flexible access to shared vehicles on a daily or hourly basis.
Zipcar’s innovative model allows those who sign up for their membership
services to share cars with other members on a flexible basis, creating a cost
effective alternative to car ownership. Since its founding in 2000, it has
grown to become a major player in the U.S. automobile rental market and has
expanded internationally to Canada, the U.K., Spain, and Austria and offers
rental services to almost one million customers.
Before writing your paper, make sure to carefully review the
concepts of country selection and evaluation in Venkateswaran (2012) as well as
the discussion of advantages and disadvantages of different foreign entry mode
decisions in Jeyarathmm (2008) and Rajagopal (2009). Once you have finished
reviewing the basic concepts of this module, read the following two articles
and do some of your own additional research on Zipcar:
Zipcar expands in Sacramento becoming 26th major metro
market: Based on strong demand, Zipcar increases number of vehicles, will open
office (Nov. 6, 2013) PR Newswire [Proquest]
Esswein, P. M. (July, 2011). Zipcar: Robin Chase.
Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, 65, 1 [Proquest]
Zipcar, Inc.; Zipcar acquires leading car sharing service in
Austria. CarSharing.at. (July 25, 2012). Mergers & Acquisitions Week, 196.
[Proquest]
Now suppose you have been hired by Zipcar to come up with an
international strategic plan. Write a 4- to 5-page strategic plan for Zipcar
that addresses the following issues:
What country or countries should Zipcar enter next beyond
the five countries they already operate in? Explain your reasoning for this
selection based on criteria from the background materials including
Venkateswaran (2012).
What mode of entry should Zipcar use to enter this country
or countries that you chose? For example, should they use a joint venture,
franchising, a greenfield strategy, etc.? Refer to the concepts from Jeyarathmm
(2008) and Rajagopal (2009) in your answer.
Assignment Expectations
Answer the assignment questions directly.
Stay focused on the precise assignment questions; don’t go
off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing background materials.
Make sure to use reliable and credible sources as your
references. Articles published in established newspapers or business
journals/magazines are preferred. If you find articles on the Internet, make
sure they are from a credible source.
Reference your sources of information with both a
bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a
High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13 and 14 on in-text citations.
Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under “My
Resources” in the TLC Portal.
Module 4 – SLP
MARKET SELECTION AND FOREIGN ENTRY-MODE
Assignment Instructions
For your final SLP, pretend that an American corporation
hired you to write a report giving a recommendation on whether or not they should
enter the country that you have been researching for your Modules 1-3 SLPs. You
have already done a lot of research on many of the cultural, financial, legal,
and political aspects of doing business in your country which you can use as
part of your overall recommendation. However, you also need to consider other
factors such as the potential size of the market that your country has to
offer. No matter how strong a country’s legal or political system, if your
country has very few consumers that it will not be a wise decision to enter
your country.
One resource to use for your report is Michigan State
University’s Market Potential Index (http://globaledge.msu.edu/mpi/2014). This
index focuses mostly on various aspects of the size or growth of the consumer
market in each country which should provide some valuable information to use in
making your recommendation. But don’t rely just on this index. Do some
additional research on factors that you think make your country an attractive
or unattractive market for an American company and use some of Venkateswaran’s
(2012) guidelines on country evaluation as part of your paper.
When you have finished your research, write a two to three
page paper with the following information:
What are the positive aspects of your country that would
make it an attractive market for an American corporation? Consider all of the
main factors that you researched regarding your country for Modules 1-3 plus
additional research for Module 4 on market potential.
What are the negative aspects of your country that would
make it an attractive market for an American corporation? Consider all of the
main factors that you researched regarding your country for Modules 1-3 plus
additional research for Module 4 on market potential.
Overall what is your recommendation for the American company
that hired you to write this report? Do the positives outweigh the negatives?
Or vice versa? Explain your reasoning.
SLP Assignment Expectations
Answer the assignment questions directly.
Stay focused on the precise assignment questions; don’t go
off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing background materials.
Make sure to use reliable and credible sources as your
references. Articles published in established newspapers or business
journals/magazines are preferred. If you find articles on the Internet, make
sure they are from a credible source.
Reference your sources of information with both a
bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a
High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13 and 14 on in-text citations.
Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under “My
Resources” in the TLC Portal.
