A corporation in the United States is about to expand its business globally. As part of this expansion, it will begin to
sell its products in Europe and Asia. In addition, it plans to open a manufacturing plant in Asia. The president and
chief executive officer (CEO) is concerned; he has heard many stories of companies that have tried to expand
globally, but operations either failed miserably or did not live up to expectations because of the cultural
differences.
The CEO has asked your group to research problems that other corporations have had with the process of
expanding globally and develop a plan to avoid these types of intercultural errors and missteps.
As a group, you will select a multinational corporation or international nonprofit agency that has encountered
these problems (this can be a previous or current employer of yours). Using the Internet and the library, each
individual in the group will research the corporation or organization to discover any cultural barriers that the
corporation or organization encountered as it attempted to expand globally.
Please note that this assignment has both a group component and an individual assignment.
Group Component
As a group, generate and evaluate reasons why people may not appreciate the cultural point of view of
others. Each individual in the group should use at least 5 resources or materials (citations). Note that 3 of
the 5 citations may come from the textbook.
As a group, discuss how appreciating cultural diversity affects peoples’ ability to communicate effectively
in the context of a multinational corporation or an international nonprofit agency. Feel free to add your
own experiences as well as quoting others. Please share the resources, materials, and citations that you
find and collect on the small group Discussion Board.
Individual Assignment
Each individual in the group should create and submit his or her own paper of 2–3 pages.
Each individual paper should summarize the group discussions and provide suggestions regarding the steps that the
company can take and policies that can be put in place to help ensure that the company’s expansion is successful.
Each individual can draw from the resources and materials shared on the small group Discussion Board in the
process of developing their individual paper. Each individual paper should contain at least 5 references, with at
least 3 sociological references that may include the course textbook materials.
