Tang Li (1610046)

Lujing Chen (1510764)

University Canada West

Professor：Dr. Tom Chen

ORGB 601: Human Resource Management

30/04/2017
Generally speaking, the main issues raised at Pharmaz Denmark and India are caused by

cultural differences. The managers from headquarters believe that they should focus

on corporate value worldwide :empowerment, equal opportunities, openness in communication.

However, India’s work culture is different from Denmark.

In the light of institutional context, the main issue is how to deal with the conflict when Denmark

administrators manage Indian employees in their home country within corporate value. There are three

issues in Pharmaz India would be discussed in particular:

1 Empowerment

2 Conflict between hierarchy

3 Misunderstandings in communication

Firstly,the empowerment of employees as the core value in Fharmaz' headquarter

leads to main problems. Certainly, it is significant that each person should be able to

work independently and learn more from the empowerment. But in general, not

everyone in the Indian Pharmaz is confident and powerful and is able to complete

own project in the light of different education level (Dowling, Festing & Engle 2013,

p. 320-321). Moreover, a dominant characteristic of India's work culture is power

distance. Employees are more like to require the regulations from direct managers and

need the managerial interference to drive work. They usually adopt to accept clear

orders instead of unknown challenges (Lena, 2013). Hence, Amrita feels squeezed

between a coach style from headquarters’ wish and a authoritative style from her

employees’ expectation . Nevertheless, as a long experience senior financial manager,

she clearly knows which way is more suitable for Fharmaz India. It is important that

headquarter should give more priorities to Amrita's management.

Secondly, Amrita is facing challenges from her teams. A conflict from one team

member Balvinder and one team member Shankar from an upper class in India. This

case demonstrates that Shankar took all things on his own job, so other team members

can not get the empowerment. Because castes from Indian culture side, India has a

very high score in power distance culture. On the contrary, Denmark pharmaz

organization wish to implement empowerment value. Different culture value between

home company and subsidiary leads to conflict on the overall performance.

Thirdly, as of result of different education, religion, language, and cultural difference

between Pharmaz India and Denmark, a lot of misunderstandings draw attention now.

(Dowling, Festing & Engle 2013, p. 321). For instance, Niels as a expatriate fiance

director does not understand well about the Indian work culture. It is clear then that

the cultural difference in communication when they hold meeting. Niels demonstrates

strong ideas about how to implement the corporate value, the communication way is

very direct and demanding to Amrita and other colleagues. Amrita seems to be open-

minded and prefers to inspire people for future work. She would like to use

promotions and prices to motivate employees because she knows promotions and

prices can be most useful method to retain staff in the Indian labor market. Hence,

Amrita requires plenty of time to persuade him that his department cannot embed the
empower values into Pharmaz India immediately. However, Niels may be not get the

point.

In my point view, the key solution comes from understanding and studying the culture

of India to alter to fit with the core values of company. If I am Amrita, I will propose

three different approach to Niels Nielsen.

1. Careful corporate culture development

2. More work titles and focus on hierarchy

3. Reward system

Firstly, we should implement corporate value like empowerment, equal opportunities,

openness in communication slowly, therefore, Indian staff can get some time to accept

it then act well. India has different work environment and ethics, the highlights and

relative risks in that country should be emphasized (Laurent, 1986). As professional

administrators, they have to consider local staff’s different perspectives compared to

the home company.Therefore, it is going to take some time to develop Pharmaz’s

corporate culture.

Secondly, India has very strong power distance value. According to this perception,

introduce more titles to employees would be more effective to motivate them. Indians

are usually promoted to advance up the career ladder when they make any progress.

Even though our company does not exist these tile financial managers or senior

financial analyst, we can create it(Scullion, Collings &Gunnigle, 2007).

achieve a proper curriculum vitae, more employer's references and certificates that

show their competences.

Finally, in order to lead out staff to accept the corporate value quickly, a reward

system could be helpful. For example, nominate an “ employee of the quarter” and

give them a small money as well as a certificate to motivate India staff work harder.

The staff would be appreciate that because they like to put such a certificate to their

curriculum vitae. Awards might also bring new encourage in the everyday work and

each employee can feel a sense of belonging from the group (Dowling, Festing &

Engle 2013, p. 325). In addition, Amrita shows a critical thinking in terms of

evolution and change management even though some practices have to be altered for

India. It is significant to consider her solution and strategy since it includes some

changes as well.

References

Dowling, P. J., Festing, M., Engle Sr., A. D.,(2013) International Human Resource

Management (6th Edition), Balancing Values. An Indian perspective on corporate

values from Scandinavia. p. 320-321

Laurent, A. (1986). The cross‐cultural puzzle of international human resource management. Human

resource management, 25(1), 91-102.

Lena, M, 2013, Balancing Values. An Indian perspective on corporate values from Scandinavia,

Munich, GRIN Verlag, Retrieved 20th April, 2017 from http://www.grin.com/en/e-

book/274922/balancing-values-an-indian-perspective-on-corporate-values-from-scandinavia20,

Scullion, H., Collings, D. G., & Gunnigle, P. (2007). International human resource management in the

21st century: emerging themes and contemporary debates. Human Resource management

journal, 17(4), 309-319.