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Case study

Student A

You are the Human Resource Director of an Indian company that is working closely with a Swedish company on a joint venture in India. Many of your staff are now managed by Swedish managers.

Student B

You are the Human Resource Director of a Swedish company that is working closely with an Indian company on a joint venture in India. Many of your staff are now based in India.

You both have received files of comments from your employees who are not satisfied with their relationships with their foreign counterparts.

The Indian manager and the Swedish manager are going to have a conversation about the problems which have arisen, discuss them and find the appropriate solution.

1.Read through the information below before you begin.

2.Take turns to exchange information. You partner will tell you about a problem his Swedish employees are having.

3.Use the “Business etiquette’ information below to explain the possible reasons for the problems.

4.Tell your partner about a problem that your Indian employees are having. Your partner will try to explain why.

5.Come to agreement how to improve the relationships between workers.

Problems reported by Indian employees:

1.“My manager is very rude at the start of meetings – we don’t get an opportunity to greet our colleagues properly and make small talks.”

2.“My Swedish colleagues would rather work than join us for lunch.”

3.“My Swedish colleagues are not very polite sometimes – they say things like: “This is not as good as your last report.”

4.“My Swedish colleagues address me by my first name in front of my Indian team who I have been managing for many years. This is terrible.”

India-Business etiquette

The working day Breakfast meetings are not common. The working day usually begins at 9.30 – 10.00 a.m. Business lunches are often quite long – 90 minutes is not uncommon.

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Concept of time Levels of speed, efficiency and punctuality will be different from those in the West: if someone promises to meet you in ten minutes, expect arrival in twenty.

Communication styles Indians often over-promise because they want to please: admitting a job is difficult to get done is often considered rude or weak.

Status and hierarchy Managers are expected to ‘manage’. This includes making key decisions, often with little or no consultations, and telling subordinates what to do.

Problems reported by Swedish employees:

1.“My local Indian team members are always late for meetings. It’s such a waste of my time having to wait so long for our meetings to start.”

2.“No wonder we are missing deadlines – my Indian colleagues take really long lunches – I hardly leave my desk all day! And I start work earlier.”

3.My colleague never finishes when she says she will – I’m finding it really hard to plan my own workload.”

4.The managers that report to me never consult me – they often just ask their staff to do things that are not in the best interest of the project.”

Sweden – Business etiquette

The working day The working day often starts early, at 8.00 a.m. or earlier, and lunch is often only a half-hour break at around midday.

Concept of time Arriving at meeting on time and starting them promptly are very important. If you are going to be late for any reason you must phone and let someone know. Being late is seen as poor etiquette.

Communication styles Swedish communication style is direct and open – people say what they think. This can seem rude but is not meant to be so.

Status and hierarchy Equality is an important social value in Sweden. Swedes like to establish relationships on an informal level and at work they usually address everyone by his / her first name.

Unit 3 Organizations and their structures

Read the text. Explain why company structures are necessary.

Organizations need structures because of the division of labour. You start a business of your own – a pizza restaurant. At first, you are responsible for everything. You are the cook plus waiter. You are the cashier plus you are doing the dish-washing. Your pizza restaurant is a huge success. Your business grows.

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You need help. So, what happens? You look for a waiter, who does nothing but serves the pizzas to your guests. Second, you look for a cashier. You look for someone who helps you by cooking the pizzas. So, your business grows. You have more people who are each specialized in a special task. You need someone who has to organize all these people working in your business. Companies need a structure. You have to organize the labour within your company.

Look at the diagrams and match the diagrams (1 – 3) with their types of structure (a – c).

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a)Functional or line structure

b)Divisional structure

c)Matrix structure

1. Read the text and answer the questions below.

All organizations need a structure to show how the management is linked and who takes responsibility for decision-making. The functional or line structure is the most common form of structure for start-ups and traditional companies. It has a very clear structure. Everybody knows who they should report to and who their line manager is. The levels of hierarchy are very clearly defined in this structure: for example, the HR Officer reports to the HR Manager who in turn reports to the member of the board who is responsible for HR. Within the functional or line structure, you have departments according to functions. Authority is delegated from the top through executives to managers and their subordinates in a clear chain of command.

The divisional structure is more suitable for international companies, as it enables them to organize the company around products, customers or geographical areas. For example, there are different regulations in different parts of the world, so it’s more logical to have regional divisions that have expertise in these markets. The huge disadvantage of this kind of structure is that the company can have different functions many times. It depends on the number of areas the company operates in.

On the other hand, the divisional structure is more flexible because there is a delegation of responsibilities from the head office to individual regions and this allows decisions to be made locally.

The matrix structure tries to combine the benefits of the functional structure and divisional structure. On the one hand, there is the traditional hierarchy of the line structure and on the other hand, there is a more fluid management structure. One of the results of the matrix structure is that there isn’t an obvious division of labour as people have responsibilities in different areas. A problem of the matrix