Living and Working in Korea Essay Example for Free

Living and Working in Korea EssayThe case of Ellen Moore is very interesting and diverse, because it shows different reasons why problems can befall in a get word management and aggroupwork and highlights how cultural differences can affect the work in a very negative way.There ar several(prenominal) reasons why the roll has run into problems. Some of these could have been foreseen but several(prenominal) non. The main problem is that there were wrong decisions made when creating the team and also approximately risks were incorrectly assessed to be less important than they actually turned disc all over to be. First of all in selecting forcing out management representative Andrew Kilpatrick underestimated the cultural differences and did not listen enough to the warning from American consultants with WSI in Korea that it is impossible to send a woman to work in Korea.I dont prize it is completely impossible for a woman to work in Korea, but Ellen should have been more prepared and more informed about the local traditions particularly about the team building and after-work dinners and how the Koreans respect for position and status would influence the teams behavior. From the case it seems like too many things came as a surprise to Ellen and it was hard-fought to focus on the primary tasks.Another problem was in the team composition especially in allocating percentages. There were 2 project co-managers Ellen and Jack delegate to the team. But Jack was given an impression that he will be the sole project leader. For this reason Ellens addition to the team created tension amid them and from the beginning and this undermined their chances to work in concert for the same goal. If it was decided to have 2 equal project manager positions, then their roles should have been allocated. For example each project manager would have specific areas of responsibilities and the rest of the team would be informed about these responsibilities.Instead both pr oject managers ended up fighting for the berth instead of working towards the common goal. The development of the events in the team also suggests that it was a wrong decision to appoint 2 team managers, because it is clear that the team performed better when they were led by one team leader whenJack was around the Korean team would follow his instructions, but when Jack was away and Ellen was the only when leader the team cooperated and worked well under her supervision and coaching.The third problem was the expertise and amaze of the Korean consultants. The American part of the team was only part informed about the teams qualifications. But it soon turned out that none of them had sufficient previous experience to work on this project. That the teams inexperience turned out to be one of the reasons the project ran into problems is partially because of Ellens overconfidence. When she realized what is the actual qualification and experience of the team members she thought she c ould work around it and train the plenty on the team. Instead of suggesting changes in the team she relied on her skills as a coach to improve the situation.All these reasons are to blame that the project is in in force(p) trouble and without clear action plan the project cannot be put back on track. One solution that could be done to get the project back on schedule is for Andrew to take on a more active role in the teams work and become the team leader in Korea and oversee both Ellen and Jack and the whole team. Since both Mr.Song and Mr.Park think that Ellen is the problem and is not effective, there is not much she can do to continue the role as the team leader because the supervisors in Korea dont back her up. And in this situation it would be hard for her to become the team leader over Jack. If all the team members remain in their place under Andrews supervisions, roles to each member should be allocated also tem members need to be motivated to work together to achieve the g oal. Rewards for cooperation and tem work could be in place here.Another alternative could be removing Jack from the team and find a Korean consultant that has experience with SI projects. This solution would eliminate the tension in the team and also increase the professional capacity of the team. If the budget of the project allows one more conjecture would be to include supererogatory team members with more expertise to assist the team. Also changing the team members could be a solution, butthere business leader be not enough time to completely change the team and still manage to finish the project on schedule.Although the situation is rather Byzantine because the team is dealing not only with professional problems but also with personnel problems and problems caused by not understanding the different culture, there are some things that Ellen could have done differently.First of all she should have tried to draw Andrews and Mr. Parks and Mr. Songs attention to the fact that t he team members are not qualified enough to work on this project in the early stages of the project. She should have asked to either change the weakest members of the team or have additional training for the team to raise their level of expertise.As for cooperation with Jack I think that the fight for the power between the two of them was inevitable, but one way how to try to deal with the situation could have been Ellens initiative to establish some ground rules on how they interact with the team, how they divide responsibilities between them. Her background schooling shows that she had previous experience in leading teams so probably also knowledge in conflict resolution and motivating people. Clearly Jack involve some motivation to become a team player.But altogether I think that most of the problems occurred because Ellens supervisors made wrong assessments about the project and the situation and also made some bad decisions in the beginning.