Introduction
KIA Motors is a company that is run on a stringent Confucian culture and it is under a president. Byung Mo Ahn is the president of the company which has its headquarters at Korea. The company is known to have a culture a culture that is suffocating for the Americans. This is because it is defined as a culture where there is a King, who is the controller of everything and even worse he knows everything. The subjects just have to follow the militaristic system which according to numbers has worked for the company and its sister Hyundai.
The company tends to fire its employees at an average time of after every three years. This happens mostly in the U.S and the workers that stay in the U.S offices tend to complain about the corporate culture of the company. It means that there has to be a problem in the expected culture or company running in the two nations. There is one party that is not flexible to the system of management or there is one that wants to be listened to and can’t get it.
The main problem stems from the culture of the company and the inflexibility of the U.S executives to adapt to the environment. Kia motors top brass management considers the company a manufacturing plant while the culture in the U.S believes in marketing. The two cultures come due to understanding the market. The market stipulations in the U.S depend on the company efforts to reach the product to them.
The conflict is that of ideas and culture where the Korean executives want their culture which is of the company to be upheld while the U.S executives want to keep up with the market trends. The executives in the U.S are flexible to market dynamics where they let the company run by studying the environment and fulfilling the needs of the market. The Korean counterparts want the internal management strategies to run the company where the company culture is more important than the external forces. The culture diversity is not appreciated and it has to be embraced in order to have the goals achieved.
There is the lack of belief in the American management culture for the Korean company. This is the case because the Americans get sacked from the company often even when results are felt. There was an instance when the vehicles were not up to the standards that the American market wanted. The problem was combated by the engineers who returned the order in the market and restored the customer’s confidence in the market as well as the company image. This shows that one, each market has its own preferences and two, that the department is the one to control its work.
The market has to be listened to in order to gain business advantage and handle customer satisfaction. This is because the market determines what the company gives to them and what the company receives in return, of course to the management this is the illusion. All in all the market has to be placed at a strategic point so as to ensure that the products gain the market advantage. This is where the distinct market tastes are captured in the final product and this will only be determined by listening to the market and putting the feedback in consideration. This is what the U.S management considers important.
The company departments play an important role especially the engineers. After the feedback is received, the engineers determine what is most important to the customer. It means that the company president is not the one on the ground to bring up the final product. The ability to satisfy the customer therefore lies with the engineers who make the decision to collaborate with the market trends. It means that there has to be flexibility in that the company listens to the external environment and makes the necessary adjustments to suit the various demands.
Management laxity is considered as a failure in the U.S corporate culture. This is the reason that the management has to adapt by distributing duties, decision making and even external environment into the company management. The Korean management finds this an offensive behavior and therefore has to fire the current management and get in new people to follow the stringent managerial rules laid down in the foreign land.
The way out
Management culture tends to be dynamic in the world and the scope of dynamism differs with every country and especially continents. What the Korean management pushes for is uniformity in the management culture while the U.S management understands the practice differently. This is bound to bring conflict and it is important that the two countries understand the difference in culture so as to accommodate each other. Therefore in order for the Korean management to work together with the U.S management crew, there is need for flexibility.
Conclusion
It means that the two management cultures should find a common push factor that is aimed to better the objectives of the company. Results should be the push factor in this situation since the company is performing well, the culture should not bring about conflict. As long as the management delivers the required results in sales, the management culture should be something to be improved by the different stakeholders.
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