Central Issue:
How can John Higgins prove to more effective for Weaver Pharmaceutical, the U.S. Parent drug company in the Weaver-Yamazaki joint venture amid his unusual attachment to the Japanese culture and people?
Recommended Course of Action:
Weaver Pharmaceutical should respect John Higgins’ qualifications and experience and request him to accept an appropriate alternative designation. The company should have discussions with him about his future aspirations and goals and then make this decision. Higgins is very likely to accept staying in Japan for the rest of his life than being expatriated to different geographies or back to U.S. and a suitable designation can be given to him accordingly. Also, a new person who fulfils the expectations of the job can replace Higgins as the executive assistant to Prescott.
Basis for Recommendation:
I selected the recommendation because this would lead to a win-win situation for both the parent company and Higgins. On one hand, the objective of the parent company is to have an executive assistant who believes in its core values and principles and at the same time understands and appreciates the Japanese market, culture and people. However, the person should put forward the interests of the company and allow an innovative and competitive environment to breed. Prescott has a problem with Higgins from this perspective. However, Prescott doesn’t want to lose Higgins’ language skills, his understanding of people and his experience. Implementing this recommendation can keep Higgins close enough to him to take advantage of these aspects but at the same time he will have a new assistant who can do complete justice to the responsibilities of his job and the interests of the company.
On the other hand, this recommendation would also free John Higgins of his dilemma. Higgins would be able to excel at his work while following Japanese practices. This would lead to better job satisfaction for him as well. Higgins can still discuss people’s problems and issues with Prescott without having the additional burden of being Prescott’s ally. This would also give Prescott greater objectivity in making decisions.
Reasonable Alternatives:
Transfer John Higgins to a different geography. Jon Higgins can be transferred to a different geography or back to U.S. since he has already spent considerable time in Japan and his experience and skillsets could prove valuable in other geographies as well. An executive assistant who is more aligned to the values of the parent company can replace Higgins. This alternative is rejected because this would essentially be in contrast to the parent company’s expatriation policy till now. So, doing this would either need an exception or a change to the company policy which could be perceived as unfair.
Strictly instruct Higgins to adhere to parent company’s values. Higgins can be strictly instructed to adhere to the values of the U.S. parent company. In case the instructions are not followed by him, an appropriate action can be taken against him. This option is rejected because it may backfire and make Higgins a total adversary. Also, Higgins is quite experienced and qualified and can easily pursue other opportunities if he is not satisfied with the company. In fact, he has already rejected many such offers in the past due to his loyalty towards the company.
Communicate politely company’s values and expectations to Higgins. Polite discussions between senior management and Higgins can be held to communicate the parent company’s values to him. Also Higgins can be provided a list of expectations which the company has from his as result of sending him to Japan. This option is rejected because there is a small probability of it working. This is so because John Higgins has extreme liking towards Japanese culture and people. Japanese values already seem to be imbibed in him. Also having a Japanese wife, friends and colleagues had such an influence on him that it would be difficult for him to pull back.
Develop a new organizational policy for Japan. The company can think about developing a new organizational policy for Japan since Japan has a very distinct culture as compared to most western countries. John Higgins should fit into the scheme of things in this new environment. This option is rejected because it needs an organization level discussion and may seem to be too drastic an option to address a problem because of a single employee. Also, this may lead to a call for similar policies in other geographies leading to decentralization of the company which again needs to be thought of at an organizational level.
Significant Factors:
Education
Relationships
Difference in professional experience
Difference in Objectives
Impact of culture and customs
Company Policies
Geographical Location
Discussion:
Education: John Higgins’ education had a big impact on his beliefs and value system in his professional life. In college, he had always shown interest towards languages and later he went through a focused intensive training on Japanese. When he was an interpreter and translator in Tokyo, Higgins showed further inclination towards Japanese language, literature and history. While studying, he also made many Japanese friends. During his education, he developed a love towards Japan and wanted to use his Japanese knowledge as a way of life.
Relationships: Relationships had a big role to play in shaping up John Higgins’ life. John Higgins made many Japanese friends while training. He married a Japanese woman and extended indefinitely his stay in Japan. He started living in Japanese neighborhood, started interacting with the locals and even attended their functions & festivals. Even in his office, he became close to his colleagues and subordinates. He paid attention to their personal as well as professional problems and helped them in sorting them out. He often went out of his way to support them. At times, he even went against Prescott’s line of thinking to help out his colleagues. Developing such relationships with people had a great impact on his general conduct and behavior.
Difference in Professional Experience: Prescott’s and Higgins’ professional experiences were quite different before working together at Weaver. Prescott was a successful businessman with more than 25 years of experience across different geographies. Prescott had worked in locations such as India, the Philippines and Mexico along with the U.S. While he successfully worked at these locations for a few years each, he didn’t get culturally attached to them and imbibed the core values of the U.S. parent company. On the other hand, Higgins worked an interpreter and translator in Japanese language for some time. Higgins spent a considerable period of 5 years in army where people relations are very important. Higgins is relatively new to the company and comes with varied experiences.
Difference in Objectives: Prescott’s and Higgins’ professional objectives differ significantly. Prescott likes challenges and wants to expand Japanese operations of the company. His sense of achievement comes from smoothening the company’s operations over his tenure in Japan. However, Higgins went to Japan primarily because of his love for the country and secondly because he wanted to change the image of U.S. companies abroad. He doesn’t want U.S. companies to impose American values and systems on Japanese. This difference in objectives is one of the biggest causes of conflict between Prescott and Higgins.
Impact of culture and customs: Japanese customs and culture definitely had a strong impact on Higgins. In his mind, Higgins seems to endorse the Japanese work customs such as loyalty towards the company, seniority based promotions, socializing with colleagues, involving everyone in making decisions and so on. His relationships, language skills and personal interest for Japanese culture have further brought him closer to Japanese way of living. The same is bound to have an impact on his professional life as well. On the other hand, Prescott has not really imbibed the Japanese culture. For Prescott, Japan is more of a temporary halt on his professional journey and his sole focus is on realizing the company’s interests in Japan.
Company Policies: Weaver Pharmaceutical has a policy that it keep on transferring expatriates from one foreign locations to another after every 3-5 years with occasional transfers in the home office international division. However, the policy also allowed employees to stay in a country for an indefinite period of time if they wanted. On a positive side, it gave enough flexibility to the employees to choose their work locations. However, like in Higgins’ case, there is always a risk of the employee getting too attached to the location’s people and culture compromising the home company’s interests to some extent. Thus, the organizational policy had a significant impact on the events in the case.
Geographical Location: Japan is a country made up of several islands with 4 islands of Kyushu, Shikoku, Honshu and Hokkaido being the main ones. Being an island nation, transportation from other geographies becomes difficult and limited and the cultural impact of other nations is also restricted. The factor would especially be significant in older days when the means of transportation were not that evolved. Therefore, Japan has a unique culture of its own and foreign multi-nationals which want to do business there have to customize their practices to varying extent to adapt to the same. While Higgins has totally adopted the Japanese culture even to the extent of being detrimental for his organization; Prescott seems to be on the other end of the spectrum and doesn’t want to bend organizational practices much to suit Japanese methods.
