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First Assignment - Cross-Cultural Issues at Aero

Aero is a Canadian multinational enterprise that designs, manufactures, and sells airplane engines and fuselages worldwide. They are experiencing problems communicating their corporate values and policies to employees at their new manufacturing plant in Mexico. Canadian managers feel Mexican employees are not learning Aero's culture as well as employees in other locations. After investigating, it is clear the issue relates to differences in Canadian and Mexican cultural values and expectations.

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Mehul Sharma
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504 views

First Assignment - Cross-Cultural Issues at Aero

Aero is a Canadian multinational enterprise that designs, manufactures, and sells airplane engines and fuselages worldwide. They are experiencing problems communicating their corporate values and policies to employees at their new manufacturing plant in Mexico. Canadian managers feel Mexican employees are not learning Aero's culture as well as employees in other locations. After investigating, it is clear the issue relates to differences in Canadian and Mexican cultural values and expectations.

Uploaded by

Mehul Sharma
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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First assignment - Cross-Cultural Issues at Aero

Imagine that you have recently been hired as a human resources consultant by a Canadian

multinational enterprise (MNE) called Aero. Aero designs, manufactures and sells commercial

airplane engines and fuselages worldwide. It currently has over 1,000 employees in its three

locations, including 500 at its global headquarters in Canada, 300 at a manufacturing plant in

the U.S., and now over 200 at its newest manufacturing plant in Mexico.

The firm is having problems communicating and sharing its corporate values and policies with

its newest employees in Mexico. The only experience Aero has had in opening a new subsidiary

prior to Mexico was in the U.S., where corporate values and policies were taken up by American

employees with little difficulty. The problems in the Mexican plant seem to centered around

poor communications between the managers, who are mostly Canadian, and its new

employees, who are mostly from Mexico.

“We want our corporate culture to be the same everywhere,” explains Aero’s CEO, Ms. Mary

Avery, to you over lunch. “We want everything we do in Canada to be the accepted, standard

practice across all of our locations, but that just doesn’t seem to be getting across to our

employees in Mexico.” Avery continues by telling you that all new employees are trained in

Aero’s corporate culture via discussions with their managers and corporate brochures/reading

materials. She says that her Canadian managers in Mexico are frustrated with the Mexican

workers’ abilities to learn Aero’s culture and that, as a result, productivity at the plant has been

negatively impacted.

You investigate the issue by speaking with managers and employees at the new subsidiary in

Mexico. The managers complain that employees at the new plant do not speak their mind very

often, and often seem to stress harmony with each other over learning Aero’s culture. Managers

are also frustrated that staff meetings frequently start late due to the lateness of employees. The
employees, who are younger than their managers on the average, are frustrated that they are

not told exactly how to do their tasks; instead, they are told to read their employee manuals for

guidance. They are concerned that Aero managers are too impatient with them about learning

the policies. They feel they have been left to their own devices to figure out how things work,

which often causes them to stay late at work. What is more, staying late on their shifts often

causes them to be late for staff meetings, where they are often berated by managers for not

acting like “good Canadian employees”.

After your examination you become convinced that the problem Aero is experiencing relates to

culture, and you prepare your report accordingly.

QUESTIONS

1. What is the definition of culture? How is it typically defined in the context of international

human resource management?

2. In your opinion, with its expansion into Mexico, at which stage of internationalization is

Aero? Do you think Aero’s management is taking a more standardized or a more

localized approach to their human resources management? Why do you think this?

3. Select one of Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions to explain to Avery the main

differences between Aero’s Canadian HQ and its Mexican subsidiary in terms of culture.

Explain why you selected this dimension as the primary source of the problem between

the Aero HQ and its Mexican plant.

4. In your opinion, what are three ways that Canadian managers could demonstrate higher

intercultural competence at Aero’s Mexican subsidiary?

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