Background to the Case Study

Your Notes:

You are an ‘International Culture’ consultant. You have been asked to produce a report for your client who is a large UK based company, Whizz Drinks. The company produces energy drinks and is planning to set up a manufacturing facility in a Russian market.

This move will obviously present considerable challenges to the company, but your report will focus on the cultural differences between the UK and Russia. Culture is an important consideration for the company because it will determine how the UK employees interact with and manage the employees and managers at the foreign manufacturing facility.

Your report must be addressed to the Chief Executive of Whizz Drinks and must help the Chief executive understand the following:

a) The importance of culture in the current era.

b) The culture of the foreign market using Hofstede’s dimensions – believed to be the most suitable for understanding and evaluating national culture.

c) How UK employees can work effectively with employees in the chosen foreign market.

Structure and Layout of the Report

The marking scheme includes some marks for the presentation of the report.

Margins and white space

Your report should be well designed with a 2 inch (5 cms) margin on the right hand edge.

There needs to be clear spaces between paragraphs and you should use paragraph headings where appropriate.

Format

1. Cover page

(Title of report, who has written it, who it is for, date of completion).

2. Contents page (including headings, subheadings and page numbers)

3. Introduction (outlining the purpose of the report and the background)

4. Findings/Analysis (Hofstede’s dimensions and comparisons between the two countries/findings about your chosen country’s culture).

5. Conclusion (brief summary of your report)

6. Recommendations (what you think the company should do to ensure smooth integration with the foreign employees)

7. References (Harvard Referencing style)

Your preparation for the Report

As part of your preparation for the report you need to research the cultural factors that will affect a company operating in your home country.

You will need to show that you understand and can apply Hofstede’s dimensions. You do not need to spend a lot of time (and words!) describing his work, but you could introduce the dimensions and include a diagram or model and briefly explain what it is about and how useful it is.

Remember to be critical and back up your assertions with reputable sources. Include a variety of opinions. For example, you do not have to agree with what Hofstede has written about your home country’s culture. Is there any more recent theory about culture or good sources who have expressed an opinion about it? If you want to add your own personal opinion in you can.

Remember that the recommendations are a very important part of the report. Your recommendations must be specific to the company in the UK. Consider an action plan approach (timings, resources needed, likely costs, possible challenges and benefits of each recommendation).

You can work with others in your research if you like as this is acceptable. You must however make sure that the report you write is completely your own words and not written by anyone else, copied from or by other students.

Other useful sources of information can be your family members, colleagues and friends as well as written sources of reference.

Quotes need to be in “quotation marks”

References (Citations)

You will certainly need to quote or refer to other sources of information on the culture of your country. Make sure you follow Harvard referencing protocols and use a variety of sources; Websites (reputable ones), business journals, books etc.

Do not copy or quote other people or sources without making a valid reference to them.