Module 1– Case
MGT 501 Management and Organization Behavior

14 January 2013

“Culture is defined as the collective mental programming of the human mind which distinguishes one group of people from another. Statements about culture do not describe “reality”; they are all general and relative”. So depending on the person, everyone see things in a different view. According to the case study the question is asked: How does culture and environment affect institutions and their management? I will define the problem of what went wrong during Ms. Myers tenure from my point of view. I will explain the problem Ms. Myers is encountering using Hofstede's five dimensions of culture to compare Korean and American assumptions about interpersonal …show more content…

Most of all Myers should have looked up the cultural of the Koreans and their work ethics, she would have known why she was “one of the first American female executives at a Korean company” S. Green (2011) and why she was only one of five women at the VP level. She should have also gotten herself a translator to help her whenever she was communicating with SK Telecom to take away any of the confusion she was having. Considering that Ms Myers was very knowledgeable in multinational transitions, she should have been following her very own advice. She had probably used Geert Hofstede five dimensions to assist her in creating plenty of training programs. By using the Power Distance she would have realized that the Koreans work at a hierarchy; they only communicated with the people of their level. Uncertainty Avoidance is a key to how Koreans operate, they believe in following the rule to the letter. This held very true for when she wanted to make changes Myers said “”at the lower and middle levels, I think that the people were very excited, very eager for change, “she explains. “But at the top most of the leadership was nervous.”” S.Green (2011). In the Korean society Individualism vs. Collectivism is typically not an issue. Korean believe in being loyal to the company they for work for and committed to the people above them. Because Ms Myers was an outsider, she