Intercultural Business Case: Corporate Social Responsibility in South Africa - Coursework Example

Intercultural Business Case: Corporate Social Responsibility in South Africa Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Task 3 Task 2: 5 Conclusion 7 Reference list 8 Introduction According to Crane (2008), cross-cultural and intercultural factors are the increasing threats in the organizational culture. Corporate social responsibility can be defined as a set of liability that a company poses for the safeguarding of atmosphere and society (Bond, 2008). Such strategies are developed as per various government, NGO and environmental authority norms. In the current study, cross-cultural issues and corporate social responsibility requirements of plant situated in Rosslyn, South Africa are outlined. Task 1: In the current section of the study, ethical issues faced while working as consultant in medium sized automotive dealer will be identified and analyzed. It has been observed that, assistant managers of the subsidiary plants of the automobile dealers in Rosslyn, South Africa can face major challenge of cross cultural conflicts. The plant have a prolonged history from the year 1968, having international and native employees. Administrative office of the firm is having the employees, who are of German origin. However, the production labors are mostly Zulus, which are the South African ethnic group of people. Such organizational culture is the major source of potential cultural conflicts. Basically, the German and Zulus people have huge cultural difference. Henceforth, management of operations with the Germans are quite tough as lingual, cultural, social and demographic difference exists among the two groups of people (Chattopadhyay and Simon, 2007). On the other hand, knowledge gap of the managers regarding cultural and demographic background of customers will reduce possibility of getting promotional success. Major automobile customers of South Africa are working in the private sector firms. Thus, German administrators must be posing sound knowledge on economic drifts of South African private sector industries (Hinson and Ndhlovu, 2011). Inadequate insight of the market hampers targeting and segmenting strategies. Kulkarni and Rao (2014) argued that administrators are required to develop their product designing and service strategies as per cultural background of the employees and customers. In the current scenario, it has been observed that assistant manager have to develop new set of sustainability policies for demand of the major client BMW South Africa Rosslyn. Their requirement and needs must be fulfilled as the firm is the potential source of 65% of total sales. BMW AG is having certain sustainable development policies and they are demanding the same from their suppliers. However, BMW is controlling CSR strategy implementation and they will be evaluating it. BMW is empowering social behavior to all the employees. However, cultural difference between the German and Zulus are limiting success rate of implementing such strategies. In the current context, it has been observed that management is not favoring such CSR strategy (Hunnicutt, 2009). In the current scenario, the firm has implemented the policy "black economic empowerment". Such strategy will be helping the firms in meeting various social and environmental obligations in the South African segment. Recently, legal frameworks have been concreted by the SA government in order to mitigate the racial challenges. In the current concern, assistant managers can face the racial challenge among German administrative and Zulus operational workers. It will gradually increase the potentials of the firm and employees (Hinson and Ndhlovu, 2011). Again, it has been observed that automobile firm will face the challenge of various diseases. AIDS epidemic is one of the major challenges for the company. The problem will be harming the firm with attrition of employees. Major firms are facing challenging situation in offering long-term employment to the employees. Automobile firms are losing out their skilled employees suffering from AIDS. It has been observed that such disease became epidemic due to inefficient medical care and health care set up. On the contrary, South African ethnic group, Zulus workers are having lack of knowledge and awareness about the symptoms and cause of AIDS epidemic. Thus, the assistant manager should be arranging some informal workshop and healthcare campaigns to aware employees about the causes and precautions of AIDS (Ramasobana and Fatoki, 2014). Henceforth, the management will be able to reduce the potential cross cultural challenges faced in the subsidiary operational set up in the Rosslyn area. Corporate social responsibility strategies of the automobile firm are used to reduce the cultural gap among the German administrators and Zulus operational workers. Welfare strategies will motivate and appraise employees as they feel more valued. Employees will be able to exchange their opinions with the management. Moreover, as the administration full of German people thus some ethnic African people must employed as administrators in order to gain more success from Rosslyn area (Ramlall, 2012). Task 2: In this segment of the study, an in depth analysis of the cultural difference will be done on Rosslyn set up. It has been observed that the occurrence of blackouts or power cuts are increasing in the area. In automobile segment, power cuts and insufficiency will be creating huge problem. It will hamper the productions. Power supply and power usage consumption rates in Rosslyn plant is facing insufficiency. Such insufficiency is used as an excuse for failing to meet any trade commitment (Ramasobana and Fatoki, 2014). Such issues were found by the automobile organization when the suppliers of Durban area of South Africa failed to meet their commitments. Moreover, the supplier is Indian firm and majority of the employees and management are of the South African nationality and Indian origin. The supplier has the major problem of lack of commitment and supplying orders in time. Major problem with the supplier is that agreed delivery timing is not met by them. Managers or the spokesperson agreed to deliver within the agreed timing but they fails and they provided stereotyped clarification. In the meeting with the general manager of supplier, it has been observed that they are having too much of attitude. The GM has not replied to the query regarding the order failure issues. However, supplier cited the issues like technical challenges, electrical power cuts and biased deadlines (WatsonLadzani and MatshonisaSeeletse, 2012). However, organizational culture is another reason for failure of orders deliver orders in time. Excuse giving is another trait of the organizations that are reported by the organizations. In the current scenario, cultural model of Trompenaars and Hampden is used to outline cultural difference among the German, Zulus and Indians. According to the model, there are almost seven dimension of cultural difference among organizations and stakeholders. Firstly, the contrast of Universalism and Pluralism refers that there are certain difference between the regulations and associations. Secondly, “Individualism in opposition to communitarisnism” outlines that cultural difference exists among group and individuals. Thirdly, cultural difference can be outlined with the help of contrasting specific and scatter goals. Mainly, it creates biasness among role, responsibility and involvement of the employees (Zu, 2009). According to Ramlall (2012), the Fourth attribute is “affectivity versus neutrality” is manly the parameter of showing control on emotions of the firms. Fifth attribute outlines that cultural difference can be developed among the employees as because of their beliefs on impression of internal and external environment. Ramasobana and Fatoki (2014) argued that sixth attribute outlines cultural difference among the organizational members for their accomplished operational score in contrast with the credited remarks. Finally, cultural difference can arise due to the conflict of chronological time and synchronic time. Implementing the model into the current context, three main aspects can be cited to outline cultural difference of the German and Zulus group of the automobile company and Indian suppliers (Hunnicutt, 2009). Universalism in Opposition to Pluralism: Bond (2008) stated that such cultural difference is citing the difference in showing importance in system and relationships. It has been observed that Germans are having universalistic culture as they share common rules, policy and values in the automotive supplier company. On the contrary, Zulus and Indian people are having pluralistic culture as they are concerned with the friendship and close associations (Braun, 2013). Specific Opposed to Diffuse It has been observed that German people are more specific than the Indian and Zulus people. Although Indian suppliers are least specific, as they citied various excuses when they failed to meet the commitment (Chattopadhyay and Simon, 2007). Sequential Time vs. Synchronic Time In the global organizations, firms are required to maintain the link between the results and forecast of past, present and future. It can be said that German administrators are more concerned about the sequential culture. They arrange operational timing in succession, rather they only do things one job at a time and start another after accomplishing the first one. On the contrary, synchronic culture was observed among the Indian supplier whose workers are attempting multiple jobs in same time (Hinson and Ndhlovu, 2011). Conclusion From the current study, it has been observed that cross cultural conflicts are limiting the organizational success. The automobile firm will be facing the cross cultural conflicts as their administrative groups are from German ethnicity and operational employees are of Zulus ethnicity. From the second task, it has been observed that Indian origin people are concerned for developing association and having least concern for time worthiness. Reference list Braun, G., 2013. RADAR Procedure. unpublished teaching materials. Bond, P., 2008. Social Movements and Corporate Social Responsibility in South Africa. Development and Change, 39(6), pp.1037-1052. Chattopadhyay, S. and Simon, A., 2007. East meets West: Cross-cultural perspective in end-of-life decision making from Indian and German viewpoints. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 11(2), pp.165-174. Crane, A., 2008. The Oxford handbook of corporate social responsibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hinson, R. and Ndhlovu, T., 2011. Conceptualising corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate social investment (CSI): the South African context. Social Responsibility Journal, 7(3), pp.332-346. Hunnicutt, S., 2009. Corporate social responsibility. Detroit, MI: Greenhaven Press. Kulkarni, S. and Rao, P., 2014. Comparative Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility Practices Across Africa and India An Automobile Industry Perspective. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 157, pp.244-253. Ramasobana, A. and Fatoki, O., 2014. An Investigation into the Business Social Responsibility of Micro Enterprises in South Africa. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences. Ramlall, S., 2012. Corporate social responsibility in postâapartheid South Africa. Social Responsibility Journal, 8(2), pp.270-288. WatsonLadzani, M. and MatshonisaSeeletse, S., 2012. Business social responsibility: how are SMEs doing in Gauteng, South Africa? Social Responsibility Journal, 8(1), pp.87-99. Zu, L., 2009. Corporate social responsibility, corporate restructuring and firms performance. Berlin: Springer. Read More