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else with his combination of professional training, experience with HG, and
familiarity with the host country. (Martin, though only 29, had already
proved effective in using his knowledge of local development issues to
disarm critics of the power plant.)
Hiring Martin to handle all preconstruction operations represented a
new approach for HG. In this capacity, Martin, who'd been transferred to
Uganda a year and a half earlier as project liaison specialist, had been given
a threefold task:
1. To gain local support for the project by working with both Ugandan
authorities in the capital of Kampala and villagers in the vicinity of the
construction site.
2. To set up an office and hire office personnel to take charge of local
purchasing (including lower-level hiring), clearing incoming goods
through customs, securing immigration permissions for foreigners
attached to the project, overseeing the logistics of getting materials
going from the airport in Kampala to the dam site, and keeping
inventory and accounting records.
3. To help foreign personnel (mainly engineers) get settled and feel
comfortable living and working in Uganda.
Martin was also responsible for establishing an operating structure that
would spare incoming managers the hassles of such mundane start-up
activities as obtaining licenses, installing telephones and utilities, and finding
local people to hire for the wide range of jobs that would be needed. In
addition, although HG specialized in power plants (it had built plants in 16
countries and retained ownership shares in about half of them), the Uganda
project was its first African venture.
Now, dam construction anywhere requires huge amounts of capital,
and projects often face opposition from groups acting on behalf of such local
parties as the people who will need to move because of subsequent flooding.
Thus to forestall adverse publicity and, more importantly, activity that could
lead to costly work stoppages, HG needed as many local allies as it could
get. Getting (and keeping) them was another key facet of Martin's job.
Martin, though still-young by most standards, was well suited to the
Ugandan project. After high school, he'd entered the University of Wisconsin,
where he became fascinated with Africa through a course in its precolonial
history. Graduating with a major in African studies, he served with the Peace
Corps in Kenya, where he worked with small business start-ups and took side
trips to Ethiopia and Tanzania. Although he loved working in Kenya, Martin
developed a disdain for the Western managers and workers who isolated
themselves in expatriate ghettos and congregated in the capital's first-class
hotels. His own creed became "Don't draw attention to yourself and, above
all, learn and respect the culture."
At the end of his Peace Corps stint, Martin was determined to return to
and work somewhere in Africa. After earning an M.B.A. at the University of
Maryland, he took a job with HG, where he worked for two years on project
bidding and budgeting. Both when he was hired and when HG became
involved in the Ugandan project, Martin made sure his superiors knew he
wanted the African assignment.
could not only damage HG's image but also could offend Uganda's Christian
majority and the many Christian missionaries in the country. On top of
everything, Martin's participation might be construed in some quarters as a
mockery of tribal customs, thereby contributing to a hostile environment for
HG.
Having thoroughly considered the Charles Martin case, James Green now
had to make decisions about staffing the next phase of the project. He knew
he needed to transfer a number of technical personnel to Uganda, and he'd
already begun interviewing senior HG managers for the position of project
director. But he was still left with one critical question: How much would the
new director benefit from the presence of an American who, like Martin,
could be a valuable source of advice about Ugandan culture? And if he had
to
have
someone in that role, was Martin still right for the part?
Questions
1. Describe Ugandan cultural attributes that might affect the
operations of a foreign company business there.
2. How would you describe the respective attitudes of Martin and
Green: ethnocentric, polycentric or geocentric? What factors do you
suspect of having influenced their respective attitudes?
3. Who was right, Green or Martin, about Martin's more controversial
actions in facilitating project? How might things have turned out if
Martin had not been a member of the project?
4. In the next phase of the project - constructing the dam itself - should
HG employ someone whose main function is that of liaison between its
corporate culture and the culture of its host country? If so, is Martin the
right person for the job?