MULTINATIONAL CORPORATE ENVIRONMENT (INT610)

THE GUNG-HO MOVIE

Cevdet KIZIL
(Graduate MBA)

Southern New Hampshire University

Multinational Corporate Environment (INT610) Professor Hideki Takei

August 2, 2004
Salem, New Hampshire

The Gung-Ho Movie Assan Motors

Introduction

The movie is about a Japanese automobile company called the Assan Motors
starting to do business in the United States where cultural conflict emerges between the
American employees and the Japanese managers.
In the beginning, Hunt Stevenson goes to Japan and asks the firm owners to reopen the auto plant. After some discussion, the Japanese owners agree to run the business
in the United States, but emphasize that the company will be directed by the Japanese
executives.
As the firm continues to operate, both Mr. Stevenson and the American employees
realize that Japanese managers have far more strict work ethic and expect a high level of
loyalty from the workers. Working seven days a week plus mandatory free overtime
doesnt suit to the American employees. As a result, a clash between the Japanese
managers and the American workers exists. Moreover, Mr. Stevenson then tells the
employees that their wages will increase if they can compose 13,000 cars per month. The
American employees get really motivated and start to work very hard. However, when
one of the top executives learns this, he says employees wont be paid more. Let alone
that salary bonus issue, all other problems in the firm prove us a communication problem
since nobody talks to each other in the company about their problems.
In conclusion, miscommunication and cultural difference lead to a lot of problems
inside the Assan Motors Company.

Two problems

In my opinion, two problems which are the most eye-catching for Assan
Company are related to culture and communication.
To start with the culture, we can observe two extreme cultural differences
Individualism and Collectivism. The Collectivist approach belongs to the Japanese while
the Individualist approach belongs to the Americans. According to the Collectivist
approach, the company operates as a team with the contribution of everyone in the firm
starting from the top manager (CEO) to the lowest ranked employee. On the other hand,
the Individualist approach is much more self-motivated. In other words, in collectivist
cultures, organizations are used to give members meaning and purpose while in
individualistic cultures, organizations are used to serve individual owners, employees and
customers. (http://www.kli.re.kr/iira2004/pro/papers/RaymundSisenandoRMercado.pdf)
As an example, the Japanese managers told Mr. Stevenson that the American employees
were not loyal as much as the Japanese employees. Additionally, it was stated that the
American employees were only working for money, starting the job late and leaving
early, avoiding job when they are sick, while their Japanese colleagues were only
working for the company, spending less time with their families, running faster, thinking
the future of the business as it was everything for them. So, from my point of view, the
opposition of the Individualist and the Collectivist approaches was the main reason of
cultural contradiction.

Of course, its much better to give some detailed information about the cultural
confrontation in Assan Company to show why its really a problem. For instance, when
the American employees arrived the firm for the first time in the morning, their Japanese
managers told them to do some early-morning sports. That really surprised the American
employees because they had nothing like that in their country. Thus, the first perception
of American employees about the Assan Company was negative, causing them to think
that their managers and the business itself were not serious. Next, the American workers
were used to listen to music and smoke while doing their job, but their Japanese
supervisor told them not to repeat that action again. So, the American employees were
now emotionally more apart from the business. Following that, according to the Japanese
managers, Assan Motors had to reach the Zero Defect level. This is indeed natural for
almost all Japanese firms since they believe in the Kaizen Principle which means
continuing improvement in personal life, home life, social life and working life. When
applied to the workplace, Kaizen means continuing improvement involving everyone
managers and workers alike. Kaizen is a culture of sustained continuous improvement
focusing on eliminating waste in all systems and processes of an organization
(http://www.revisionguru.co.uk/business/kaizen.htm). The Zero Defect is fundamental
to

Japanese

also

because

they

implement

Productivity

Improvement

(http://de.nhc.edu/faculty/msamii/ht/JMCG.ppt - Slide 8), On the opposite side, American

employees also found the Zero Defect idea impossible and unimaginable. This means,
when the management was so concentrated for this goal, the workers were unmotivated.
After that, when the American employee who had the most defects in the company was

told to clean the floor, he was very angry and disappointed. That increased the tension
and anger between the executives and the employees.
To speak of communication, this second problem reached to the maximum point
in Assan Company when Mr. Stevenson told the American employees that they would be
awarded with increments in their wages if they were able to succeed in 13,000 cars
production. Actually Mr. Stevenson knew pretty well what could motivate the American
employees, but he understood that he was in big trouble when the Japanese manager
reported that no wage increment would occur. Because when the American employees
learned about Hunt Stevensons lie, they were very frustrated and sad. This indicated us
that a serious miscommunication existed among the managers, Mr. Stevenson and the
employees. Plus, more importantly, almost everybody in Assan Motors had specific
problems. Unfortunately, nobody took the first step to talk to each other. Thus, problems
were not clearly expressed and naturally no solution could be found.

Solutions of the two problems and expected results

Many solutions exist for the culture and communication problems that can change
the whole scenario completely in a positive way.
First of all, to minimize the cultural problem, Assan Motors could hire a
professional consultant or sign a contract with a professional institution. Then, this
professional consultant or the institution would have an orientation program both for the
Japanese managers and the American employees. During the orientation phase, they
could be tutored about each others culture and how to overcome cultural problems if

they existed. So both parties could know how to react in particular situations. Another
solution is that the executive board of Assan Motors could distribute surveys to the
American employees to learn their preferences, facts of motivation and culture. The
survey could be a great tool in gathering information about the employees. Third, the
executives of Assan Motors could do a detailed research about similar firms (Japanese
firms with American employees operating in the U.S.A.) in their field, the automotive
sector. Assan Motors could even contact these Japanese companies to take advantage of
their experiences. Fourth, Assan Motors could invite some highly respected faculty
members and professionals, most probably in International Business and Organizational
Behavior fields, to give an informative conference within the firm for the executive board
and the employees. These seem to be the major solutions and if implemented, people
from the different cultures would become friends and work together to achieve one
common goal. Also, they could adopt part of one anothers culture and be prepared and
informed to cultural differences beforehand. These would be the expected results.
For the communication problem, Mr. Stevenson first had to explain the Japanese
executive that American employees were most motivated by the salary bonus. What he
did was wrong because he had to talk to his manager before taking this action. On the
other hand, the Japanese manager had to contact Mr. Stevenson too, to learn how to
motivate his employees more. So, both of them had to talk to each other. Just like that, in
general, when the employees and Mr. Stevenson had a problem, they had to contact with
the top executives. Definitely, the managers also had to contact with the employees. If
communication would be strong in Assan Co., the problems could be solved much faster
and easier as an expected result. Because, reasons behind the behaviors would be known.

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