Case on Charles Martin in Uganda: What to Do When a Manager Goes Native?

Case on Charles Martin in Uganda: What to Do When a Manager Goes Native?

Question 1: Describe Ugandan cultural attributes that might affect operations of a foreign company operating there.

Uganda being a multilingual country faces many challenges apart from just language.

Though language is one of the greater obstacles there is also the variety in religion, the concept of nepotism, the corruption in the country and the big clove between rich and poor are just some of the things that make this a challenging country for organizations to start their business in.

Starting of with the language barrier, knowing that over 40 different languages are used in this country, we notice that this is a clear obstacle for organizations that venture into this market. Having English as the officially recognized language is hard to believe when you know actually only small percentage of the natives speak it, though it is hard to choose an official language from the +40 languages that are spoken in your country.

The actual most spoken language, being Swahili, was made an official language in 2005, as well as Luganda, which is the language most commonly used in the educational environment.

Taking into account these different languages, we need to consider the different cultures that come along with it. This causes implications for company’s to communicate with the environment, creating the unintended language barrier.

If we look at it from a religious perspective, companies need to hire employees that are used to working with these different visions and values to avoid discrimination amongst the employees.

Also the barrier between rich and poor and the abuse of Nepotism is one not to take lightly. Average loans being less then a dollar a day there is a lot of corruption. If you want to get something done you need to bribe some people, which is unethical and even illegal in most developed countries.

Questoion 2: Would you describe Green’s and Martin’s attitudes as being ethnocentric, polycentric or geocentric? What factors do you think have influenced their attitudes?

I believe the attitude of the HG is to be neutral or to act in a geocentric way, though the expat Martin acted in a polycentric way. He committed to the foreign culture and thus was able to exert his expertise in the culture and as a result to open doors to which he normally would not have access to. Focussing on his assignment he seemed to be doing a good job as to fulfilling it, apart from his actions being legal or ethic.