Pride and Prejudice

Case Summary

It is a case study about a joint venture company that combined Malaysian, Dutch and Ghanaian culture where it is a company of Malaysia and Dutch global expansion to the West Africa market. The company appointed Ms. Michele Lu, a Malaysian Chinese as the Chief Information Officer (CIO), Mr. Philip Kroon, a Dutch as the Business Information System (BIS) Manager and Mr. Jabal Buaben, a Ghanaian as the Technical & Operations Manager.

Mr. Kroon and Mr. Buaben had been assigned by Ms. Lu to lead a project on the installation of the new software system in the company’s business. However, both of them could not cooperate with each other in doing the task given. Due to different culture style, both managers’ working styles caused discontent and dissatisfaction within each other. Problem started when Mr. Kroon, a heavy drinker could not accomplish the task on time and often came late to work. However, she did not take any warning and strict action towards Mr. Kroon immediately regarding complain from Mr. Buaben and caused worse attitude in Mr. Kroon. Eventually, both of them were caught up in a very heated argument and they started to fight each other. Both of them were hospitalized and Mr. Buaben tendered his resignation.

The character of Mr. Buaben was having another conflict with Ms. Lu as well due to his sexual discrimination mindset. All these had set a fire among the three foreign experts from different cultural background.

Problem Statement

Firstly, there is conflict appear among Mr. Philip Kroon and Mr. Jabal Buaben. Mr. Buaben could not bear with Mr. Kroon who is a heavy drinker, could not accomplish the tasks on time and often came late to work. Both of them were also being ethnocentrism where they judged one another culture solely by the values and standards of their own culture. Mr. Buaben thought that white people being undisciplined and arrogant ever since colonial day while Mr. Kroon thinks that the white people had contributed in the technology development of Ghana. The cultural differences in working norms influenced the working cooperation among them and contentious opinion occurred. Mr. Kroon tended to give full authority to his subordinates for them to make decisions on his behalf while Mr. Buaben used to work under autocratic style of management.

Besides that, Mr. Buaben was having sexual discrimination towards other culture. He thinks that it is not suitable for Ms. Lu, a woman, to become a leader because she is being too soft and tolerate. He was very rude, outspoken and insensitive towards other people's culture. He voiced out his dissatisfaction to have a woman as his boss as he never has one. He even mentioned about Holy Quran that stated only man can become a leader but not a woman.

On the other hand, Ms. Lu did not behaved professionally as she did not take any further action