Describe Ugandan cultural attributes that might affect the operations of a foreign company doing business there? As per the case Uganda have 25 million people whose official language is English, some people speaks local languages like Bantu or Nilotic, It is difficult for a foreign company to deal with people who knows only local languages. Two- third of Uganda people are Christians and there are large number of Muslims with various animistic religions, foreign companies will face problems when dealing with or hiring people who are religious and gives more traditional preferences to their culture values.
Uganda is most corrupted country in the world so it may affect foreign company business practices. It is difficult to deal with tribal’s who are illiterate and scared of spirits. 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? I can tell Martin is a polycentric type of attitude because the reasons are as follows. Although he is an American, he is well adopted to the other cultures and worked in foreign countries. His way of attitude is like learn and respect other cultures. Martin preferred to live in middle class neighborhood, maybe I can think he is developing communications with neighborhood for HG project, For example it is not possible for a manger to get more number of low class people for hard jobs. It is very hard to deal with cultural tribes but Martin handled them easily and avoids further problems in HG project. I can tell Green is an ethnocentric type of attitude because he always thinks about the company culture and lifestyle norms. It is very important that Vice president of international company have to think about the life style and cultural aspects of both home and foreign countries.
Some times company have to change rules as per the foreign country cultural beliefs and other problems if it does not adopt to that than work won’t run smoothly and company will face many problems in hiring local people, work progress etc.
Who was right, green or martin?
About Martin’s more controversial actions in facilitating the project? How might things turned out if Martin had not been a member of the project team? I think Mr. Martin is right because this is the HG first project in African country so company may not know the situations in that country.
Martin controversial actions are acceptable because he knee interest is to finish the project in time with in the budget. As per me Martin acted as local person to finish his assignments without major problems. Martin given tips in advance because it may be the practice in Uganda to finish the work fast this type of advance tips will also happens India, Pakistan, and China etc. Martin given money for tribal ceremony and avoid problem in further, it’s not a big deal for a multinational company for donating a small amount of money for culture beliefs of local people.If Martin had not been members of the project team than company have to face many problems from local people, unstable government of Uganda etc. It is difficult for the company to hire local culture people as per the American rules and regulations.
In the next phase of the project-running the power plant-should HG employ someone whose main function is that of liaison between its corporate culture and the culture of its host country? If so martin the right person for the job? In next phase of the project running the power plant Mr. Martin is the right people for that job but company have to adopt ethnocentric person like Mr.
Green has a side manger because Mr. Martin may go very deep in local cultural aspects which may affect that company branch over all progress and cultural of its host country. More over Uganda is corrupted country so if company wants to run further projects then they have to bribe the locals in order to finish work on time, if Mr. Martin stays in the project he may end up giving more money to the locals so someone have to control this further transactions. It is better that HG further projects should be multicultural and adapt to local situations.
