Ellen Moore Harvard Case Solution & Analysis

ELLEN MOORE
INTRODUCTION

Joint Venture Inc. (JVI) was established as a joint venture with a Korean company, Korean Conglomerate Inc. (KCI), a North American company and Western Systems Inc. (WSI). WSI is a significant information technology company with international offices. KCI is one of the largest Korean companies. The joint venture is in its eighth tear, which managed by two regional directors, Mr. Cho, a Korean from KCI and Robert Brown, an American from WSI.

The case revolves around one in which some problems are faced. Ellen Moore is a System Consulting Group (SCG) consultant and was a part of this project. This project was led by Mr. Park and consisted of 40 Korean consultant further divided into teams working on different areas of the project. The Systems Implementation (SI) team consisted of Korean consultants, one translator and three North American SCG consultants.

It was the largest project in South Korea to this date. Implementation was to be done in 100 local offices within seven to ten years. SCG consultants were to help Korean consultants for the seven months with the system design and in creating recommendations for system implementation.

Andrew Kilpatrick was a management consultant and he was the part of the project because of a similar system implementation project experience in North America.

SITUATION ANALYSIS

Problems and its Causes

Andrew had too many complaints regarding the Koreans. It was extremely important for the project to be completed on time and he would be held responsible for any delays. Although, Andrew was adept to change management, he had little international consulting experience.

JVI requested Andrew to join the project on a full-time basis; he already had significant commitments to projects in North America. Finally, Andrew was managing the SI work on a part time basis from North America. Thus, he sent Ellen Moore as the project management representative on a full time basis.

Sending the woman as the project management representative in Korea also created problems. As facts regarding the culture of Korea suggests that women do not typically hold management positions in Korea. However, Andrew was told that a qualified woman was acceptable but expectations from the woman expatriate manager from North America were different.

Other causes of problems analyzed in the case were that most of the agreements regarding the project were based on inaccurate information. Initially, Andrew had been asked by SCG’s parent company, WSI to assist JVI with the proposal development. Andrew thought his assistance as a favor as they did not have plans to expand in Korea. Andrew’s work on the proposal in North America led to a request for his involvement in Korea to gather additional information for the proposal.
The project was a month behind schedule. Korean team members weren’t taking direction from Elllen. Jack was giving directions to the team, which was leading them down different paths. Jack was requesting that the team work on tasks which were not required for the project deliverables was not appropriately managing the client’s expectations.

Korean consultants’ lack of experience was the main problem. Korean’s also believe Ellen was not effective as she did not assign work properly and she did not even give credible instructions to the team. So they always listened to Jack.

The team did not have complete knowledge of SI projects. Consultants were previously taught SI by a Korean consultant. But this consultant was the most junior person of the team. She had researched SI by reading some texts and had given a presentation on her understanding of SI to a group of consultants.

Cultural Problems

Andrew had a difficulty in understanding the Korean business environment. It was difficult to obtain a good understanding of their business environment from a translated document. The material provided to him had been translated into English and was difficult to comprehend.

He had three meetings with the management team but those meetings did not turn out as they wanted and they were not able to obtain information normally obtained at these fact gathering meetings.

Andrew had a confrontational behavior and this kind of behavior was unacceptable in Korea.

Ellen was also not a great fit in the Korean culture. There were gender issues because of the appointment of Ellen. Jack believes that he should hold more power than Ellen because of his education and position. Andrew has the position, expertise and experience to warrant respect from the Koreans as the leader of the team assignment; Ellen does not possess all these................

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