Description:
Scenario: You are the intern coordinator for an IT consulting company that specializes in working with entrepreneurial global clients. Although the partners have been impressed with the internship program you set up this year, an international incident in one country cost the firm substantial money and generated negative publicity. Upon your return from that country, the partners informed you that your intern program may be eliminated, and they don't have another position to offer because you are not an IT consultant. The company needs to have more insights about conducting business in a particular country before they proceed any further. The challenge is to provide details that will let them see how much risk is involved in doing business in this country. There is a mix of opinions on this topic. Some in the audience believe doing business could be profitable. Some are against the idea because of negative stories they have heard about the country and customs.
Your task is to convince the partners that you can train the employees and interns before they travel to a particular foreign country. The audience expects a factual report that sheds light on the economic, political, and social environment in that country to help them make an informed decision about doing business or sending employees or interns there. John Smith is enthusiastic about your proposal to write an informative report about customs in the country and subsequently set up a cultural training program for interns and employees, but Joseph Stevens is not. Of course, John is retiring, so his vote counts less. However, Robert Morris recommends that you write a proposal to describe the audiences for the report and the content that would subsequently be taught. He is asking for a research paper on one nation with respect to how its culture differs from ours to help the executives decide whether to do business in the country.
Top level executives who are responsible for devising strategies and formulating policies to ensure that all goals and objectives are met include John Smith, Chief Executive Officer; Joseph Stevens, Chief Operating Officer; and Robert Morris, Chief Information Officer. This group consists of motivated readers who are in need of the report to make important business decisions. The company contains 500 employees, 20 of which would be slated to go overseas. Ten employees would conduct business development (sales) and 10 would conduct project implementation which would require working closely with top and mid-level managers in the corporate headquarters and inside a factory in that country. In addition, once project implementation is underway, at least 100 of the employees would be interacting with the employees in the other country via email, skype, and the internet.
The executives describe very specifically what they want to see in this sample report.
The partners require that you cover at least three of the following sections in this sample Global Business Report:
• Climate
• Nonverbal communication/Language/attire
• Politics
• Religion (can branch into attire, etc.)
• Food/social etiquette/dining
• Security, crime, and/or attitudes and norms concerning women
• Attitudes toward foreigners, particularly U.S. citizens.
• (However, other information/topics may be included if you clear them with me).
• With regard to those topics, the report should describe
• the cultural customs in one nation you select and show how they are the same or different from our own customs,
• what happens when our employees/interns do not understand the customs and commit faux pas and the impact that can have on business interactions,
• what adaptations company employees must make when they interact with the individuals they do business with in the foreign country in order to carry out business successfully.
You have persuaded them that this information can be used to train the employees and interns to act appropriately in public and in business meetings. In the report the partners will require sections on at least three of the following topics: nonverbal communication/language/attire, politics, religion, food, security issues, and/or attitudes toward foreigners, particularly U.S. citizens. However, other information may be included. You must decide which topics are the most relevant and important to cover in your report to help the firm make the best decision on conducting business in that country.
Robert reminds you privately that he has just enrolled in the MBA program at Casement University and must write a research paper using the APA documentation system. He asks you to write your business report using this system as a research paper so that he can use it as a model.
Illustrations:
In addition to the one-two pages of words in the memo, include an appropriate chart or table. It may be inserted in the appropriate paragraphs and/or at the end of the memo.
Structure of the Memo:
The memo should request permission to conduct research and write a paper which would be used as the basis for training the employees and interns in order to conduct business successfully in the country (you select the country). The proposal should have four sections with these headings in this order:
Purpose:
Audience Analysis (primary and secondary audiences and their expectations):
Summary of Key Topics:
Schedule of Tasks in developing a research paper:
In the memo, you should include graphic illustrations to make the report more interesting and attractive.
• The purpose refers to why this report has been requested by the executives.
• The audience.
• Summary of (at least) 3 Key Topics in the proposed report and why they are important in relation to this country (bullets) and your firm doing business there.
• The schedule of tasks you will undertake to write the report should be included as a chart or table (basically the steps you will undertake as you write your research report--the type of research you will conduct (interviews with any knowledgeable people? library research, etc.); how much time it will take you to conduct research; and the steps you will follow in conducting research; steps in outlining, etc.).
You won't write about tasks involving the training sessions because the partners have not approved those sessions. They want to see the quality of the information in a report and how you organize it before they decide to finance the sessions.
Therefore, you will start with the beginning and end date and then develop the tasks needed to write the report (ex. brainstorm to choose nation, research sources, analyze audience (the interns), etc.