Internalization of Operations: Issues in Management of Expatriation

THIS ESSAY SHOULD BE WRITTEN WITH REQUIRED SOURCE IN THE ATTACHMENT
WRITE THE ASSIGNMENT 2 PLS.
Individual Report based on the Case Study below
“Case Study – HRL313 2018-19
Scrum-me biscuits
Scrum-me Biscuits is a large UK-based snack manufacturer that was set up in the nineteenth century. It is now one of the largest snack manufacturers in the UK. Over the past two decades it has been internationalizing its operations, and has acquired companies in the USA and Australia. No major adjustment issues have been encountered in these two countries.
In 2012 it became involved in a joint venture in the south of Japan. The Japanese partners were local businessmen who had no prior experience in biscuit-making. Scrum-me pumped in money and resources, and the Japanese partners set up the land deal. The biscuit factory was built on a greenfield site, and was equipped with state-of-the-art machinery. Scrum-me took the view initially that it would be easier to send UK expatriates to run the factory, as they assumed that what works well at home, will transfer well to any new Country of operation and, with this approach, no major difficulties had been encountered in the USA and in Australia. They would be working with a few selected Japanese managers, who would help them with recruitment and daily management of the shop-floor.
However, in the following two years numerous problems occurred within the Japanese factory. These included issues with quality control, stock control, and failing to deliver orders to customers on time. No great insight had been gained by trying to speak with the expatriates over the phone and discussion inevitably tended to focus on performance matters only. Nevertheless, it was clear that things were not going well and that expatriates were feeling increasingly frustrated with the situation but seems clueless on how to improve it.
Scrum-me sent out a delegation of senior managers to investigate the situation; to inspect the plant and interview the expatriates in one-to-one meetings.
They later sent a report outlining their key findings, see them summarized below.
Main issues observed in the shop-floor:
There were low levels of motivation within the shop-floor ranks.
Both shop-floor workers and Japanese managers seemed unwilling or unable to take on any level of responsibility.
Local managers would be exerting strong pressure to hire members of their family rather than the best person for the job.
Both employees and managers seemed to be unhappy with the use of Performance Related Pay (PRP) which expatriates were trying hard to enforce.
Expat managers seemed unable to manage the situation effectively.
When working in mixed teams –British/Japanese- decision making proved to be a nightmare.
They seemed much more vocal when they were meeting outside the office. Indeed, they tended to socialize quite a lot…but Britons expats were not invited to join in, as if they were not trusted.
Results of a survey of expatriates’ experience and satisfaction
After surveying all of the expatriate managers by means of in-depth interviews, it came to light that:
They felt that Scrum-me were not doing a great job in career-planning: all of them had been in the country for over 3 years (3 of them had been sent at the very beginning) and some of them had only agreed to stay for a maximum of 2 years. None of them know when they will be sent back home.
looking back at their pre-departure training, they all felt resentful against Scrum-me as they failed to prepare them for ‘the actual thing’;
they all felt that they were receiving very little support from the HQs and that they had just ‘been left alone to deal with it all’;
4 out of 6 were experiencing family conflict as partners and children wanted to go back as they were struggling to settle in (little support for family was on offer);
all of them but one planned on leaving the company if things did not change in the very near future.
PLEASE WRITE A 2000 WORDS REPORT FOR THE BOARD OF MANAGERS WHERE YOU ADDRESS THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:
Q1. What are the main issues with Scrum-me’s management of expatriation? (Refer to the stages of Brewster et al.’s expatriation cycle).
Q2. Can you identify three reasons why team-working is going so wrong (refer to Brett et al’s theory)?
Q2. Using module theory (i.e. Harzing) and a few companies’ examples, can you give Scrum-me some advice on how to improve their expatriation strategy and planning? (When giving advice, aim at resolving the issues identified in your earlier sections, so that the report is cohesive and well-integrated).
Please Note: Your report needs to be informed and underpinned by academic literature throughout. Relevant examples are also important.
Recommendations need to be realistic and feasible.