Karen Leary Case Analysis

1) What is the most significant problem in the case?

The most significant problem lies between Karen and Ted is cultural difference.
Besides, they seem to have communicating problem derived from cultural misunderstanding.

Therefore, the problem is caused by both of them. But the solution should be approached from Karen first because she is the manager (and also the vice president) over Ted. She is responsible to take care of her employees.

2) What are the reasons for the problem?

As I mentioned above, main reasons are misunderstanding caused by cultural difference. And Karen should give the solution, because she is the decision maker for this case. Also, Karen uses only one way to manage her
And Karen should do this especially for Ted, so that he can on board safely.

4) If you were the person in the case, what would you do? Why?

If I were Karen, I would give him an office. But, it should be conditional.

Above all, Ted is now in an organization where he should follow. So Karen should not make an exceptional and unfair case. However, at the same time, Ted’s request may be reasonable if we consider Chinese culture. Generally, Chinese people consider very much about their pride and honor; they think that they’d rather die than lose face in front of everybody. In addition, they are very glad if they are treated ‘specially’. The office can be a good help to treat potential Chinese customers.

Thus, Karen can provide an office which should be named as “Taiwanese Business Task Force Office” or something similar. Then it cannot be his own office because it is officially allocated to “Taiwanese Biz T/F”. In addition, she can terminate the task force if there are no new customers within a certain period, means that she can regain the control over him using a good weapon like ‘office’. In this way also Ted can save his face. If she fails to solve this problem, employees who come from different cultural backgrounds other than that of her will have a glass ceiling, and eventually she will lose her valuable ‘global’ customers.

But anyway, this suggestion should be the final one. If Ted doesn’t accept this offer, she has no choice