Princess Guilas

February 16, 2016

LS 100 E
HW #2
The reading starts off with a case study detailing the struggles of two
pharmaceutical companies, one based in the U.S. and the other in Sweden and Italy,
after they merged. The contradictory cultural inclinations of the two previously
independent organizations resulted in decreased efficiency, increased expenses and
heated interpersonal relationships in the merged organization. This case study was
used to frame the discussion on the organizational barriers and obstacles that
multinational corporations face in relation to the diverse cultures of their respective
employees. A clash of cultures may emerge when the employees of organizations
from different countries interact and discover that their personal and corporate
cultures are vastly different or worse, inherently contradictory to each other. The
reading identifies characteristics such as assertiveness, gender differentiation, power
distance, etc., that can describe the culture of a specific country. Individuals
belonging to countries that are on two extreme ends of a characteristics spectrum
are likely to experience friction. For example in theory, male executives of highly
gender differentiated Japan are likely to be resistant to taking orders from a female
executive from low gender differentiated Sweden. If the female Swedish executive is
completely ignorant of Japanese culture, she may have no idea why she is
experiencing such resistance.
This is why it is extremely important for an organization to be aware of the
cultural differences it may encounter when dealing with foreign corporations. I think it
is even more important for two foreign organizations that are thinking of collaborating
to have willingness to compromise. They must, at the outset, acknowledge their
cultural differences and show respect for the culture of the other party. Both parties
must be able to accommodate each other in order to serve their common goals. The
need for knowledge and respect for different cultures is increasingly significant in
todays era of globalization. Interactions between two foreign companies are likely to
be more frequent as national economies become inextricably linked. This is
especially true in the Philippines where the ASEAN integration will force local
industries to interact with their counterparts in ASEAN member countries.
The ASEAN integration is especially relevant to the Agricultural sector of the
Philippines, which according to the Department of Agriculture is not ready for it. For

this assignment, I will be focusing on the potential impact of the ASEAN integration
of small-scale rice farmers. There is a big possibility that small-scale rice farmers will
be negatively impacted by the ASEAN integration. The integration will give foreign
rice producers, such as Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam easier access to our local rice
market. According to the Department of Agriculture, local rice farmers are still heavily
reliant on manual labor for rice production. On the other hand, other countries have
heavily mechanized rice farming, which means that production costs in countries
such as those mentioned above are significantly lower than here in the Philippines
(De Vera, 2014). This means that local rice producers will be forced to mechanize
their rice production in order to be able to compete with foreign suppliers of rice.
However, for small-scale farmers with little to no capital, this will be almost
impossible. Agricultural machinery is very expensive and ordinarily beyond the reach
of poor rice farmers. Therefore, the government must help local rice farmers by
offering them loans in order to buy farm equipment and by subsidizing production
costs.

References
De Vera, E. (2014, April 17). Rice farmers not ready for ASEAN Integration Retrieved
February 15, 2016, from http://www.mb.com.ph/rice-farmers-not-ready-for-aseanintegration/#W1BK6QzBuqS47mO6.99.