John has found himself with a critical labor shortage, and he doesn’t know exactly how to solve his problem. John is the founder, president, and CEO of a small manufacturing firm, Johnsco Electronics. The company has approximately 300 employees in its home state of Tennessee. Recently, it was approached by a major Japanese automobile manufacturing company about a possible joint venture in which Johnsco could retain majority ownership. The opportunity seemed attractive, so John agreed to build and operate a plant outside of Tokyo. The plant is expected to employ around 500 workers to fabricate and assemble computer components for new automobiles.
John had recently discovered the extremely high cost of maintaining a significant number of expatriate managers in a city with a cost of living as high as Tokyo. Thus, he had agreed to the joint venture expecting to use mostly his host country nationals for the new facility.
Unfortunately, John is having problems staffing many of the essential positions. First, he was not aware that equal employment opportunity laws would apply to his international operation.
Since John supplies the federal government with certain military components, his hiring practices are scrutinized to see whether minorities and women are appropriately represented in his workforce. Only recently did John discover that few if any Japanese women ever move into managerial positions in Japan. He's confused about how to balance his obligations under United States law, local customs in Tokyo, and the high cost of using expatriates.

Questions

1. What steps can you suggest that might help John solve his labor problems for the new plant in Tokyo?
2. How could he persuade either the union or his joint venture partner to help him with this problem?
3. What types of cultural training, both here and in Japan, might be necessary for John’s new venture to be successful?
4. What could John have done differently to eliminate some of his current labor problems?