A company whose headquarters is located in a developed country decides to build production factories in select countries to achieve an objective of expanding sales into emerging markets over a $10-$year period. The company$$s HR director assigns an HR manager to provide human resource management support during the first expansion. The HR manager works on the current assignment from the home country. The company$$s headquarters assigns expatriates from the home country to lead the expansion, with support from host$-$country employees. Initially, the expansion proceeds according to the company$$s plan. However, after a year, the company halts plans for additional expansion due to conflicts between the expatriates and the host$-$country employees. A major issue is disagreement over the best strategies for increasing sales. In addition, the host$-$country culture places less emphasis on the amount of time employees spend working compared to the home$-$country culture. The expatriates have expressed concerns that this results in differences for performance standards, which could have potential negative consequences on their performance ratings. Overall, the sales strategy and work culture differences have resulted in the failure of the new factory to achieve cost and production targets. The HR manager is aware that part of the problem is that the host country is a high$-$context culture while the home country is a low$-$context culture. The HR director asks the HR manager to address the situation. Specifically, the HR manager is tasked with facilitating a resolution to the conflicts and recommending changes.

Which action should the HR manager take to address the difference in the performance standards between the expatriates and the host$-$country employees?

Answers

Facilitate a discussion among all employees so that they can better understand each other and arrive at an agreement on reasonable expectations for work time.

Suggest to the HR director that expatriate performance standards be revised to account for host$-$country values and norms on productivity and efficiency.

Advise the expatriates to accept and adjust to the differences between the home country$$s culture and the culture of the host country$$s employees.

Recommend to the HR director that the performance standards for host$-$country employees be changed to better align with the home country$$s culture.