Abby Saavedra works in Thorton Corporation Manila a media empire with more than 45,000 employees worldwide operating in more than a hundred countries. The company provides critical information to business and professionals on financial, legal, tax and accounting, scientific, healthcare and media markets which are keys to quality decision making. For faster, efficient, timely delivery of services to its clients, Thorton Corporation uses the latest technologies in information and communication. In Manila, majority of its more than 1,500 employees are millennials. They provide knowledge-based support for content, customer and consulting services to clients around the world. Its employees have strong backgrounds in banking and finance, economics, accounting, business, media, communications, law, marketing and some of them possess multi-language proficiency. One fine day, Abby was looking forward to her day in the office. While on her way to work, she already had her day planned, nothing new or unusual or so she thought. Just a few hours in the office, Abby was called by her immediate boss. As she made her way to the office of her boss, she was wondering what additional work will be assigned to her. But she was wrong. Abby was called for a different reason. Days ago, Abby had a problem meeting the deadline for a book which they need to send to their publisher. They were running after the production time which was critical for the book to be published as scheduled. She attributed the delay to unclear instructions from Joy who is her US counterpart. Considering that the problem does not only involve their team but will also affect manufacturing, she decided to inform her immediate boss about it. In turn, her boss informed the manager in the US who is his counterpart. In the US, Joy was called by her boss to be clarified on the matter. However, she obviously did not like what Abby did. She did not take it lightly as she felt offended. Joy believed that Abby should have talked to her first and not bring the issue to her boss. Joys reaction reached Abby through her boss. During the discussion, Joy told Abby that she should have clarified matters with her only as the problem can still be threshed out at their level. Abby explained that as it is their practice, she also sent an email to her to inform her what happened but at the same time she also told her manager about it. She said that it is common practice in their team to let their boss know whatever work- related problems they have so that he will be able to address and solve them together with his US counterpart. According to Abby, her decision to tell her boss was perceived by Joy as kind of complaining. Abbys understanding is that it seems that in the US, employees do not usually escalate problems to their boss as they settle the matter by themselves first. But in their office, she said that the norm is to inform the managers because it is their job to solve problems within the team. Abby said that it was never her intention to put Joy in a bad light. She was just concerned with the production deadline so she deemed it necessary to inform her boss which she didnt know would bring the matter to his US counterpart in the first place. She also believed that what she did was nothing unusual as it was for her the normal thing to do. Because of this incident, Abby realized how culture can serve as a major barrier in effective communication. To better understand what happened, she also checked a tool in their office called culture calculator. Based on the tool, Abby learned how different cultures work. She found that Americans are egalitarian at work while Filipinos are hierarchical. The different ways of working based on ones culture explains the behaviour of both Joy and Abby. Moreover, Abby also realized that sometimes email is not enough to fully convey ones message as there are no emotions to it. She said that when she finally had a teleconference with Joy, everything was settled as their face-to- face interaction cleared her of any ill motive. According to Abby, her sincerity as shown in her facial expression and her manner of speaking were keys to being able to fully impart her intentions. Lastly, since then, whenever she tells her boss of any issue or concern at the office, she would ask him not to tell his US counterpart for the meantime. *This case is based on actual events, but the institutions name and some of its characteristics have been changed.

1. Discuss the role of culture to improve communication in a workplace (500 words) 2. Provide three communication strategies to improve a multicultural workplace (500 words)