Assignment 2: Management Team Decision

Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is to explore the preparations required for taking trips abroad.

Setting It Up

Read the case and turn your attention to answering what the company should do to prepare the chosen candidate for the assignment. Answer the questions at the bottom of the page. You should be sure to briefly explain your decisions. Please note that your response should not be more than one page.

MEN OR WOMAN, WHO GOES ABROAD?

As a member of the regional sales management team for a multinational corporation with offices located on almost every continent, you've made some tough decisions throughout your career. Unfortunately, you feel that today's decision might possibly be the team's hardest yet. Sales in Asia have been dropping lately, and the team has been charged with choosing one of its salespersons to take over as the new regional manager for that area.

Two salespeople immediately come to mind. Laura, one of the potential candidates, has been a sales representative for the North American region for seven years. She has a Master of Business Administration and was a foreign exchange student in Hong Kong for two years during college. She is extremely competent, knowledgeable, and confident and has consistently been a top performer at the company since she was hired. Adam, the other possible candidate, has been with the North American region for only four years, but before that he served three and a half years as a sales representative for the European region of a well-known competitor. He too is qualified, with a Master of Business and considerable experience in international assignments, but his performance has not been quite as stellar as Laura's. Neither candidate speaks any Asian languages.

Lingering in the back of your mind is a conversation you had with a colleague a few days ago. You and John, a fellow team member, were discussing international assignments, and the subject of sending women abroad came up. John said that in his experience, women do not make good expatriate candidates for several reasons. First, they are not as willing as men to take assignments in foreign countries due to family obligations and other personal reasons. Second, women are typically not as successful as men in foreign assignments because certain cultures tend to view women as inferior to men (including some Asian cultures, you think to yourself). Last, John said that women are more likely to be subjected to discrimination or sexual harassment than men are. Although you initially agreed with John's perception, you later conclude that times have changed: after all, the world is much smaller and more culturally diverse today than it was when you went on your first international assignment.

You can't stop thinking about John's comments, though. You enter the meeting room weighing the pros and cons of each candidate and wondering if her Asian counterparts would accept Laura.

Source: L.K Stroh, A. Varma, & S.J. Valy-Durbin, "Why are women left at home: Are they unwilling to go on international assignments?" Journal of World Business 35, n. 3 (Fall 2000): 241-255.

Questions

1. Decide which candidate the company should send abroad. Defend your decision.

2. Did the decision-making process change your mind? How so?

3. Determine what, if anything, the company should do to prepare the chosen candidate for the Asian assignment. Would denying the promotion to Laura solely because she's female, particularly on the generalized "women aren't/won't/can't" basis mentioned, be illegal or lawsuit-vulnerable?