Cynthia Hodgens, the Human Resources Director at Wings Incorporated, had just been invited via email to attend a meeting with the Executive Team. This is interesting, she thought, I am never invited to their meetings, although she knew she should be part of the executive group. It seemed to be a common problem for Human Resources professionals, who do not necessarily get a “seat at the table”.

That Friday Cynthia sat down in the boardroom on the 33^rd floor of the downtown Vancouver office after helping herself to a cup of coffee. She had looked over the tray of breakfast pastries, but had refrained from picking up a croissant as she did not want to have a mess of crumbs in front of her on the boardroom table. She was also slightly nervous as to what was coming in this meeting. Cynthis smoothed out her clothing and looked attentive while checking out the rest of the people around the table. She saw the Director of Finance, the President, Vice President, Legal team members, as well as other key people. This must be something big, she thought.

The President, Charlene Spencer, got the meeting started and people introduced themselves as they went around the table. Introducing yourself during a meeting can be strangely nerve-wracking and stressful at times. She had heard people trip over their own name or title a few times over the years. Ten years of Human Resources experience and here she was feeling nervous! Was the company restructuring? Were layoffs coming? Was the company in trouble? All of these questions swirled in her brain. She took a sip of her coffee and waited for the “bomb to drop”.

“Wings Incorporated has just joined forces with Flight International of Germany!” The President announced. “Negotiations have been ongoing for months and we are now able to share this exciting news more widely with the senior management team here. There is a lot to be done now that this merger is official! Sorry that we could not share the merger plans earlier but we had to keep this information out of the media.” Charlene explained. “The new company name is, Wings in Flight International!”

The room was buzzing with excitement! Wow, Cynthia thought! This is exciting news. Then Cynthia was a bit quieter as she wondered how all this would work. Would there be layoffs and what is her role in all of this? Would there be new recruiting to be done? Would she be sent to Germany? She was soon asked to create the Human Resources plan for this merger and report back next week. That did not give her a lot of time. How would she work this all out? She had heard that it can be difficult to do business with German companies with all the cultural differences, plus understanding them is going to be extremely difficult because she knew no German at all.

Cynthia returned to her office in shock about this huge challenge. She was happy that the company was expanding and partnering with the German company. She also hoped all was well financially.

Cynthia took a deep breath and remembered her MBA course work. It had been a long time since she was thinking about Global Multi-National Enterprises. She decided to set aside her worries and figure it out!

Questions:

The response should be business style writing and use APA guidelines. The paper should be a total of three typed and double spaced pages that address the questions below, plus a cover page and reference page.

1. Describe what a merger is, the desired benefits of a merger, and the type of merger that is taking place.

2. What steps should Cynthia take from an International Human Resources Management perspective for this merger? What steps have already taken place for this merger prior to her being included?

3. What challenges could Cynthia and the employees face as they begin this new partnership with the German company and its employees?

4. What can Cynthia do to prepare employees to work together successfully?