Read the GFAC Consulting case and answer the following questions:

• What are the different sources of conflict between the two groups?
• What role do national culture and organizational culture play in this conflict?
• What intervention approach might you take in this case?

Global Financial Advising Consultants (GFAC) is a financial services consulting firm headquartered in New York City, with offices in London and Tokyo. GFAC provides outsourced financial services to multinational corporations to advise them in areas such as tax strategies and subsidiary financial structures. The company is structured as a set of global consulting teams led by a senior consultant that work with just one or two clients in depth in order to best understand their business structure and detailed financials. The senior consultants analyze the financial situation of the client company to provide advice and counsel.

Every GFAC employee worldwide goes through a rigorous orientation program to ensure that all employees understand the company's core values of "(1) Above all, client partnerships and satisfaction, (2) Operate with agility, (3) Dedication to team, (4) Respect and integrity, and (5) Sustainable long-term results." During orientation, employees watch a video showing the company president, Mark Rhoades, telling an apocryphal story of a client relationship early in the company's history that is intended to reinforce these core values. Apparently one consulting team was preparing to make a big presentation, and it spent an entire night in the New York office poring through financial reports for a large and important client. At 4 a.m., one of the analysts noted a major discrepancy in the data, and an investigation revealed unethical financial manipulation by the client. The consulting team conferred, and the next morning went into the presentation, immediately notifying the client that GFAC would no longer accept their business. "Sometimes respect, integrity, and sustainable long-term results can only be achieved by going against the grain," Rhoades says in the video. "We can only be partners with our clients as 'one team' if we have integrity."

As a part of the significant analysis work done at GFAC, the senior consultants require a great deal of reporting generated from the client

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financial software systems, so each consulting team initially had a staff of local analysts who were responsible for managing the reports needed from the systems. Two years ago the company opened a shared services center in India, where the global consulting teams now share a team of financial analysts who produce the necessary reports for the senior consultants. Most of the local financial analysts' jobs were moved to the India center and the local employees were let go. This change was intended to streamline the analysis process and provide global consistency by having one expert reporting team provide the same reports for all consulting teams. (The model is displayed in the figure below.) GFAC hired a staff of advanced professionals in India, most of whom hold public accounting certifications and degrees from India's top business schools.

Implementation of this change has been rocky worldwide, but this new process has not been well received by the New York team in particular. Specifically, the New York team seems to receive reports late (well beyond the agreed-upon deadlines), with errors and in what it terms an "unprofessional" presentation format. Turnover at the India center quickly approached 35 percent to 50 percent, and now most shared services center employees stay employed at GFAC only for an average of 6 months before leaving to a competitor.

You have been invited as an organization development practitioner to help design an intervention that will increase the partnership between the New York and India teams. Following are excerpts taken from interviews with each group. Each interview was conducted by a native of the respective culture.

New York Team

"It's impossible to get a direct answer out of them. We are under a tight deadline each week to get the reports produced in enough time for us to prepare for client meetings, and every week we seem to run into another difficulty. I wish they would just tell us when they can't get them done so we could plan better."

"There is so much turnover on the team, it's hard to keep track of who is doing what."

"I never agreed to this offshoring model in the first place, and I said this was going to happen from the start. We spend much more time and energy trying to work with a team thousands of miles away than when the team was downstairs in this building."

"We really need to develop a more effective training program for the India team. They have very little idea how to produce a professional report that is ready for a client presentation."

"They won't take any action unless I also copy their manager on the e-mail and get the manager to tell them to do something. It is slowing us down, and I don't understand why it takes so many people to get involved in a simple action."

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"If I press them on whether they can get me the report by Friday, they say yes, but then Friday comes and goes, and I don't have my report. It will eventually show up over the weekend or on Monday, but I needed it on Friday."

India Team

"I find that it is very difficult to understand on our conference calls. They speak so quickly I often cannot understand what they are saying and they are very impatient when we ask them to repeat. Sometimes I cannot even get a word in between them to ask them to repeat, and by the time I do the moment is gone."

"I think they do not understand our qualifications. Many of us on the team have advanced degrees and can do much more than the simple spreadsheet work they ask us to do. I wish they would trust that we could do more."

"Often they invite us to participate in calls when it is very late in the evening or early in the morning. They have one standing call at 3:30 a.m. local India time and another at 9 p.m. local time. I am used to the hard work but it seems that if they really wanted us to be part of the team they would appreciate the burden this places on our families."

"I do not know if it is appropriate for me to say this, but sometimes I feel that I have an idea about a better approach for the work to be done."

"Recently the program team came here to visit us, which we all very much appreciated. We had a very collaborative meeting and I feel that they listened carefully to our opinion and got to know us better. Unfortunately they came during the week ofDiwali, which is a major holiday so most people were not in the office, and we had to come in despite wanting to celebrate with our families."

"They may stop involving us if we say no to their requests, but sometimes they ask us to do the impossible."