8.7 Developing a common ground, a case study approach

First of all, read the case study for comprehension. In a second step you will take on the role of cultural advisor. Your task is to analyse the case based on the following steps and questions:

1. Who is involved? Answer this question by simply listing the persons involved in the case study.
2. Where can you detect differences and commonalities or, in other words, which typical cultural factors may be at play here? Answer this question by applying the knowledge you have now gained about cultures. Use and reflect on any explanations that come into your mind and seem plausible.
3. Which issue domains appear to be particularly relevant here? In other words, where do you see areas that seem to cause irritation & confusion and need to be addressed?
4. Which contextual issues that might have an influence the outcome of the interaction do we need to take account of?
5. What do you think are the goals of the German engineers and the Indian employees respectively?
6. Where do you find language issues which require explanation? Here it is of particular importance to note down terms used which are linked to larger concepts.
7. Where do you see potential for negotiation, i.e. establishing a common basis of understanding?
8. What might a negotiated culture look like? Choose two areas or domains and evaluate the negotiation options. Can you also detect areas where a new approach might be found?

The case

A large German engineering company HENNES AG (name changed) manufactures high-performance customized filling and packaging systems for multinational companies such as Heineken, PepsiCo and Anheuser Busch. In this industry, precision, quality and punctual delivery are paramount.

As a global player, HENNES AG also provides a large amount of Indian companies with turnkey lines for the manufacture of beverage, food and non-food products. These companies are comprised of local manufacturers and producers under license from large food and drinks conglomerates (such as PepsiCo). Since the large multi-national players require high degrees of performance and precision in their production lines (some of them, for example, running 24 hours a day at a speed of 81,000 PET bph with a maximum permissible reject rate of 0.02%), the amount of original HENNES AG spare parts required to maintain these machines is considerably high, as is their price.

Contrary to expectations, a sales analysis revealed that HENNES’ spare parts’ sales in India were in no relation to the amount of HENNES AG machines operating there. In fact, the sales of spare parts were rapidly diminishing. On closer inspection, HENNES AG discovered that the Indian companies had been re-tooling and repairing their machines with generic, locally produced parts. In order to regain these lost sales, HENNES AG entered into a joint-venture with a large Indian producer and distributor of spare parts for production lines (Jaipur Machine Parts (JMP)). By combining JMP’s local expertise and their access to local distribution channels with the German concept of quality, HENNES AG was soon able to serve their Indian customers successfully with reasonably-priced, original parts.

The venture was so successful that two years later it became a HENNES AG subsidiary. And when a new Production Director was appointed to the HENNES AG Board of Directors (Vorstand), he decided to expand the JMP manufacturing facilities and move the production of one of their less complex products (labelling machines) from Germany to the Indian plant in order to lower production costs. The machines were to be sold both in India and in Europe, including Germany.

One of the consequences of this measure was that most of the workforce in the German division Labelling was laid off, apart from five (of the original ten) key engineers, who were kept on in order to train the Indian engineers how to manufacture the labelling machines in India. To this end, five Indian engineers visited HENNES AG for six months (and were booked into rooms in a local hotel) in order to learn the manufacturing techniques which they were to put into practice in India. They were to work closely with the German engineers and clearly part of the success of this venture would rely on good communication between them

However, the German engineers (Mr/Herr Sievekind, Mr/Herr Beeck, Mr/Herr Holler) often complained that their Indian colleagues (introduced as Ajay Singh, Dipak Chandra, Mandeep Bhakta) were difficult to understand and too familiar: they seemed to get very close to them when they were explaining the machine assembly, used first names and touched them on the arms at times. Furthermore, they wanted to talk about issues outside of work, and did not seem to want to go home when it came to leaving work at 3.30 p.m. (what the German engineers called Feierabend which could be translated as time off after work).

In addition, the Indian engineers often nodded enthusiastically when the construction of a machine part was explained to them (after a while the German engineers learned that an apparent shaking of the head could mean yes) but were then unable to put the parts together when asked.

The Hennes AG engineers at one plant explained the task repeatedly and became increasingly frustrated. In one case, Mandeep Bhakta was asked to weld two machine parts together but Herr Sievekind regarded the work as sloppy (too much welding material was used and the join did not form a neat line) although the parts adhered to strength requirements. The Indian welder Mandeep did not seem to understand the problem. In general, the engineers Ajay, Dipak and Mandeep were convinced that the engineers from Hennes AG did not like them, since they rarely smiled and did not appear to want to socialize with them after the 3.30 pm deadline.

Ajay, Dipak and Mandeep were, however, pleasantly surprised when one of the personal assistants, Sarah Fischer, who helped to coordinate their trip, smiled and joked with them, called them by their first names and was prepared to give them her mobile phone number. So, when Ajay realized that it was her birthday, he called her to congratulate her (it was her day off) but was surprised not to encounter an enthusiastic response from Sarah on the other end.

When Ajay, Dipak and Mandeep were finally sent back to JMP, they felt reasonably capable of performing the tasks that were required of them, but were puzzled and somewhat shocked by the reception they had been given and the way they had been taught and evaluated, since the phrase in Ordnung (which could be translated as ok or in order) seemed to be the most praise they had received.

When a particular part that was required by JMP did not appear to have been sent out by Hennes, one JMP employee wrote an e-mail to the Production Department and copied the mail to the Board of Directors (BOD), who were sitting in the headquarters in a different part of the country. According to the German employee who received the mail, it was felt to be “direct and accusatory”. According to the sender of the e-mail from JMP, sending such an e-mail and copying the BOD was seen to be normal procedure and was in no way meant to be offensive or disruptive. This was, in his interpretation, “the appropriate method to choose when voicing concerns about a logistics issue”.

When production began in the Indian plant, problems began to emerge, such as deadlines not being met, parts going missing and many machines being unsaleable on the German market (for both functional and aesthetical reasons).