Expansion Of Our Enterprise Into Africa Case Study

Expansion of our enterprise into Africa will provide a host of challenges and opportunities to our core value of diversity. Before venturing into this new land, significant regard is required for the culture differences between our own company and employee cultures and that of the national and individual cultures of local nationals to hire for our expanded operations, in order to mitigate the risk of cultural collision (Daniels, Radebaugh & Sullivan, 2015, p. 50-51). As the individual group cultures of future employees are unknown, focus of this discussion is on the national cultures of the Republic of Mozambique and the United Republic of Tanzania, the two countries under investigation to expand our hospitality services in the luxury camping …show more content…
In general, both countries have a relatively high power distance, meaning that employees expect an “autocratic” leader whom lacks democracy and may take credit for others work (Daniels et al., 2015, p. 64; Hofstede Centre, n.d.a; Hofstede Centre, n.d.b). Furthermore, the low-income category of both countries results in employee perception of minimal reward for essential work (Daniels et al., 2015, p. 62; World Bank Group, 2016a; World Bank Group, 2016b). As such, employees anticipate a work environment of inequity, which results in an apathetic work ethic and inefficiencies in business processes (Hofstede Centre, n.d.a; Sharma & Christie, 2010, p. 282). In contrast, individualism is very low, which means these “collectivist societies” put the needs of the group before the needs of oneself (Hofstede Centre, n.d.a; Hofstede Centre, n.d.b). For the business environment, close interactions foster this group membership, which results in frequent socializing and lost productivity. However, the company can leverage this “high collectivism” by having employees operate in teams and compensate good performance with fringe benefits that support the employee’s family members, such as childcare assistance (Daniels et al., 2015, p. …show more content…
71; Hofstede Centre, n.d.c). Furthermore, due to close alignment of the cultural factors between Tanzania and Mozambique, the driving force of difference between the two is the factor of indulgence, which, when high, has shown to result in low productivity (Sharma & Christie, 2010, p. 282). Moreover, the extremely high rate of indulgence in Mozambique would require greater monetary benefits to entice desired employee behaviors. Therefore, Tanzania is the recommended choice location from a cultural