Facing Challenges: What Would Shoemaker Do? (Case Study Sample)

FACING CHALLENGES
STUDENT NAME
INSTRUCTOR NAME
COURSE TITLE
DATE SUBMITTED
FACING CHALLENGES
Mr. David Shoemaker was appointed the new CEO of the NBA China and he was mandated with the task of overseeing the basketball and the business development in great China. When NBA China started in 2008 it was quite successful until the year 2010 when some challenges started to occur that Mr. Shoemaker needs to face them. Social network services took over the industry and changed the way the fans viewed the sport. Originally the business was making money from franchises but online businesses took over. This continued over a period of time and the Chinese fans were no longer satiated by the sport. The only great player from China to play was Yao Ming and after he retired no prominent players came up from Great China. The CEO Mr. Shoemaker needs to come up with strategies that will ensure success to NBA China.
The league that is in China is the Chinese Basketball Association. The Chinese are known as the best in sports among the Asian community. NBA China has tried to cultivate more fans into watching the NBA China games. Most of the fans tend to enjoy watching the broadcasted matches that are displayed in the television. NBA China tries to recruit more fans than the players that love the NBA (Peng, 1997). The CBA being a local league would pose a major challenge to NBA China in setting up the league. The CEO Mr. Shoemaker did not see the local league as an obstacle to NBA China because he saw that if the fans were watching basketball it would benefit both leagues. The NBA China faced major challenges with the franchise stores. Initially China offered the largest market for the overseas market.
Mr. Shoemaker needs to address the cultural difference between China and the United States that is the parent for the NBA. When launching the product in China the majority of the staff that were used were expatriates who were to oversee the success of the NBA China. Expatriates have been used in the international market in top management positions as most firms want control by using workers from the parent company. Research shows that it costs the firm three to four times using an expatriate than hiring an individual in the home country. In spite of this fact most multinational use them since they offer more to the company through the experiences they have with the parent company as compared to the local managers. The expatriates though face a lot of challenges in the foreign countries that may make them fail to work effectively. Research findings show that failure rates of expatriates is very high estimated to be 20% to 50% depending on the country. The following are the common challenges that the expatriates face in foreign countries:
1 Family stress
2 Cultural inflexibility
3 Emotional immaturity
4 Responsibility overload
5 Physical breakdown
When expatriates managers are posted in a different country they have pressure to perform and may spend a lot of time working. This leads to family stress as the spouses do not get to spend time together. The spouse that is left out becomes lonely as the link family and friends is cut when they move to a foreign country. The spouse may also find it difficult to find employment in the foreign market and this may damage their career. The spouse may also fail to adapt to the different culture and be unhappy. This leads to tension within the marriage leading to even divorce. The expatriate managers may be appalled by the deep cultural differences to the country they have been posted. The expatriates finds it difficult to control their staff as the methods that are used in the home country will not work in the foreign country and research has been done to prove this concept. The expatriates needs to learn the different cultures that are found and develop a tactic that may work to control the staff. The expatriates hold local management positions but on being posted in foreign countries they hold top executive positions. This positions require people with emotional maturity for one to be responsible to the duties. The expatriates now have more people reporting to them in the foreign countries and meet top officials in government. Their social status increases in the foreign country and this may attract local females (Fishman, 2005). The combination of expanded responsibility and social status may lead to one destroying their career or marriages when one lacks emotional maturity. Some of the expatriates find it difficult to cope with responsibility overload. In the parent country they usually manage a few workers but in the foreign countries the number exponentially increases. The pressure to perform in the foreign country usually makes expatriates to work more hours in the office. Their family is adjusting to their new environment. The expatriates experience physical exhaustion and the elevated stress from work may lead to physical breakdown.
The CEO Mr. Brooke needs to address the challenges that the staff face in NBA China through carrying out training exercises. The training and development exercises will assist the staff to adapt to the Chinese culture which is foreign to the American culture. The expatriate managers going to be posted in China require training before they start working (Xie, Huang, 2010). There are two methods that are commonly employed when training the expatriates and they include the cognitive and behavioral methods. Cognitive methods are based on theory where the expatriates are given guidelines and rules either verbal or in written form. The following are some of the cognitive methods used in training:
1 Discussions
2 Lectures
3 Computer based training
4 Demonstrations
Discussions are done between the expatriates and the trainer by brainstorming ideas and it is the responsibility of the expatriate to keep the discussion to be ongoing. Lectures is an approach with minimum interaction where information is conveyed from the trainer to the expatriate. The computer based training can be either the best or worst method of training expatriates as some may be easily distracted. Demonstrations is whereby the expatriates are shown what to do and how to do it.
The behavioral methods that are used are interactive, creative and incorporate open-mildness. The following are examples that are used for behavioral training:
1 Behavior modelling
2 Case studies
3 Business games
4 Role playing
Behavior modelling focuses on observation of typical employees on how they behave in a given situation. Case studies is where real life situations are examined and discussed .It has trait...