Juanita, an HR director, is preparing for a year-long assignment in Uzbekistan to immerse herself in the local culture and enhance her management skills. She seeks insights from Ludmilla, the Uzbek director, to understand cultural impacts on organization and human resource management. The document also discusses factors affecting expatriate success and the high failure rate of expatriate managers in Uzbekistan, emphasizing the influence of Russian culture on the workplace dynamics.

1. It has been a year since Juanita finished her degree and about
two years since she has been promoted to HR Director status.
As part of her training her boss has offered to send her to their
HQ in Uzbekistan for one year. The office is staffed with
several Americans and English speaking Uzbeks. She has spent
some time studying the people and culture and thinks this will
be an “adventure of a lifetime”. Of course, she knows that it
will be a very different world for her. She intends to be a
student of the culture and apply all that she has learned in the
last few years.
Juanita has asked for a week to do research on the culture and
how it has impacted the way their organization fulfills their
mission. This is a former Soviet country that is populated with
mostly Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Uzbeks and Tajiks. She has
learned that they think of themselves as European but are
primarily Muslim in their religious beliefs but motivated by
pursuing material wealth.
As she contemplates how little she knows about this country and
its people, some anxiety begins to creep in along with the
excitement of the challenge of the unknown. To ensure she is
reasonably well prepared before she goes, she decides to
communicate with the Uzbek Director, Ludmilla Kovalenko.
Ludmilla, is Ukranian and has offered to provide her insights
into the areas Juanita is interested in. In her first email she told
Ludmilla that she will be sending some emails with questions
related to the cultural context and other issues that may impact
how work gets done and the mission accomplished.
Assignment 2: Discussion - Global Management
This assignment is designed to integrate the reflection of
personal experience and the information covered in the

2. textbook.
A
ssuming
you are
Ludmilla
responding to a recent email from Juanita, answer the following
questions:
Besides cultural differences, what other factors might affect
human resource management with this international office?
What abilities will help Juanita succeed and potentially fail in
this assignment as an expatriate?
What has been the reason for the high failure rate of expatirate
managers in Uzbekistan? What can Ludmilla do to increase the
success of expats?
Since Uzbekistan has been significantly influenced by Russia
for over 70 years, from Hofstede’s perspective, what impact has
culture had on appraisal systems, self- managing teams, and
systems for gathering suggestions from workers?
By
Friday, February 13, 2015
submit your response to the appropriate
Discussion Area
. Use the same
Discussion Area
to comment on your classmates' submissions and continue the
discussion until
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
.
Comment on how your classmates would address differing
views.