Acknowledgement

First of all, we would like to thank Almighty God for giving us the strength and

knowledge for preparing this case. Secondly, we would like to thank our respected

instructor, Mr. Mir Semon Haider for allowing us to work in this case and giving us all

the necessary help and suggestions that we needed.

We again want to thank our faculty for all the encouragement and that helped us

complete this project successfully. Lastly, we want to thank each other for being so

cooperative and for all their contribution. Thank you all.

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Course: MGT 372

Date: 6th July 2008.

ToMir Semon HaiderLecturer,School of Business,North South University.

Subject: Submission of case analysis on ‘John Higgins: Weaver Yamazaki Pharmaceuticals of Japan’.

Dear Sir,

We have completed our case analysis report on ‘John Higgins: Weaver Yamazaki Pharmaceuticals of Japan’.

This is a required course material of MGT 372 to develop the major idea and analysis we were interlinked. The good mutual understanding has helped a lot to complete the whole case analysis. We are happy to show our potential through this case.

We are in front of you for your kind acceptance of this case.

Yours truly,

Md Tabsir Rajib M Hossain Al Alam052 554 030 052 535 030

Mahmudunnabi Chowdhury Md. Abrar Hossain052 471 030 052 387 030

Efat Farhana052 340 030 2

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Photo Copy of the Case

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Photo Copy of the Case

Case Summary

The case mainly talks about Leonard Prescott, vice president and general

manager of Weaver Yamazaki Pharmaceutical of Japan and John Higgins,

executive assistant of Prescott. Weaver Pharmaceutical which is the parent

company had extensive international operations in its history and was one of

the largest US drug firms. The competitive advantage that this company had

over its competitors was its Research and Development. They used to export

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their products to Japan since the early 1930s and later on to prepare

themselves from the Japanese competitors, they started a jointly owned

business with Yamazaki in 1954. The head of the subsidiary was Shozo

Suzuki but he limited his participations as he was the President of several

other subsidiaries. Prescott with John Higgins and several other Japanese

directors managed the daily operations.

However, the problem emerges from the fact that according to Prescott,

Higgins was losing his effectiveness in representing the US parent company

because of his emotional attachment with the Japanese culture. There are

many instances in the case that indicates Higgins in support of the Japanese

employees. He works according to the Japanese work customs as he wastes

his time by listening to the problems of the employees in the workplace,

justifies their demand to change the personnel policy and moreover he

objected vigorously for the dismissal of a manager due to lacked initiative,

leadership and general competency. According to Prescott, the turning point

of Higgins behavior was when he married a Japanese woman and totally got

involved in Japanese culture.

For these reasons, Prescott is having some conflict to deal with Higgins about

this issues. Higgins seems to be appearing like an adversary rather than an

ally of Prescott. Being an experienced business person, Prescott thinks that

to be the best international executive, it is needed to blend the

fundamentals of the home point of view and as well as understanding

foreign culture. Finally, the question arises that how this conflict can be

solved between Prescott and Higgins to ensure a smooth operation of the

organizational activities.

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Question Number 1.

How would you describe Higgins and Prescott’s attitude towards implementing US personnel policies in the Japanese operation?

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Answer to Question Number 1: Leonard Prescott is the Vice President and General Manager of Weaver- Yamazaki

Pharmaceutical of Japan and John Higgins is known there as the executive assistant of

Prescott. Higgins and Prescott attitude towards implementing the US personnel policies

in the Japanese operation were quite different.

Higgins and Prescott were there in Japan to balance the mixture of Japanese operation

with American management style. This is because the Japanese were excellent in

operations and the Americans in management techniques. However, Higgins was trying

to do something exactly the opposite as according to him the Americans have created

an ugly image of themselves in abroad and he was trying to remove that ugly image of

Americans from Japan. Higgins was very fond of Japanese culture for various reasons

and therefore all his activities were in alignment with the Japanese methods. He wanted

to build up a bottom consensus for decision making which means that he want everyone

to participate in important decisions like terminating jobs, setting compensation,

rewarding systems, etc. For example, many employees used to register their complains

and demands with Higgins which included more liberal fringe benefits, such as

recreational activities and the acquisition of rest houses for employees to use at resort

areas. Higgins also insisted to change the personnel policy from performance based to

seniority based and he did that on behalf of the Japanese employees. During the

working hours, Higgins spent a lot of time listening to the problems of the subordinates

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and this absolutely contradictory with the American style of management that says “

Personal Life should be separated from Professional Life”. In doing so, he was actually

wasting his time by being more social. He made close social ties with many people in the

company and had even attended marriages for some of the young employees. Higgins

was more focused on to see honesty and loyalty in workplace rather leadership

behavior and general competency in the workplace. He objected vigorously on the

dismissal of a manager due to lacked initiative, leadership and general competency. He

said that the person was loyal and honest and also mentioned that the company was

partially at fault for having kept him on for the last 10 years without spotting the

incompetency. He was losing his effectiveness in representing the US parent company

because of an extraordinary identification with the Japanese culture.

Prescott’s attitude was absolutely different in implementing the US personnel policies in

the Japanese operations. He seems to follow an ethnocentrism management approach

which means that he believe that his culture is superior to follow than others. He

believes to have a High Power distance with the employees working under him meaning

at work no personal issues can be discussed. Prescott have not wasted any time in

listening to the problems of others. Moreover, it reflects that he wanted to wanted to

establish individualism in the organization rather than collectivism. For this, he had set

all the performance management and compensation systems according to the individual

performance. Then he believes that the company should go for short term orientation

with the employees rather than long term orientation and therefore he does not value

seniority in workplace but values things like leadership, skills, competencies, etc. For

this, he had dismissed a manager who lacked initiative, leadership and general

competency.

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Question Number 2.

What are the major reasons behind the differences in

attitude?

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Answer to Question Number 2:

The major reasons behind the differences in attitude between Leonard Prescott, Vice

President and General Manager of Weaver- Yamazaki Pharmaceutical of Japan, and his

assistant, John Higgins emerges from the fact that Prescott is an international

businessman with his 25 years of experience from Weaver whereas Higgins is a young

person who is emotionally attached to Japan to a great extent.

Prescott being an international businessman with a vast experience had spent most of

his career time in several countries like India, Philippines and Mexico and several years

in the home office international division. He had an ethnocentrism type of attitude and

therefore he had always believed that the American culture is the best to be followed.

However, all these characteristics and attitudes of Prescott were absolutely

contradictory with those of Higgins. The reason behind this difference in attitude is that

in his Midway through college , he joined the army where he learned Japanese

language. Then fifteen months later, he was assigned as an interpreter and translator in

Tokyo and took more courses in Japanese language, literature and history. He made

many Japanese friends, fell in love with Japan and he promised that he will return to

Japan one day.

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According to Prescott, a turning point took place in Higgins’ behavior and that was when

he married a Japanese woman and when he asked for and received an extended stay in

Japan indefinitely. He moved to a strictly Japanese neighborhood, relaxed in a Kimono

at home, used the public bath and was even invited to weddings, neighborhood parties

and even Buddhist funerals.

Weaver had a policy of granting their employees a paid leave for two months in every

two years for the employees and his family. Here, Higgins showed little interest in this

type of vacations rather he preferred to visit remote parts of Japan with his wife.

Moreover, the reasons behind the difference in attitude may emerge from the fact that

Prescott and Higgins do not follow similar behavioral practices rather they are far away

from each other in terms of those. Prescott being an experienced American

businessman, maintains a high Power Distance in the working environment. He does not

prefer too much consultation between superiors and subordinates. He thinks personal

life should not be mixed with professional life and in that sense employees while

working should not waste time in talking about the social and family issues.

Then he also does not like a decentralized approach in decision making and he does not

like that employees giving suggestions about redesigning the management policies. He

thinks that the superiors and the top level managers are the best to take these decisions

and the employees need to obey them.

Whereas, Higgins due to his emotional attachment with Japan is very low on Power

Distance. According to him, the most important task is to consult and maintain his

relationship with the employees. For these, he does not focus that whether employees

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are utilizing their time properly or not but he wastes time on talking about the social

issues. He listens to their complains and if they have any opinions then they use Higgins

to register those. While following these approach, Higgins once objected vigorously

about the dismissal of a manager who lacked initiative, leadership and general

competency.

By focusing on Prescott’s attitude, we found that he is more inclined towards

individualism whereas Higgins towards Collectivism. For this sort of preference, Prescott

was following the Pay for Performance policy in the organization which means that

despite focusing on employees life in organization they see the current performance of

the employees. If the employees can perform, no matter that he is a senior or a junior

will be promoted and will be better compensated. Whereas Higgins and his

subordinates totally oppose this practice and they think that it is not fair and it creates

an immense pressure on the job security.

Moreover, they are also different in their risk taking behavior. Higgins has a high level of

trust for the employees and he does not waste time on foreseeing every possible

contingency and monitoring every action for compliance in business relationships. He

thinks like the Japanese culture that it is the best to utilize the time in investing and

innovating. On the contrary, Prescott does not have a high degree of trust on anyone

and therefore he focuses to build contingency plans for future failures and is more

concerned about aligning the tasks, duties and responsibilities with the overall

objectives of the organization .

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Question Number 3.

If you were the Weaver corporate manager responsible for the

Japanese operations and the conflict between Higgins and

Prescott came to your attention, what would you do? Be sure

to identify some of the alternatives first and then make your

recommendations.

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Answer to Question Number 3:

Being the Weaver corporate manager, I think that in order to achieve our organizational

objectives, it is vital that people share a very good working relationship with each other

in the workplace. Therefore, as soon as Higgins and Prescott scenario comes into my

mind, I think that it is my most important responsibility to resolve the conflicts between

them to ensure a smooth operation for the entire organization.

The situation over here is that the two companies have started working together mainly

in order to increase the international market segment of Weaver. Before that, Weaver

Pharmaceutical had some extensive international operations and was one of the largest

US Drug firms. Prescott had spent 25 years in Weaver and he had already served in

India, Philippines and Mexico and in that sense he had a much greater experience than

Higgins for handling international issues. Whereas, Higgins had an extraordinary

attachment with the Japanese culture and for that he is losing his effectiveness as an

expatriate to represent the US parent company. His activities were not seen to be in

alignment with the organizational objectives but with his personal objectives.

Therefore, there are some recommendations for both Prescott and Higgins to follow.

Before describing the recommendations, I would like to state that Prescott and Higgins

should come in a mutual understanding with each other as soon as possible. Higgins

should not forget that he is representing the US parent company in Japan and not

representing his deep attachment with Japan.

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Whereas, Prescott should understand that every employee in the organizations should

work happily rather than being forced to work for the rigid structure. For achieving

these, they really have to how to manage change in the organization and also how to

manage conflict.

1. For being more effective in their leadership abilities both Prescott and Higgins

can follow a Model of Six Transformational Leadership Behavior to properly

represent the US parent company. The needed behaviors are given below:

Ability to Articulate a Vision

Providing an appropriate Model for the employees to follow

Promoting the Acceptance of Group Goals

Communicating the High Performance Expectations to the employees

Providing Individual Support to the employees

Providing Intellectual Stimulation to the employees

They should know how to Articulate a Vision:

Here, the problem of the organization is the vision of the joint venture is only viewed

and felt by the top management.

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The Japanese employees are not perceiving the vision in the same way as top

management does and therefore they are not willing to change themselves to achieve

the vision. For example, when their compensation system is tied to their performance,

then they are opposing it without knowing that this will help them to achieve their

vision one day. There are lots of examples like this in the organization where the

employees do not know how their work is contributing to the accomplishment of the

organizational vision.

Therefore, Prescott and Higgins should work together to increase their capability to

develop the vision in such a way that it will capture people’s hearts and minds.

However, it is very important for them to communicate the vision to the employees

personally so that the vision becomes acceptable.

Well, the justification behind this recommendation is that when the company’s vision is

accepted by each and every employee, then they will understand that they need to

balance their working methods with the Americans in order to give a cooperative effort

towards fulfilling their vision.

They should provide an Appropriate an Model for the employees to follow:

In some situations, when we know that our Compensation package is linked to

Performance, we do not know what exactly do we need to do achieve that high

performance. They think that this type of systems have been introduced to put them in

a bad situation which will eventually force them to leave the job. Here, the Japanese

employees thinks that they are the only people who are being pushed to perform high

in the organization.

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Therefore, to overcome these sort of situations, Prescott and Higgins should provide

them an Appropriate Model to follow. There are many examples which can be given for

this situation. If the managers think that the employees should be there on time, should

wear proper dress codes, avoid wasting time on talking about social issues, then it is

John Higgins first who needs to do all these things. Higgins attitude and his actions

should perfectly reflect all these activities if they want the Japanese to follow them.

The justification behind this recommendation is that when the Japanese employees will

see that their boss and Higgins( who knows a lot about Japanese culture) are following

the same rules and regulations, then they will try to adapt to that situation and then the

probability of them to perform high increases to a great extent. For example, a faculty

makes it a must for the students to wear formal outfits in the classroom. Here, the

students cannot complain that they feel uncomfortable in summer to wear formal

outfits because they always see the faculty wearing suits.

Well, it was very important for me to describe some of the behaviors of the Model

mentioned above and the rest of the parts are self explanatory from my point of view.

2. Prescott should transform his behavior as a positive boss rather than being a

negative boss.

If the behavior of any boss is perceived as negative by his employees, then the

probability that the employees will listen to the boss decreases to a great extent. These

things were used to be practiced in the early days of the Industrial Revolution when

poorly trained and unskilled labors were treated as disposable.

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Under this kind of organizational structure, employees develop some of the worst

possible of work habits and attitudes. For example, they lie and cover up errors and

spoilage, they suffer more frequent stress related illness, they don’t figure out how to

do their job better and they adopt the attitudes of “ every person for themselves”.

Therefore, I would recommend Prescott to use constructive feedback rather than

criticism, involving in matters rather than just telling and he should not have unrealistic

expectations. Moreover, there are some other things that he should avoid if he has

those like losing temper over minor things, taking everything seriously that is lacking

humor and never acknowledging and thanking employees.

Lastly, he can use the powerful words below to motivate the employees for giving high

performance. For example:

Thank you

You have done a great job

I value your contribution

What do you think?

Is there another way we could?

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Well, the justification behind this recommendation of mine is that if he is able to

incorporate all these activities in the organization then at the end of the day, he will get

happy employees, they will be more productive, will take less time off work due to

health problems, stay longer in an organization and thus reducing turnover and

retraining costs.

3. Finally, Prescott being the Vice President and General Manager of this

corporation should take some initiatives to manage and eliminate the conflict

between him and Higgins.

Prescott need to identify the actual reasons behind this conflict with then should

remove them one by one. It is quite impossible to continue work in a situation where

the conflict is with the person who is representing the US parent company.

Prescott should plan a meeting with Higgins to address all the sources of conflicts

between them. If Higgins is interested to change the management policy from

performance to seniority in case of promotion, then Prescott should make him

understand with a polite tone that in order to derive High Performance in today’s

context, it is essential to link compensation with employee performance which is a

modern Human Resource Practice. If Higgins and the Japanese employees who supports

him think that the Performance Management Technique is not fair and it is not

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measuring performance correctly, then they may go for a participative approach to

select the performance measuring techniques.

However, while making the alternatives one vital thing that should be kept in mind that“ We

want to achieve our Organizational Objectives by meeting the individual needs of the

employees”. Therefore, when employees know that it is their method of measuring

performance, they will accept it.

Another thing that needs to be addressed over here is that the Rewards and Recognition

programs preferred by the American employees will not be preferred by the Japanese

employees. Therefore, Prescott should redesign the Reward and Recognition program by

taking ideas from Higgins. Well this is because rewards and recognitions are needed to

motivate the employees but in order to make them more effective at work it is important to

tailor these programs according to the needs of the employees. However, Higgins should also

understand that a continuous increase in the demand of benefits will exceed administrative

expenses of the organization. After following the above recommendations, I believe that the

conflict between Prescott and Higgins will not be there and they will be able to focus on their

long run objectives.

To conclude, I would like to state that after following all my recommendations, if it is found

that the conflict still remains, then there are two options available. At first, if the conflict is

personal, then I would suggest both of them to resolve it immediately, otherwise they will

have to face some serious consequences. Secondly, if there is no change in Higgins after all

these situations, then we should give him some time to

improve himself and if not we have to give him a firm handshake and tell him that “It was

good to work with you but we are very sorry as we cannot continue to work with you”.

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Reference

Daniels, D.J., Radebaugh, H.L &Sullivan,P.D.(2004). International Business Environments and Operations. 10th edn. Pearson Education: India

http://www2.ctic.purdue.edu/KYW/Brochures/ManageConflict.html was seen on July 4, 2008 and logged at 11.52 pm

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APPENDIX

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