This case deals with the settlement of a female American consultant in South Korea as project manager and she has to face different problem coming from the different culture and custom.
Ellen is a hard-working woman who already has an international and cross-cultural experience in Bahrain as project coordinator before she join WSI working for SGC. After two successful projects in America, she was approached for the project in South Korea. Moreover, since she arrived in Korea and tried to adapt as much as possible by learning the basis of the language and customs.
Even if Ellen does her best to integrate customs, many troubles do not come from her. The different culture and different expectations influence the project. Confucianism and hierarchical respect are not in favor of Ellen. There is also a perceptible sexism from the Korean consultants and the co-manager. Even if mindsets evolve, it can be feeling. Ellen already works in Arab culture that is close from Korea about the working women, if she succeed in the past, there is no reason that she fail now.
However, some tensions arise with the local co manager and local consultants are less experienced than she expected. Jack does not stand working with a co manager and try to counter Ellen’s encounter. My opinion is that the external mediation could be the best answer to manage these problems in order to finish the project on time. I do not think that binge drinking after work could solve anything except to exclude Ellen of the group. Moreover, when the project will be over Jack and Ellen will not have to work together anymore but at this time Jack needs Ellen for her experience and Ellen needs jack to keep federate the consultants. A retrofit of the project team is also to exclude, Ellen and Jack will lose the legitimacy link to their rank from the team.
The main objectives of Ellen are to succeed the $3.5 billion project without any delay. The language barrier is a