Ellen Moore (a): Living & Working in Korea

I. Executive Summary

The major problem facing SCG Project Manager Andrew Kilpatrick is the inability for the Korean and American teams to effectively collaborate on the project under the lead of Jack and Ellen.

We recommend that Andrew take the following course of action to remedy this problem: he should defer to his superiors since they have greater authority to implement changes and a more objective role in the organization. His superiors should proceed with a reorganization of the SI team to override the informal organization and create venues for conflict management. After reorganization, the entire SI team should participate in an off-site team-building session to integrate the two cultures, form greater bonds among the employees, and allow channels for feedback.

The recommended solution was chosen over alternative actions because the solution was most effective in terms of timeliness, acceptability to the teams, and minimization of financial and human resources. Moreover, the above solution targeted each cause of the problem and was most promising in terms of creating enduring harmony among the team.

II. Statement of Problem

Short term Problems

The final confrontation in the case between Andrew and Mr. Song is an outcropping of the most pressing, short-term problem facing Andrew: namely, the breakdown in social cohesion of the group. Their conversation ended with Mr. Song accusing Ellen of causing the project delays and Andrew, in turn, seemingly threatening to take Mr. Song off the project when he announced, “It doesn’t matter what has been agreed… We can start from scratch.” Andrew must find a way to bring both the North American and Korean teams together, working towards the same goal in order for this project to meet its completion deadline.
Other related short-term problems are the waste of scarce project resources on tasks outside of the scope of the contracted work and the power struggle between Mr. Kim and Ellen that is causing...