Case Study Of The Motorola Case

Chi-Hang Ng

BUS 307

Report 3 (Motorola case)

May 24, 2014

For most businesses, the easiest way to increase profitability is to reduce cost. In order to lower the production costs, many businesses tend to move their manufacturers to other countries. However, different countries have different philosophy and ethical duty. When a business that wants to expand or start its business in a different country, it has to acknowledge the differences in cultural ethics. In the Motorola case, the company’s conductor had a hard time deciding what ethical action should be taken for the incident between two employees. In order to find the best solution, we need to digest the issue of “What Price Safety” case with points of views of James Rachels’ “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism.”

The background of the Motorola case was that Motorola formed a Joint Venture (JV) with a Nambunese company in 1969. These two companies produced microelectronic products together at the facility in Anzen, and their productivity remained effectively. The Anzen facility always concentrated on a strong tradition of safety consciousness. “Final Test Assembly” was one the operations which consisted of 3 teams, and each team had 8 Nambunese employees of the partner company at the Anzen facility. Viktor Min, the Nambunese manufacturing manager for the Final Test Assembly operation who had a deep dedication to traditional Nambunese cultural values of duty and obedience. He took over the management of the Final Test Assembly program in 1994. Overall, he managed the teams very well except a member in the Morning Glory team, Tommy, who had a different value than most Nambunese; he tended toward more freedom and less duty, and a prioritization that ran counter to convention...

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...ows respect, but all Callatians loved their convention and they all accepted the conduct. Moreover, Rachels also states several propositions of cultural relativism which suggests people should keep open-minded in cultural standards and to understand “different societies have different moral code”, and we should not try to “judge the conduct of other people from other societies” because there is no right or wrong to the customs of different societies.

I believe that James Rachels would suggests Stan to take the first option which was to cover Tommy’s medical costs and don’t not fire either Tommy or Victor. As long as Motorola wants to keep on doing its business peacefully in Nambu, managers should understand and respect the nation’s culture. In Nambunese culture, this incident will not be a problem at all after Tommy accepted Victor’s apology and compensation.