Case Study

It had been 12 months since Stronghold, a medium-sized US Investment Bank, had set up its largest overseas office in Shanghai, China. The Shanghai office was part of Stronghold’s long-term strategy of expanding its domestic investment bank into a global organization. This strategy had so far proved to be highly successful. Over the past 10 years, Stronghold had set up offices in London, Edinburgh, Utrecht, Sydney, and finally Shanghai.

One of Stronghold’s ‘employee development’ policies has been that employees promoted into their first management position undertake two weeks of intensive management training to assist them in their new role. This included training in leadership, the philosophy, and values of the company, personality testing, emotional intelligence, 360-degree evaluations, conflict and negotiation skills, and career development. One of the novel aspects of this training was that it was conducted at Stronghold’s Sydney offices instead of the company’s headquarters in Chicago. After the Sydney office opened it was chosen as the bank’s official training destination because of the good weather, beaches, and nightlife, and because the majority of its in-house trainers were Australian-based managers.

This training was highly rated by its trainee managers as an important step in their management development and for their success within the company. Trainee managers came from all of the Stronghold’s international offices as well as those based in the United States, so it was not unusual to have a mix of nationalities in any one training group. Some of the feedback on the training found that the trainee managers greatly appreciated the opportunity to meet and get to know Stronghold staff from other offices, with whom they stayed in regular contact, forging new and important business relationships.

Since the recent opening of the Shanghai office, Stronghold Sydney was about to host its first Chinese trainee managers. Five newly promoted Chinese managers joined six trainee managers from the United States, four from the United Kingdom, M two from the Netherlands, and two from Australia.

Question 1

Describe the FIVE FACTOR model of personality. Applying this model to the Case Study, how would you describe the Chinese trainee managers’ behavior on the course?

Question 2

Referring to research and theory based on values across cultures, how would you describe the values of the Shanghai office? Give examples to support your analysis.