Case Summary The case “Road to Hell” by Gareth Evans is a story that involved two characters with different backgrounds, personalities and points of view. John Baker, an English expatriate, is a successful western chief engineer in the Caribbean Bauxite Company of Barracania.
Baker thinks he has an edge in working in a foreign country because he was experience in understanding a regional staff’s psychology and knowing exactly how to get along with locals. Bakers has been working hard to prepare Matthew Rennalls, on the other hand, is a young engineer who represents the new generation of patriotic, well-educated Barracania’s professionals. professionals. His four years as a student at London University made him highly sensitive to political, racial and equality issues involving relations between his culture and western influence.
The last meeting between two case characters ended up in a disaster and causes a lot of negative consequences. Instead of accepting the chief engineer position, Rennalls turns in his resignation resignation because he felt insulted by Baker’s farewell interview and advices. This incident not only puts Baker puzzled about what he might have said wrong but also puts the future of the company’s relations with its regional staff and authorities in jeopardy.
Problem Statement The main problem of the Rennalls is over racial consciousness. He had been exposed to the historical facts that West Indie was colonized by Europe. Rennalls could not accept the differences within two cultures and kept on mind that expatriates in the company by thinking that the Europeans were racial consciousness and judged that their people were “down from the trees”. Moreover, the four years he spent in London University had created a sensitive personality in expatriate’s consciousness due to family background and political environment. In addition, he also intended to contribute to his country’s economy. This attitude was revealed his detestation towards the European. Lastly, due to the Barracanian’s aggressive attitude he had chosen to resign without negotiate and further discussion with Baker after the interview.
Second problem is the poor communication skills and racism attitude of Baker had caused the incident happen. Bakers had used some rude phrases towards Rennalls during his interview with him. Besides that, he kept on positioning the European in leading the company instead of Barracanian in the company. He also gave an example to advice Rennalls on leadership skills for how to manage the company well. In this case, Rennalls had misunderstood that Baker was threatening him rather than giving him an advice. He mentioned the word “as a European” continuously in front of Rennalls during the interview and this reflected his failure on corporate communication. Baker also pinpointed Rennalls was the one who put the fire on and being rude to Mr Jackson.
In conclusion, the problem we found in this case is racial consciousness and poor communication skill. People come from different cultural background will have different interpretation on a same issue and the way they communicate might be different. Rennalls was too racist and he could not accept the differences culture between Barracania and Europe. Poor communication of Baker had also been the cause of this incident to happen.
Alternative Strategies Short Term Re-hiring Rennalls –
Baker should re-hiring Rennalls as he had played an important role in the company. After consideration, Rennalls was the person with the most experience in the company and he is the most suitable person to replace the position of chief engineer of the company after Baker’s leave. His career development and his family background in political field might help the company in term of growth. Rennalls resignation might also create crisis communication within Barracanian and European which the Barracanian would think that the racism of European had caused the resignation of Rennalls. Therefore, the misunderstanding will continue to rise. Baker should also make another discussion or meeting with Rennalls before hiring him back. This step should be taken to explain the misunderstanding that happened and also to prevent another similar incident to happen again. However, the consultation is needed for Baker to build up a better communication skills before having a conversation with Rennalls again.
Long term Create a Diverse and Peaceful Work Environment –
The Caribbean Bauxite Company should organize the company in a diverse and fair working environment. Firstly, the company should evaluate the employees based on their performance but not their skin colour, culture and background. The company should give a chance to every employee that has high performance and high interpersonal skills without any bias. A diverse environment must be created by include people which from different culture and background. A consultation on communication skills to every employee also needed to improve the communication skills among them.
Long term Hiring Local Employees –
The company should hire the local employees. For example, the company hire the European only if the company operate at Europe. As a local employee, they might acknowledge the local culture and business environment. Therefore, the company should give the authorities to the local employees because they know well about their own country environment.
Evaluation of Alternative Strategies Short Term Re-hiring Rennalls –
Baker should re-hiring Rennalls and it brings a lot of advantages. Re-hiring Rennalls can help the Caribbean Bauxite Company to save cost and time on recruit the new and experienced employees for the replacement of Rennalls. Besides that, if Rennalls stays in the company , it can help to avoid the Barracanians that might leave because of the racist problem in the company. Otherwise, the internal conflicts between the Barracanians and Europeans will become more serious and tense. Most important is that the company will become stronger and more power with Rennalls because he can get support from the Barracanian officers. In addition, the company will have a good relationship with the local government because Rennalls has a strong political background that could help to develop the company.
However, an invisible and power internal rebel might happen in the company. This is because Rennalls might have bias towards Baker or the Europeans due to the last conversation with Baker and he might misuse his authority in making decision for the organization to control all the local officers.
Long term Create a Diverse and Peaceful Work Environment –
The Caribbean Bauxite Company should create a diverse and peaceful work environment. When the employees work with different culture of employees, they might have a chance to understand the culture of others. After they understand the culture, it will prevent the people from bias to other culture. Therefore a better working environment will be created. A peaceful working environment is important to boost up the efficient of the productivity. Besides that, if the employees are working in diverse environment, they can exchange their skills in term of technique. This is due to the different culture and different country will have different technique or better skills to produce the products. Therefore, they can learn the skills, implement it and upgrade their skills. This may help the company in development. Unintentionally, the productivity will increase and the cost of production will become lower than usual.
Long term Hiring Local Employees –
The company are encouraged to hire the local employees. This is because bias might occurred when the employees are working with employees from different culture. The local employees are more experienced as compared with expatriate in the company. Local employees can control the business environment of local country. This will help the company
in boost up the productivity and reduce the cost of production. If the company hire the local people, it can save time from teaching them the culture of local and it might take fever time to allow the people understanding the culture before get into work.
The Best Strategy and Justification After evaluation of strategy, the best strategy is the combination of both re-hiring strategy and creates the diverse and peaceful in working environment. The reasons are these two strategies will helps in development of the company. As we mentioned above, these strategy helps the company in saving lots of cost and time. The most important is encouraging a diversity company and prevent the misunderstanding within different culture become worst. However, before re-hiring Rennalls, Baker has to apologize to save the critical relationship. By this way, Baker will receive a respect from other culture of employees and solve the misunderstanding among employees. The reason of hiring local employees is not a best strategy is not the step to solve the problem but it is the action of avoiding the problem. This strategy might cause the misunderstanding grows deeper.
Implementation
Short term- Re-hiring Rennalls The re-hiring of Rennalls should do by Baker himself to show the sincerity towards Rennalls’ return. In order to success, Baker had to apologize to Rennalls personally and had a new conversation again with Rennalls after the incident that had happened. Baker should show his guiltiness and prove that he does not intend to humiliate Rennalls and his nationality. After that, Baker had to inform the top management that included both Barracanian and European to get a better advice on the matter about re-hiring Rennalls. Then, he should organize an official meeting to explain the incident and negotiate with him about the rehiring. Once Rennalls accepted the offer from Baker as a chief engineer, he had to change his perspective towards Baker or European as he was also having racial consciousness that may lead the company to the same problem like Baker. For the company future, the top authorities have to receive a consultation within a period time to improve their corporate communication, so can prevent this kind of incident happen again.
Long term Create a Diverse and Peaceful Work Environment –
Firstly, the company should reorganize their term and condition in employment. The company should promote the talented employees by evaluating them, let the employee from different culture and background has their chance to be the one of top authorities. Secondly, the company should have no bias when judging them during the interview. Thirdly, the Caribbean Bauxite Company should organize some seminar, talks and consultation that related about communication skills and cross cultural management. By implement this step, employees will getting more understand on the differences of each other culture. Therefore, a diverse work environment can be created. Last but not the least, the communication skills within the employees can be improve. So it may prevent the incident such as Rennalls and Baker’s incident happen again.
