Movie_Essay_-_Outsourced

Class: MGT650 Advanced Organization Behavior Instructor: Michael Bejtlich Student ID: 01076816 Student Name: Hsi-Yen Chen Assignment: Movie essay – Outsourced (2006) Todd is a fulfillment sector supervisor. Under cost-down consideration, the company decided to move the fulfillment sector to India. Todd has no choice but go to India to train a “future call center manager” to replace himself. He faced a truck of culture shock and felt home sick. How can he deal with these' And what will happen next' In a global environment, business companies can chase lower cost of labor, lower cost of raw material, and lager potential market anywhere to make the possible biggest profits. In the movie, Todd’s boss seems cruel and unsympathetic. He would fired people without a blink from his eyebrow. The time of life-term employment is gone with the wind. The business organizations need to adjust themselves to the global competition and so do individuals. As said by Thomas Friedman, an international affairs column writer for New York Times, one of best sale book’s authors, in his lecture in MIT, “There’s no such thing as an American job anymore.” Anything which can be separated in part and sees as piecemeal work is able to be outsourced. Todd’s first image in India is chaos and crowded. He missed his pick-up driver since they miswrote his name as “Toad” because of pronunciation. The cab drivers surrounded him to solicit customer. At last, he got in a ricksha. After a dusty road trip, he arrived at the station. He had to run and jump, then to way through the crowd standing next to the door to catch up his train. Finally, he arrived the city he was going to work in and got in his subordinate, Puro’s car. The car jammed on the road and it is normal in India. He saw one man urinating in the street in daytime. Under Puro’s strong invitation, Todd reluctantly agreed to live in local home stay instead of the western hotel. So far, Todd has already experienced the culture shock from the external environment - different personal distance, different personal hygiene habit, and different traffic system. Since Todd did not pay attention or do a general research before he went to India nor his company offered orientation for him, he encountered everything as culture shock without preparation. “Though cultural errors may seem minor to an outsider, they can be highly important to a local citizen.”(Newstrom, 397) At the first time seeing each other, Auntie A-Ji behaved enthusiastically. She asked Todd some questions, which may be considered as personal private in the United States but just common small talk in India. In some culture, it is seen as rude and impolite to talk about personal private in public. In other culture, it is seen as offering care and concern for a people you know. Todd also behaved improperly when he used his left hand to eat in India. In India, people use their left hand to clean after defecating, so they are not allowed to use it to eat. Some say it is more environmentally friendly when regarding the 1 billion people living in India. Todd’s new office, which looks like an under construction warehouse, surprised him again. There’s no glass between supervisor’s room and the other employees. What is more surprising is there’s an open field without a wall between the office and farms. When he held a training class, he felt frustrated to correct the accent and his employees can not understand why they have to lie about their location or names. Fortunately, one clever employee named Ashia noticed and suggested that Todd needed to open his mind and try to understand the Indian culture. He began to think what is the meaning behind everything he thought to be weird and uncomfortable. Being away from home country, Todd began to miss his family and friends in the United States. He felt alone when there is no message on his telephone-recording machine. His ex-girl friend seems to be with somebody else. Nobody understood his loneliness and frustration in a foreign country, not to mention his irresponsible boss. His stress came from bad adaptation to the new environment and day and night reversed work hours. Stress leads to both physical and psychological illness. He took a taxi to Mumbai to find a cheeseburger, but he didn’t understand that people in India do not eat beef or pork due to their religion. Even in the globally recognized fast food restaurants, chains would adjust their menu to meet national culture to avoid serious taboo. He met another American who had made a joke about India, which made Todd feel that he had finally met somebody that he could relate to. The man totally understood Todd’s situation about setting up an outsourcing call center in India and counseled him to change his posture. “Cultural contingency means that the most productive practices for a particular nation will depend heavily on its culture.” (Newstrom, 394) Todd tried to listen what the employees’ needs. He respected their own decoration on their own desk. In this way, they felt happier at work and became work more efficiently. Some post all his family members’ picture, and some brought religion statue. He never thought that what he thinks cheap goods is favorable to his employees. He set up an incentive system – one, who is the best efficient seller of the day, can pick up a product of the company and take away. He persuaded his boss those samples are not only for intensive, but also to develop huge market in India. Todd also found his female employee, Ashia, is the one who can be given more responsibilities. He promoted her as assistant manager. India is a more masculinity dimension country. Puro felt uncomfortable and been threatened when Todd promoted Ashia. But Todd approved that Ashia was eligible. These words are just to fit in with Ashia’s motivational factors. By Herzberg’s two-factor model of motivation, motivational factors are advancement recognition, work itself achievement, and possibility of growth responsibility. Comes from a traditional country like India and a middle class family, Ashia did not dare to expect to have more authority from work. Not only India gave Todd culture shock, but Todd gave back a different perspective to Indian people too. “The most significant economic conditions in less developed nations are low per capita income, rapid inflation, and unequal distribution of wealth.” (Newstrom, 385) Todd noticed that after he finished his meal, there is someone taking away the remaining food in the plate from the other side of the wall of his accommodation. It is almost impossible to see in the United States. I saw a lot of people throw away the remaining food, and nobody is willing to eat others’ remaining food except some street tramps. (I doubt if they do) The other side of Todd’s accommodation is a slum area. He kept sending some food across the wall. One day, the man lives across Todd’s wall invite Todd to his place to share the food. There even no room for a small family to eat in the house; they ate outside the door without chairs or table. There’s no electricity, the host of the family get power by wiring from the streetlights. The family uses a part from disposal car as a pan to heat the Indian pancake for Todd. Even Todd and them cannot communicate with language, but they all felt the good will between each other. Todd ate by using his right hand without fork or spoon. At the end of the movie, Todd is already kind of successful expatriate for his company. He can manage the accidently situation, which caused by irrigating water flooding in the office and interrupting the power supply, by using local intelligence. His company was merged by a multinational business. The new company was going to outsourcing the whole fulfillment center/call center to China since the wage level there is even lower than that in India. Todd’s boss begged him to go China and offered better contract, but Todd chose to back to the United States and gave the opportunity to Puro. In this time, a labor with cross-cultural intelligence becomes more and more critical. For the individuals, they have to know what skills are needed when manage cross-cultural organization and develop their perspective of different culture/country in 4 conditions - social conditions, legal and ethical conditions, political conditions, and economic conditions. After the movie, I found the book, The World is Flat, and scanned it quickly about the authors concepts. Fernando Magallens spent 3 years to prove that the world is round in 1522; however, Thomas Friedman tried to tell us that the world is flat in one book in 2005. Friedman purposes 3 eras of globalization, from country globalizing to company globalizing, then to individual and small groups globalizing. First, in the age of discovery, people went global through their countries, by the power and support from the countries. Second, companies went global for market, labor, etc. In the earlier part, transportation cost went down and down after the industrial revolution; in the later part, communication cost went down even faster through the innovation of telephone, satellite, cable and initial internet. Third, the world is even more globalizing through the drives from individual and small groups. World Wide Web makes the world smaller. Individuals and small groups are able to cooperate with other people in the world, and find their niche market to join the competition of globalization. As why I pursue my MBA career and what I learn from the classes and international friends here, I wish to broaden my perspective of the world and keep an open mind to face and confront the conflicts or problems in the team work or life in the United States.