Norms and Nations Case Study

The task force is doing great. Your team has managed to successfully analyze two complex cases arising from NBD operations and is now ready to move on to the third case file the CEO Yoon provided you, the Norms and Nations case file. This case involves an internal dispute among three of NBD’s executive board members—the VP of manufacturing, the VP of marketing, and the VP of product design—arising from a series of mistakes made when distributing a product.
The CEO has asked the task force to write a report with its findings and recommendations for how NBD should handle this situation. Specifically, the report needs to answer the following questions:
• Was the Chinese supplier ethical in shipping more than 300,000 cases made of real leather instead of the requested faux leather material, even though the supplier was not charging NBD anything extra for the higher cost of real leather? Explain why or why not using ethical theory and principles.
• When the manufacturing VP contacted the Chinese supplier to complain, the supplier could not understand why NBD was not pleased about receiving a real leather case, given that NBD was still paying for the less expensive faux leather one. Is there a cultural difference between customer expectations and business transactions in the West and in Asia? Explain.
• As an organization, what strategic errors did the task force observe in the decision making by various individuals in this situation? By the design VP? By the manufacturing VP? By the marketing VP?
• What is the appropriate strategy going forward? Conduct a SWOT analysis and PESTEL analysis to decipher what NBD should do in light of these strategic errors.
To answer these questions, you realize that you will need to gather information about the cultural factors that are in play in this situation, by reading about managing in a global environment, country cultural differences, and cross-cultural ethical business decision making. Although these sources are a great introduction, you realize that you may need to do some additional research on the internet and in the library to fully answer the CEO’s questions. The task force wants to back up its responses with information about relevant differences in cultural expectations in China, South Africa, and the United States and will conduct further research on cultural differences and their impact on global business transactions.
Using your outline and research notes write a report for the CEO. Be sure to meet the following requirements:
• Include APA-formatted in-text citations and an APA-formatted reference list (do not format the body of the report using APA style, just the reference list). See references and citations for details.
• Include a specific recommendation on what action, if any, the CEO should take based on your analysis and conclusions.
• Support your conclusion with references to cultural norms, strategy, and the principles of SWOT and PESTEL.
• The report should be no more than five pages (double spaced, 12-point font; the reference list does not count towards page limit