Advanced Project Management Presentation. The topic is Ellen Moore: Living and Working in Korea Mary Boyd tought this class.

1. Ellen Moore: Living and
Working in Korea
Advanced Project Management
Yasser Roberto
Qarashia Castillo

2. Presentation
Outline
Korean Business Culture
Firm’s goals
Central Issue
Constraints to the problem
Available alternatives
Implementation plan

3. Welcome to Korea
 Capital Seoul
 Largest city Seoul
 Official languages Korean
 President Lee Myung-bak
 Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik
 Area Total 38,691 sq mi
(109th country in size)
 2012 population est. 50,004,441 (25th
largest country)
 GDP (2012 est.) $1.622 trillion
(12th highest)
 Per capita income $32,431 (25th
highest)
Source: CIA World Factbook, 2012

4. Korean Business Culture
 Korean business managers value questioning and deep
interest in their business by their service provider.
 Strict organizational hierarchy is followed.
 Strict supervisor-subordinate relationship.
 Valid and invalid client requests are accepted without
negotiating with the client.
 High loyalty to work.
 Precise business rituals such as exchange of business cards,
or calling the other person by complete name and title.

5. Korean Business Culture
 Strong hierarchy prevents direct and frequent client-service
provider interaction.
 Clients are considered to have higher rank in society than
service provider. This results in unnecessary interference from
clients.
 Korean service providers don’t like to disturb their clients by
asking business related issues. This can result in wrong
implementation of solution.
 Koreans don’t know how to say NO to clients.
 Coaching Korean professionals is difficult as they would
always answer in affirmative if they are asked whether they
understand the matter or not.

6. Work Teams in Korea
 Team based organizational culture.
 High emphasis on team building.
 Team bonding both inside (e.g. lunch) and outside work
environment (e.g. dining out).
 Sharing drinks is a team forming activity (Bruce 385).
 Challenges colleagues is a common norm in social activities
and meetings.

7. Group Norms
 Face saving is given priority.
 Face saving doesn’t mean avoiding negative feedback.
 Demonstrating leadership by manager is important.
 Leadership is demonstrated by the display of disappointment
in front of all team members, in case of below standard work.
 Leadership is also demonstrated by not complementing the
team member for satisfactory work.
 Frequent complements are signs of a weak leader.

8. Women in Korea
 Delineation between the roles of males and females. Males
are supposed to cater the public sphere and women are
restricted to private life of home.
 Social status and work equality for Korean women is
improving. Means more professional women.
 Women are generally paid lower than men for the same job
and are given menial positions.
 So, Women are not very common in Korean business
community, especially in a position of power.
 Women are accepted in business culture if they are qualified
and have required skills to complete the designated work.
 Women usually not invited to social dinners.

9. WSI in Korea
 Western System Inc. (WSI) is a North American company that
entered in a joint venture with Koran Conglomerate Inc. (KCI) to
form Joint Venture Inc. (JVI) in Korea.
 WSI is an IT company and Senior Consulting Group (SCG) is
part of WSI.
 WSI has won the largest consulting project in Korea and this
project will be implemented within 7-10 years.
 WSI unexpectedly got the project as the existing government
contractor has been working with government for a long time.

10. Central Issue
 Central Issue is a combination of two factors.
1. Organizational hierarchy of the project has two leaders,
which can lead to miscommunication, thus contradiction in
their decisions.
2. Lack of experience of the Korean assigned consultant and
his team (background, or knowledge).

11. Other factors to consider
This tussle is resulting
in delays with
deliverables of SI,
which is hindering the
progress of the entire
project and they are
lagging behind the
project deadlines by 1
month.
Ellen Moore is of the opinion
that Korean consultants, such
as Jack Kim, lack the
experience and knowledge to
complete the assigned project
in time.
Korean consultants think that the
American consultant, Ellen, is not
qualified. Also, she had no
previous experience of handling
Government Agency and is
unaware of Korean Culture.

12. Firm’s Goals
SCG consultants will assist the Korean consultants from
JVI for 7 months for successful System Design and
Implementation to fulfill their contract with Korean
Government.
SCG also wants to educate the Korean consultants
about System Implementation (SI) in order to
effectively carry out the government project for JVI.

16. Constraints to the Problem
Lack of direct communication
between American and
Korean consultants due to
language barrier.
Korean culture is
conservative towards women
in position, it is male-oriented
society.
Differences between the
culture and management
styles of Korean and
American consultants.
Interference from client and
the acceptance of out of
scope work by Korean
consultants.

17. Tug of War between Ellen and Kim
Ellen’s issues
 Kim control the SI Team all the time and ignores Ellen’s
instructions.
 In Kim’s presence, Ellen can’t properly coach the SI team.
 Kim’s standalone decision for marketing research project.
 During the dinner Kim spoken with other colleagues in
Korean and tried to exclude Ellen from discussion, as
usual.

18. Tug of War between Ellen and Kim
Kim’s issues
 Sharing hierarchy with Ellen is confusing.
 Ellen wants to take control of his team.
 He is closer to Korean consultants and has long term
interest in working with them, so, they should not follow
Ellen who is in Korea only for 7 months.

19. Available Alternatives
Take Ellen Moore out of the project.
Take Jack Kim out of the project.
Interest-based conflict resolution between
Ellen and Jack

20. Alternative 1: Take Ellen Moore out
of the project
Pros Conflict will be resolved
Cons No experienced SI consultant will be left on the team
Jack will accept out of scope work, further delaying the project
deliverables and JVI might end up losing the new and strategic client
No transfer of knowledge to Korean consultants

21. Alternative 2: Take Jack Kim out of
the project
Pros Conflict will be resolved
Project will not accept out of scope work
Project deadlines will be followed without interruption resulting in
delivery of agreed work
Cons No face-saving for Jack
Ellen doesn’t have experience in dealing with Korean clients and
team members
No knowledgeable and experienced person will be left on SI team
after ending of SCG contract in 7 months. May lead to project failure
at later stages

22. Alternative 3: Interest-based
Conflict Resolution between Ellen
and Jack
Pros
Conflict will be resolved
Expertise of both Ellen and Kim will be retained
Project delivery on time
Adequate transfer of SI knowledge to Korean consultants
Cons Conflict may arise again in future

23. Implementation Plan
 Elle and Jack should make project decisions in conjunction.
 Only one person should be acting as senior consultant.
 It is recommended to make Jack Kim an assistant to Ellen for 7 months.
 After the completion of SCG contract, Jack can be promoted in place of
Ellen.

24. Project Hierarchy
Adrew Kilpatrick Principal
System Consulting Group
(SCG)
Korean Consultants
Joint Venture Inc.(JVI)
Scott Adams
Senior Consultant
Systems Consulting Group
Ellen Moore
Senior Consultant
System Consulting Group (SCG)
Jack Kim
Consultant
Joint Venture Inc.(JIV)

25. Project Hierarchy
Adrew Kilpatrick Principal
System Consulting Group
(SCG)
Korean Consultants
Joint Venture Inc.(JVI)
Scott Adams
Senior Consultant
Systems Consulting Group
Jack Kim
Consultant
Joint Venture Inc.(JIV)

26. Implementation Plan
 Interest-Based Relational Approach recommends (Lewicki et
al. 235):
 Good relationships should be made the first priority and this is
inline with Korean Culture and will help Ellen and Andrew to be
courteous and professional to their Korean counterparts.
 People and problems should be treated separately. Project related
problems e.g. project scope should be identified separately than
interpersonal issues e.g. personality conflicts.
 Efforts and interests should be focused on firm’s goals.
 Facts should be set-out (e.g. project deadlines) in order to attain
measurable and objective approach towards decision making.

27. What questions do you have?

28. Thank You

29. References
 Bruce Tuckman. "Developmental sequence in small groups".
Psychological Bulletin 63. 6 (1965): 384–399.
 CIA, 2012. CIA - The World Factbook. [ONLINE] Available at:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook/geos/ks.html. [Accessed 25 December 2012].
 Lewicki, R.J., Weiss, S.E., & Lewin, D. “Models of conflict,
negotiation, and third party intervention: A review and
synthesis.” Journal of Organizational Behavior 13.2 (1992):
209-252.