2. How would the design actu ally be hypothe sis?

hypothe sis? How would you ga th­ edge and connection to th e Mexican
implemented in th is h ospital set­ e r th ese data ? worker s was seamless was false.
ting? 4. Do you think th e administrator's There we re many cultur al differ­
3. What would be your research reques t for "proo f before pur­ ences be twee n h er and th e Mexican
hypothesis ? What vari ables chase" was rea sonable? Wh y or - 'employee s th at th e Anglo man agers
would you nee d to measure to why no t? II we re unawar e of:
provide data that co uld test th is
In retrospect now, I ca n look back and [I'm]
just amazed at what I was involved in at the
time. [ mean , I didn't have a clue. One of the
things you find is that [people ass ume that
CASE 2 Mexican Ame ricans are most suited to work
with Mexicans.] [ gu ess just beca use [ was
Crossi 9 o r e rs of Me xican-American descen t. it was like I
would just know how to mingle with this
Developed by Bernardo M . Ferdma n, Alli ant International University, and
total [ly 1different culture.
Placida I. Gallegos, Organization al Constultant, San Diego, CA and The Kaleel
Jam ison Consulting Group, Inc.
As a result, Angelica experienced
a g reat deal of frustration and misun­
ders tanding. Her attempts to inter­
his case stu dy is based on the experiences of Angelica Garza, a woman of cede between the ma nagem en t in

T
Mexican American he ritage who worked [0, 10 years in the hum an resou rce Mexico and that in the United States
(H !~) function of a multinational meclica! products company.'This maquiladora often led to her disenfranch isement
plant was in T ijuana, Baja California, a large city directly across the from her American colleagu es, who
U.S.-l'vIexican border from San Diego, California. Maquiladoras are manufacturing did not value or appreciate her ideas
plants owned by foreign capital in the regions of Mexico bordering the United or suggestion s. Fu r the r complicating
States , which have been set up to take advan tage of favorable laws and cheap labor. he r experience in Mexi co was the
mixed reactions sh e engende red from
TIIt~ T ijuana plant was one of a ing with human resources generally the Mexican nationals. Because of he r
number of oper ations for USMed . Six and diversity specifically. American status, Angelica was misun­
othe r C.S. facilities were located in The transi tion in Mexico was der stood and someti mes resented hy
the Northeast, the Midwest, and not a sm ooth one for Angelica. Mexican employ ees and , at the same
Florida, I.:1 add ition to he r work in the Nothing in her U.S. expe rien ce had time , s he lacked support from the
manufacturin g plant, whe re Angelica prepared he r for wha t sh e en cou n­ U.S. organ ization.
spe nt most of her time, she was also te red in Mexico. Her Anglo col­
I found that the Mexican won ir-n who were
respon sible for hu man resources for leag ues had only vague knowledge
there [two women in accoun ting who were
the small, primarily administrative about th e operation in T ijuan a, and
Mexican nationals, and had been there for
facility in Chula Vista, on the U.S. side the y had little inte rest in und er stand­
about 5 years ] were resentful. My saving
of the bo rder: Eventually, the re were ing or re laling to the Mexican work­
gr ace was th at [ was an American because
34 Arnerica ns-s-Iz on the Mexican force . Given he r Hispanic upbringing
the Mexican women there looked at the
side and 22 on the U.S. side-and in th e United States, Angelica had
Americans as being like a step above or
approximately 1100 Mexican nation­ some understanding of the cultu re
whate ver. And there was rese ntment of me
als on the payr oll. and values of the Me xican empl oy­
comin g in and takin g away jobs. They per­
There was little connection ee s. Her Span ish-speaking ski lls also
ceived it as: They weren't doing a good job
betwee n Angelica and the HR man­ e nabled her to understand and re late
and we wer e comin g in and taking resp on­
age rs at the other USMed plants, to the work er s. Although s he had
sibilities away from th em. So me being a
eithe r in the United State s or abro ad. s ome unde rstandi ng of th e worke rs,
woman coming in, I was scr utinized by the
Ange lica reported that USMed had however, the ass ump tion on the pa r t
two women who had been there. I couldn't
no ove rall policy or strategy for deal­ of U.S. manage me nt that he r kno wl-
ge t information from them . Th ey gave me
the [east information or help the y could
Source: This is an abri dged versio n of a cas e appeari ng in th e Fiel d Guide of E. E.
Kossek an d S. Co be l, Managing Diversity: Hum an Resource Strategies/or Transfor ming and would be critical of anythin g I did once
the Workplace (Oxford, En gland: Blac kwe ll, 1996). [ took it from them.

. , ~
W.40 'THE OB SKILLS WORKBOOK .................................. ~
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 You know, I look back and it was
probably pretty frightening for them [the
Mexican nationals] too, becau se we all
came in and we knew what we had to do;
[USMed was] very straightforward about,
you know, you fail to do this and you can
lose your job and you've got to do that or
you could lose your job, so getting them to
follow these protocols and these operating
proced ures was very difficult. Chan ge is
difficult anyway, but getting them to follow
some of those r ules [was] real challenging.
An gelica u nderstood th e employ­
ees' a pproach to th e work as stem­
m in g fr om local conditions and from
Mexican cultural styles . The great
expansio n of maq uilad or as broug h t a
numb er of changes, including new
good now compared to what it was 10
years ago. We used to go to work through
people's'backyards and dirt roads. Dead
dogs were marks for how to get th ere!
And I think now, that if you go to T ijuan a
now-it's been 10 year s of maqui ladoras
ther e-you can find more qualified
Mexican manager s or super visors or cler­
ical people. [Finding] bilingual se cre­
tarie s and engineers [was like] gettin g
needl es in a haystack back then.
I found myself being the only
woman in an old-boy-network e nviron­
me nt, and that was pretty tough. And it
was also tough worki ng in the Mex ican
en viron ment. Because th e Mexican men
that I would dea l with would look down
on me bec au se 1 was a woman. Ag ain,
my saving g race was bec au se r was an
culated. Specifically, calculating an annu­
al salar y. He would do it by using 365
days, when I would do it by 52 weeks and
you'd take your daily rat e, it was differ­
ent-it would always be off a little bit. But,
I rep orted them the way th e Americans
would be ex pecting to see the m.
Review Questions
1. Wh at co m pe te nc ies are a ppro pr i­
ate to e nsure greater effec tive­
ne s s of U.S. e m plo yees o pe rating
in a maqui ladora or othe r no n­
U.S . organizatio n?
2. What a re some of th e costs of
not under s ta n d ing di ve r sity?
Wh at could the orga n ization
h av e gai ne d by a pproach ing th e

1 exp ect a tio ns and differe nt cultural

styles on th e part of th e m an ag e rs . At
1
I
first, potential e m ployees were unfa­
miliar with these ne w expec tation s: th e
e m ployers ne eded to train th e wo rkers
if they were to meet these e xp ec ta­
tions. This was happening in the con­
text of the meeting of two c ultures. In
he r role, Ang el ica sa w he rs elf as m o re
Ame rican than Mexican, yet also as
different from her Anglo coll eagu e s.
She saw he rs elf as bringing Ameri can
training, expectations, and styl es :
American woman . U I had been a
Mexican national woman, then I wou ld
have really had probably more problems.
[For example] I had to work a lot, rea l
close with the Mexican accoun ting man­
ager, who was a male . And he would
come to me and tell me ho w I had
screwed up my nu mbers, or you didn 't
do this right, a nd stuff like that. I would
go over the numbe rs and it was just a dif­
ferenc e in terms of how things were cal­
pia n t wi t h g reater c ultura l unde r­
standi ng?
3. Fro m the HR perspe cti ve , wh at
w e r e the unique challen g es thal
An g e lica faced at various poi nts
in her wo rk fo r USMed?
4. Angelica wo r ked in a pla n t o u t­
side the Un ite d States. Wh at do
he r experiences and perspe ctives
tell us th a t a pplie s to d ome s tic
ope ra tio ns ? •

Well, see I'm America n. I mean I was an

American man age r, and that's where I
was co ming from. But I was forced to
come up with systems that would elimi­
nate futur e misundersta ndings or prob­
lems. Being a Mexican American I
tho ugh t it would be easier working in
Mexico becau se I had some exposure to
the culture, but it was a real cu lture
shock for me. It was a differ ent group of
people socio economically. A lot of those
people cam e from ranchitos , [from } out in
the sticks, where there were no
restroom s or showers. There were n't
infrastructures in Tijuana at all. It's pretty
CASE 3
SAS Insti ute
o un decl in 1976 by D r. James G oo d night a n d Dr. John Sa il, bo th professors
at North Carolina S ta te Universi ty, SAS In stitute, I nc . provid es business
intelligence (ED softwa r e and se rvices at mor e th a n 40,000 custo mer si tes
wo rldw ide , incl u d ing 90 perce n t of th e Fortune 500 compa nies. SAS, w h ic h
stands fo r "s ta tistica l an a lys is software," is h e ad qu a rte r e d in Cary, Nor th
Carolina. Jt is th e wo rld's largest priva te ly h el d softwa re compa ny, with more
th an 100 office s world wide and approxim ately 10,000 em pl oyee s .'

_ • • • • • • •••• THE OB SKILLS WORKBOOK W -4'

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