Molex Case Study

The legal, cultural, and ethical challenge that confronts the global business presented with Molex is that of the HRM (Human Resources Management). Molex legal issues and concerns where making sure that all the legal polices and systems were covered because they were interacting globally and different countries abided by different rules and regulations. Molex HRM deals with many employees and employment laws that brought about different compensations norms with different policies that implied that Molex HRM needed a more customized program to prevail in each country. The cultural challenges with Molex HRM were a challenge because everyone is different. Molex knew that because they were when dealing with diverse cultures that would mean different lifestyles and attitudes that made the HRM take deeper looks and seek a strategy that would compensate all employees and their beliefs. Some of the challenges that brought on the need for certain policies and programs caused by the cultural and ethical beliefs of the employees like when to take a vacation or the different cultural attitudes toward work that were their different norms.

Since the 1970s, a key goal of Molex has been to build a global company that is at home wherever in the world it operates and that proactively shares valuable knowledge across operations in different countries. The HRM unit roles as the host government were to make sure that each employee shared the same experience in the globalization of Molex. Each new entity had to have an employee manual with policies and practices in writing, new employee orientation programs, salary administration with a consistent grading system, written job descriptions, written promotion and grievance procedures, standard performance appraisal systems that were written down, and more.(Molex).

The strategic and operational challenges that Molex managers faced was the final component of Molex’s strategy for building a cadre of globally minded managers came from the company’s in-house management development programs. These are open to a wide range of managers who have worked at Molex for three years or more. Molex uses these programs not just to educate its managers in finance, operations, strategy, and the like, but also to bring together managers from different countries to build a network of individuals who know each other and can work together in a cooperative fashion to solve business problems that transcend borders. Other challenges were making sure each manager was prepared to deal with the situations that may rise.

The strategic plan was to understand the challenges in doing business in different countries. Managers had to accept the challenges that caused changes in their lives, and as well as their families. Every manager shared the same responsibilities as the other. Molex moves people around the world to give them experience in other countries and to help them learn from each other. They had to be placed on special task forced for career development and to gain knowledge about Molex globally. (Molex) Although managers had to be specially trained they were well compensated according to the Molex policies.

Reference

International Business: Competing in the Global Marketplace (7th ed.) C.W.L. Hill McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2009 New York, NY Chapter 20 Case: Molex