Essays --

According to Mondy, Noe, & Gowan (2005), global dimensions such as variations in cultural practices imply that the success of organizations depend on management’s ability to market and manage in multicultural settings. To a greater extent, organizations that operate only within one country enjoy the benefits of dealing with a relatively homogenous set of cultural, legal, and economic variables. When a company operates multiple businesses in several countries, it is not blessed with such relative uniformity (Mondy, Noe, & Gowan, 2005). Consequently, the human resource management function in multinational companies such as Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts is significantly complicated by the need to adapt human resource management procedures and policies to the differences among the various countries in which the organization operates. With respect to the case of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, there are several issues that Kathleen Taylor (President, Worldwide Operations) should focus on so as to create a balance in concepts related to cultural awareness and control mechanisms. These issues include cultural factors, economic factors, labor cost factors, and industrial relations factors. In the case of cultural factors, it is a widely accepted fact that wide-ranging cultural variations in different countries demand corresponding variations in human resource practices among an organization’s foreign subsidiaries. For example, the cultural norms in a country like Japan or other Far East countries and the importance that people place on the patriarchal system has an effect on the typical Japanese worker’s perception of his/her relationship to the employee. Consequently, this has an influence on how that person works. Such cultural diff... ...es of each business unit. The president must have the experience and capacity to manage generational and cultural diversity in the complex global environment. The communication strategy employed by the company should transmit the values, image and objectives of the company as the finest home or destination away from home that meets and exceeds the needs of diverse clients and stress it from time to time. The president should orient the organization to administer a results-driven approach. This approach sets targets for each department and ensures that those goals are achieved through evaluation and control. She should be open-minded to allow views of other departments to form the basis of her decisions. Finally, the president should keep herself abreast with the happenings in the hotel industry and benchmark accordingly through expert advice and continuous learning.