On Monday I finally got my grades for Global Perspectives. The Managerial Accounting grade came within a couple of days after the final exam. I waited to get both grades before posting on that. Both grades came as a surprise to me: a pleasant one and somewhat disappointing, even though I got straight B’s in both classes.
The Managerial Accounting was a pleasant one, because of the blunder I had on the exam. I am quite happy that I was able to pull it out for that grade. The Global Perspectives grade was a bit of a disappointment, as I was really confident that I did reasonably well on the final. Turned out I was over-confident – I missed a couple of questions. Besides, our group paper on FDI to Russia was also just a B. Probably, it was a significant contributing factor to the final cumulative grade too. Well, as the saying goes, they don’t call it a B-school for no reason 
I looked up the group paper, but professor’s notes were mostly illegible. I guess, I will never really know what were his thoughts on grading us lower than we expected
For the last week the MBA students were on a “forced” spring break. Since the MBA program is on on a seven weeks modular schedule, while the rest of the University is on a regular 14-weeks mode, the rest of the University had their legitimate spring break. Ours was after the first week of classes already started, not much of a relief. The spring break was the reason that I did not post in the meanwhile, as there was nothing really worthy of writing about.
Now we are back to school, and the “adrenaline rush” is kicking in again. Forward to more excitement! 
Yesterday I had my last final exam in module one of the Spring Term at GWSB – Global Perspectives. Overall exam was not very difficult, especially given its open book, notes, internet access format. There was only one question I somehow had missed during the course regarding “foreignness liability”. Thanks to internet access I was able to find the answer to that one too. If you are preparing for the exam in global studies, here is a short excerpt:
Zaheer (1995) suggested that there are LOF costs, one of which is host-country environment costs or the costs of doing business in the host-country environment. These costs, for the most part, consist of discrimination costs against foreign MNEs. Another form of LOF cost is unfamiliarity costs, which tend to represent costs of being unfamiliar with the local environment. However, the notion of unfamiliarity can be extended to reflect unfamiliarity by a country’s consumers and institutions with a foreign country and its products. Perception of foreignness: benefit or liability?
The link above, as I found out, has peculiar behavior. If you come upon it through the google search, it gives you a longer excerpt of the article. If you come back via a link or bookmark, however, the excerpt is abbreviated. So if you go through the link above, you will likely not see the above citation, as it might be cut off.
Most of the questions had a format of three possible answers and a short explanation why you choose that answer. I was able to finish the exam about an hour before the official end. It was a nice feeling for a change . Especially since in my quantitative courses I usually don’t have enough time to answer all the questions.
Another note about the exam in general. Professor gathered in one auditorium all sections he had been teaching to in the module, so I could see people from the whole course. I actually saw two people who looked at least as old as I am. So I will have to pass on the dubious nomination of being the oldest MBA student in GWSB . Except they could be from other Masters programs in the business school or the George Washington University at large, as taking electives from outside a particular school within the University is allowed.
All in all, the first module of the Spring Term is done. My first class of the second module is already on Monday. That module is going to be more demanding because I have three classes instead of two. Oh well, we’ve been through that already in fall. I am going to survive :-) .
With this scandal unravelling in the last 3 weeks about Toyota recalls connected to the sticking accelerator pedal, and speculations about how much and for how long the top managers and owners have known about the problem, I realized that the situations is related to two of the courses I have been taking in my part-time MBA program. One is obviously Business Ethics, the other is Global Perspectives.
In Business Ethics we had a few cases on truth-telling. One case about the owner of gourmet seefood manufacturing. The issue he had was that he became aware about salmonela tainted batch of his signature product. The complicating issue for him personally was that the batch of tainted product had been produced at the recently acquired competitor plant. That plant was bought for over $3 mil. Also the discovery happened right around the Christmas holiday when the product had already been shipped to the restaurants around the country. So he had this dillema wheter to recall the product, to inform the customers to make sure they cook it at minimum required temperature and time (which would kill the salmonela), or to wait it out in hope that the restaurants would do proper cooking and nothing would happen.
Picture courtesy of businessweek.com
Another case was about Ford’s Pinto car in the 70′s. The company knew for quite a while about gas tank design defect in the car which was connected to cars setting on fire even in relatively minor rear-end collisions. In that case, it turned out, the company just performed in a very business-like manner (many would call it cold-blooded calculations) the cost-benefit analysis and figured out that it would cost them less to settle out of court the claims of the victims, or the relatives of the killed in fire ones, than to fix the problem. The problem, by the way, was quite miniscular in dollar terms to fix.
With Toyota, it seems, the top managment have been aware of the problem, but in denial of the fact for quite a while, even after a few deaths were alleged to be connected to the issue. We don’t know all the details, and I am sure there will be more revelations in the case in the weeks and months to come.
The Global Perspectives angle of the story is related to the management style which is common to companies in some Asian countries, including Japan and Korea. In our class on corporate government in different countries we learnt about closely-knit and closely-kept ownership and management of those companies. While we have heard a lot about Toyota Production System ( which actually reflects the philosophy implemented at the lower to mid-level management) from the media, not really much is heard about the top management of the company. That’s why now we hear about the atmosphere of secrecy surrounding the case.
So, obviously, this case will get proper attention in the future editions of the MBA textbooks. And we have a privilege to see yet another business case unfold right in front of us. It would be fascinating, except for those of us who have also a “privilege” of driving the recalled models of Toyota. And regardless of the outcome of the ethical implications in the case, the blow to almost impecable reputation for Toyota quality is going to be strong. Is Hyundai ready to take the top quality spot in car business? Might as well be. Next thing they woudl need to do is to break away from the Asian corporate government model and adopt more transparent management practices and policies in dealing with both routine and crisis situations. But that is much less probable than becoming a high quality manufacturer. Because, it seems, the same philosophy and cultural norms that help Asian manufacturers to become the best in quality, hinder their reputation in issues of openness and transparency.
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