The West Indies Yacht club resort

Hamza Berrada

Mehdi Chabar

Sidi Mohammed Mazih

Saad Cherkaoui

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The West Indies Yacht club resort had been created by Joe Kimball who used to come into the north sound of Virgin Gorda and felt in love with this natural beauty. Kimball worked hard so his business could grow as fast as this resort's reputation. Jim Johnson, the 48 years old expatriate general manager originally from U.S was now facing many challenges: first, the resort hired and then failed to retain three expatriate water front directors and three expatriate food and beverage directors. Second, Johnson estimated an important increase of guest complaints. Finally, there appeared to be an increasing level of tension between expatriate and local staff members. That is why Jim Johnson had to make a move so he called Patrick Dowd. Patrick Dowd was 30 years old and was a very successful director, he had spent 10 years as a management consultant for small to medium sized hotels in the Caribbean, Trade Wind Ventures, and a world-renowned sailing school. Through his experience; Dowd gained in depth knowledge of the resort, Dowd's reputation call and knowledge of the resort prompted Jim Johnson's call to see if Dowd would be interested in working as a participate observer at the resort in order to determine the underlying reasons behind his three major concerns. Then, we are going to talk about the symptoms that created challenges for this resort.

High expatriate turnover has become an increasing concern for the West Indies Yacht Club Resort, (WIYCR). Throughout Patrick Dowd's observations and personal contact with employees, he has learned that many of the managers, all from the United States, had given up on trying working with the local staff and quit. After talking with many of the employees that are local to the island, he has found a variety of complaints, mainly in waterfront and food service. During a conversation with an expatriate employee, Dave Pickering, who Dowd had already known from a previous job, he found that Dave was having a hard time working with
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the locals. Dave explained that no matter how hard he worked, and try to lead by example, no greater work ethic was coming from the locals. Dave said he even showed the locals that hard work could bring another 50 to 100 dollars a day from tips, but still no results. Dowd had already worked with the employees from the waterfront in a joint project from another company and WIYCR, so they already knew Dowd and accepted him as someone they trusted. Dowd spent a day working at the water front and he himself made around 100 dollars in tips. When he went and showed the local workers, how much more money he had made and they were in disbelief until he showed them the money. After having a beer with some of the local waterfront employees, he asked them what some of the problems were, and they explained to him in a very clear way. They did not want to make friends with the water front staff that came from the U.S. because they were just going to pack up and leave eventually. Hofstede's review of the power distant is clearly shown when Dowd and two of the local staff members are having a beer and one of them says. "Things went more smoothly when Bill [Jones] was around. He gave us clear directions regarding what we had to do for the day and we did it (Shay, 2001)." In large power distance cultures subordinates are expected to be told what to do. This is causing more frustration for the employees, because the managers are not communicating with them. It was the fourth food service director in two years, with Steve Lucas a 28 year old with no previous work experience outside of the U.S. now in charge. Dave came upon Steve having an argument with the head chef, and decided to take the time and see what was going on and talk with Steve. After a long talk with Steve, Dave learned a lot about the food director. Steve told him that he liked the job, and was going to do whatever it took to succeed so that he could meet the expectations of the Chicago office. He also mentioned that he enjoyed talking with the different groups of customers that came and went, but when it came to his relationship with his employees, Steve told Dave that he preferred to keep business and

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pleasure separate. From Dowd's previous research on the managers that worked at WIYCR, he learned that most of them weren't' around the whole year. Only during the peak season, and even then the local employees said the never saw their managers.

Now we are going to analyze and explain these problems with the tools we used in class. Therefore we will highlight the motivational orientation from an employee to another. To conclude our analysis, were going to put in evidence the time management of the employees.

I)

Relations between employees:

a) Individualism VS Communitarism:

In the USA, people tend to be more individualist unlike in the British Virgin Islands where people are more communitarist. In fact, the workers are not seeking for promotion in the Caribbean This can be illustrated by one local staff saying: Im just not interested in leaving my friends behind just to make a little more money. These people are not motivated by promotions and salary increases. Also, they dont want to be the outsider of the group because they are afraid of being discriminated by other locals. So, its hard to push them to do better.

b) Universalism VS Particularism :

Universalism VS particularism issue must be analyzed too. US, for example, has a tendency towards universalism, for them, the best way to treat people is on abstract bases On the other hand, the Caribbean people have another way to proceed. This culture treats each situation differently and passes the corresponding judgment

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c) Neutral VS Affective relationships

Caribbean people are very emotional, which means they easily express their feelings. In this culture, people are free to express their emotions. And think that they should have relationship with colleagues before having business relation.

A local employee said that we have so many managers from US and they dont stay here very long. Many of them think that they can just come here and well instantly be their friends. For them, it takes time to build personal relation and there should be a mutual engagement.

Contrarily to US people who are conservative and dont show their feeling easily, their relationship are more neutral. All the interaction between colleagues should be objective and detached, which is the case for American people.

d) Specific VS Diffuse relationships

Americans have specific relationship whereas BVI society is more diffuse.

II)

Motivational orientation:

a) Masculinity VS Feminity

American people are Masculine. They are able to sacrifice time spend it with family and friends for work. They believe that working and be with family cannot coexist. This generally, conducts to demonization on work.

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Whereas, BVI people are Feminine. They are more interested about people, less aggressive, so they dont work too hard to reach their personal goals. They focus on quality of life and leisure contrarily to the Americans.

b) Uncertainty Avoidance

Carribean people have a high uncertainty avoidance. They dont like uncertainty and refrain from problems that may conduct them to take decision. There are a lot of uncertainties in working since expatriate give imprecise directions to local staff. So they are stressed and they choose to be lazy at work.

Consequently, the quality of service provided by local staff decreased and the guests complaints increased.

c) Power distance

In high power distances societies, which is the case of BVI, people should be obedient and respectful to people with high position. Because of this, there is a lack of appropriate communication between expatriate and local employees. It leads to misunderstanding and tensions; therefore the relationship between the two groups is poor.

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The manager told what have to be done and subordinates do it. But its causing frustration for subordinates because there is no communication.

We can illustrate it when Dowd and two of the local staff were discussing around a beer, and one of them said Tings went more smoothly when Bill Jones was around. Ha gave us clear direction regarding what we had to do for the days and we did it. Also, Dave told to Steve that he preferred separate business and pleasure.

III)

Attitudes toward time:

a) Long term VS short term orientation

We have also to consider whether people have a long term or a short term orientation. For example in US, people are more short term oriented; they wait for immediate result and paybacks. Their culture focuses a lot on pay and rapid promotion. In contrast, Caribbean culture is more towards long term. People arent concerned with immediate results, pay, promotion, but relatively value security and social obligations.

IV)

Control:

a) Internal control VS external control

Some cultures believe that they have a control over their life, whereas other cultures believe only in Gods fate, and this has a great impact on the attitudes people have towards different values and norms. American culture believes that an individual is in charge of his life and can accomplish anything he wants if he put a lot of effort into it. In contrast, Caribbean people believe more in external control over life and fate has been predetermined. Therefore, they
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dont put more effort into achieving something or change something in their lives. When something wrong arrived it isnt their fault.

Conclusion:

By improving the organizational culture West Indies Yacht club resort can concentrate on its core competencies and work to regain industry leadership status; and the best alternative solution is: Replace existing team and management with locals Replace existing team and management with expatriates Change the mindset- create new organizational culture

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