Siemens, Toshiba, and IBM: Crossing Cultures when Scientists Collaborate

Because of the huge cost of developing the 256-megabit chip (the next generation of memory chips), the electronics giants IBM, Siemens, and Toshiba, from the United States, Germany, and Japan, decided to collaborate on the project. For the research phase, they brought together in East Fishkill, New York, more than 100 scientists from culturally diverse backgrounds. Although the project was on schedule after its first year, many aspects of working together proved difficult.

Scientists from the three companies were accustomed to very different work styles. The Japanese typically worked in large groups in open offices where everyone could see everyone else and often overhear conversations. Important information exchanges often occurred in informal situations such as while relaxing and discussing baseball. The small personal offices in the IBM facility inhibited some of this informal communication by forcing researchers to walk to private offices and ask whether people had time to talk. The Germans were surprised that people were expected to work in small windowless offices. Siemens had also warned their researchers about the American hamburger style of management, which started with small talk about the family (the top of the bun), then proceeded to the criticism (the meat), and then ended with encouraging words (more bun). An Irish trainer working for Siemens claimed that with Germans you only get the meat, whereas with the Japanese it's all the soft stuff, and you have to smell the meat.

Questions:

1. Use the WCA framework to organize your understanding of this vignette and to identify important topics that are not mentioned.

2. What issues (if any) make this case interesting from an international or intercultural viewpoint?

3. Explain why you do or do not believe information systems help people from different cultures work together

Source: Browning, E. S. "Computer Chip Project Brings Rivals Together, but the Cultures Clash." Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1994, p. A1.

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