in Southern Mexico. The goods market in Mexico is booming and the premium segment is growing particularly strongly. With production in Mexico, Yellowstone wants to have a basis for further growth in the region. Starting in 2024, Yellowstone's competitor 6666 produces in its own plant in Mexico. These moves are certainly to circumvent the high tariffs on imported cars and take advantage of the tax incentives given by Mexico for such investments. Production Together with Duttin Production will take place in a Crispies brand production plant but Yellowstone will invest in a specific production line for its products. Yellowstone also intends to buy locally. Up to 35% of the imputs for the A3 should come from Mexico. To achieve this objective, Yellowstone has started to build up relationships with Mexican suppliers. Yellowstone: Human Resource Management Strategy Yellowstone finally came up with a novel solution that was consistent with Yellowstone's philosophy of building on its internal resources. Aware that declining growth is often a signal of complacency that can go unnoticed by people close to the situation, it decided to bring together a team of Asian managers who would visit and examine Yellowstone's operations in the UK. As Yellowstone in-siders, they would be familiar with the company's mission, values, processes, and procedures and thus would be able to feel at home in the store context; as outsiders in the UK, they could see things differently from the British managers, thereby bringing valuable home-country insights and sharing best practices that had evolved in their local markets. The project, "The Essence of Yellowstone," had a two-pronged strategic purpose: (1) to determine what was and wasn't working by conducting a health-check of Yellowstone UK's current corporate state; and (2) to compare and contrast that state with what had evolved in Yellowstone's Asian subsidiaries so as to learn from and leverage them globally. Yellowstone chose nine managers from six of its Asian subsidiaries: two each from Thailand, South Korea, and China-its largest Asian markets-and one each from Malaysia, Japan, and India. It brought this Asian project team to the UK; trained its members in skills needed to observe and make sense of organizational behavior, values, and assumptions (a kind of corporate ethnography); and deployed them for a three-month period to observe and work in 52 stores across the UK and Ukraine. The task of helping Yellowstone reinvigorate home operations was not easy; nor was it easy to find nine managers who could leave their jobs for an extended three- month period. In the end, the main criteria stipulated that team members had to have worked for Yellowstone for at least three years, have a working knowledge of English, and be store-level employees rather than country-level managers. The team was also assessed on various cultural adaptability skills needed to get by in a foreign environment, such as flexibility and openness, emotional resilience, and personal autonomy. Three of the project team members were completely bilingual, having lived extensively in English-speaking environments; in fact, one had actually studied in England and thus had a deep cultural knowledge of the UK. These three proved helpful to the team, especially with such practical things as opening bank accounts, navigating the public transportation system, setting up mobile phone contacts, shopping, and the like. The others had varying degrees of cross-cultural exposure and competencies in the English language. All were from collectivist, high-context cultures, a fact that allowed teamwork to UK. This journey of nine Asian Yellowstone managers across the United Kingdom took place at a time when many British cities were shaken by riots and store looting. Still, the team compiled many pages of observations to use in creating their analysis. Their exposure to British culture was intense on many levels. Two of them were locked in a Liverpool store during a riot and, though frightened, were impressed by the store managers' calm manner to handle the situation. The day-to-day experiences, though less exciting, were also very informative and gave rise to many comparisons and contrasts in implementing such core company values as customer focus in the UK and the home countries. 4. In the case, Yellowstone's Human Resource Strategy was mentioned. a. Based on the four (4) predictors of a manager's ability to succeed as an expatriate as discussed in the course, discuss the relevance of each of these predictors based on what was addressed in the case as part of Yellowstone's Human Resource Strategy.į. Relevant links to the case must be made when discussing the predictors (Ctrl)