John Higgins Essay

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Summary Weaver Pharmaceutical was one of the largest U.S drug firms that depended heavily on research and development (R&D). This company started to emerge into Japan’s market when Yamazaki Pharmaceutical began to distribute Weaver’s product back to early 1930s. The joint venture was established in 1954 by the name of “Weaver-Yamazaki Pharmaceutical”. It was a successful business expansion for Weaver Pharmaceutical. Leonard Prescott was offered Vice President and General Manager of Weaver-Yamazaki Pharmaceutical of Japan by replacing a former General Manager that has been serving for the company in Japan for six years. Prescott is an experienced businessman who spent 25 years career in Weaver. He had been an expatriate in India, Philippines, and also Mexico. Prescott’s executive assistant, John Higgins, he had a very special interest in Japan. Higgins was born in Midwestern town and he joins the army after college. He then had an intensive training in Japanese language at the Army Language School. Fifteen months after Army School, he was assigned as an interpreter and translator in Japan. He had a very deep knowledge and also commitment for Japanese cultures and he vowed that he will return to that country. After a year Higgins joined Weaver’s training program, he was once again assigned to Japan, a year before Prescott enter Weaver. With Higgins’s language ability and knowledge about Japanese’s culture, it gives better credits to help him in the company to get a better performance. However, Prescott is concern about Higgins’s attitude and thinking that are totally Japanese thinking and he had forgotten all about his own culture. The way Higgins manages his working style is polycentric type where business units in different countries act much like a local company. He does not only have the knowledge and practices it, in fact, identifies himself to it.

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