The cultural differences emerged in the communication channel adopted by Vicente Ruiz and Chuck Moore.
In this case, Chuck Moore was upset with the delayed shipping of toys from Mexico plant. He then decided to send an email to the respective plant manager, Vicente Ruiz. He was expecting a reasonable explanation for their inefficiency. However, electronics medium used by Chuck Moore is not appropriate in showing the urgency of the matter.
This is because in Mexico, urgency would be informed through direct calling and not any other channel. Hence, secretary of Vicente Ruiz replied the message on behalf of her boss. This in turn set up the misunderstanding between Chuck Moore and Vicente Ruiz.
In addition, the working style in both countries is different. In this case, we can observe that the working style of United States is efficiency-oriented as Chuck Moore inquired for the late shipping just before the middle of the Christmas season. This is done so that he manages to find alternative solutions of the problem before it is too late. As for Mexico’s working style, they do not show any initiatives in solving current problem. For example, they are actually facing supply crisis in their production. However, they did not inform Chuck Moore, national sales manager in United States plant.
When inquiries about the delayed shipping were thrown towards the Mexico plant, they are not looking for alternatives to solve the problem. Instead, they asked for a further delay. The lack of understanding in the working culture in both countries has brought to the conflict between Chuck Moore and Vicente.2)
