Reference no: EM132301626

Mei-ying Yung is a graduating senior. Like many college students, Mei-ying loves technologies. Unlike many of her peers, however, she is particularly fascinated by programming. In her senior year, she developed and installed complex new programs to make advising more efficient and to reduce the frustration and errors in registration for courses. Although she has been in the United States for six years, in many ways Mei-ying reflects the Chinese culture where she was born and where she spent the first 15 years of her life. Today, Mei-ying is interviewing for a position at New Thinking, a fast-growing tech company that specializes in developing programs tailored to the needs of individual companies. The interviewer, Barton Hingham, is 32 years old and a native of California, where New Thinking is based. As the scenario opens, Ms. Yung walks into the small room in which Mr. Hingham is seated behind a desk. He rises to greet her and walks over with his hand outstretched to shake hers. Hingham: Good morning, Ms. Yung. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. Your re´sume´ is most impressive. [Ms. Yung looks downward, smiles, and limply shakes Mr. Hingham’s hand. He gestures to a chair, and she sits down in it.] Hingham: I hope this interview will allow us to get to know each other a bit and decide whether there is a good fit between you and New Thinking. I’ll be asking you some questions about your background and interests. And you should feel free to ask me any questions that you have. Okay? Yung: Yes. Hingham: I see from your transcript that you majored in computer programming and did very well. I certainly didn’t have this many As on my college transcript! Yung: Thank you. I am very fortunate to have good teachers. Hingham: Tell me a little about your experience in writing original programs for business applications. Yung: I do not have great experience, but I have been grateful to help the college with some of its work. Hingham: Tell me about how you’ve helped the college. I see you designed a program for advising. Can you explain to me what you did to develop that program? Yung: Not really so much. I could see that much of advising is based on rules, so I only need to write the rules into a program so advisers could do their jobs more better. Hingham: Perhaps you’re being too modest. I’ve done enough programming myself to know how difficult it is to develop a program for something with as many details as advising. There are so many majors, each with different requirements and regulations. How did you program all of that variation? Yung: I read the handbook on advising and the regulations on each major, and then programmed decision trees into an advising template. Not so hard. Hingham: Well, that’s exactly the kind of project we do at New Thinking. People come to us with problems in their jobs, and we write programs to solve them. Does that sound like the kind of thing you would enjoy doing? Yung: Yes. I very much like to solve problems to help others. Hingham: What was your favorite course during college? Yung: They are all very valuable. I enjoy all. Hingham: Did you have one course in which you did especially well? Yung: [blushing, looking down] I would not say that. I try to do well in all my courses, to learn from them. Later Barton Hingham and Molly Cannett, another interviewer for New Thinking, are discussing the day’s interviews over dinner. Cannett: Did you find any good prospects today? Hingham: Not really. I thought I was going to be bowled over by this one woman—name’s Mei-ying Yung—who has done some incredibly intricate programming on her own while in college. Cannett: Sounds like just the kind of person we’re looking for. Hingham: I thought so, too, until the interview. She just didn’t seem to have the gusto we want. She showed no confidence or initiative in the interview. It was like the transcript and the person were totally different. Cannett: Hmmm, that’s odd. Usually when we see someone who looks that good on paper, the interview is just a formality. Hingham: Yeah, but I guess the formality is more important than we realized: Yung was a real dud in the interview I still don’t know what to make of it.

1. How does Mei-ying Yung’s communication reflect her socialization in Chinese culture?

2. How could Mei-ying be more effective without abandoning the values of her native culture?

3. What could enhance Barton Hingham’s ability to communicate effectively with people who were raised in non-Western cultures?