Nepal

John Ong Xin AnKenny Leong

Jesmond HengJustyn Low

Kang Guo Lau

Kenny Leong

Country Introduction

Country Introduction

Nepal is a landlocked country situated between India and China

Nepal is a multiethnic, multicultural, multi religious and multilingual country.

Nepal contains Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world

Geographical

Interesting facts about Nepal

Nepal is the only country with a non-rectangular flag

• Nepal’s flag is maroon with two triangular shapes stacked on one another with blue border

• The basic design of this flag is over 2000 years old

The Nepali Flag

•The red part on the flag stands for victory in war or courage.

•The national flower of Nepal. Red also stands for aggression.

•The flag's blue border signifies peace.

•The curved moon on the flag is a symbol of the peaceful and calm nature of Nepali.•While the sun represents the aggressiveness of Nepalese warriors.

Interesting facts about Nepal

About 60% people in Nepal surf the internet with a speed which is below 256 Kbps

• Internet was introduced in 1994

• Second country that has the lowest connection in the world

Interesting facts about Nepal Capital: Kathmandu

Currency: Nepalese rupee

Official language: › Nepali (80.6%)

(Gorkhali)› Tharu (5.8%)› Tamang (5.1%)› Nepal Bhasa (3.2%)› Magar (3.0%)› Doteli (3.0%)› Bantawa (0.5%)

Nepal

Kathmandu

Comparison of Demographics

Total land area › 147,181 km2 › 56,827 sq mi

• Water area› 2.8%

Total land area› 718.3

km2 › 277 sq

mi

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inga

pore

• Population–26,494,504

• Population–5,469,700

› Hindu – 80.62%› Buddist – 10.74%› Muslim – 4.2%› Kirant/Yumaist – 3.6%› Christian – 0.45%

Rel

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Interesting facts about Nepal

Total population: 66.51% year

Male: 65.26%Female: 67.82%

Literacy rate Life expectancy

Total population: 48.6% year

Male: 62.7%Female: 34.9%

KU

MA

RI- N

EPA

L L

IVIN

G G

OD

DESS

Tradition of worshipping young pre-pubescent girls as manifestations of the divine female energy.

Is generally chosen for one day and worshipped accordingly on certain festivals like Navaratri or Durga Puja.

Justyn Low

Comparison between Nepal and Singapore

Singapore

Nepal

77

72

90

10

90

75

30 2347

45 55

31 69

32 68

4753

47 53

29 36 34

32 68

23

28

10

90

10

25

Comparing Nepal and Singapore

Nepal is more neutral where they keep their emotions subdued while Singapore is more affective, which tend to show feelings openly.

Neutral Vs Affective

In meetings

Nepal Singapore

Nepal is more ascriptive as compared to Singapore as they have an extensive use of titles especially when clarifying one’s status in the organization.

Achievement VS Ascription

When gaining acknowledgement and recognition of their contribution

Nepal Singapore

Nepal is more external as compared to Singapore as they tend to adapt to the situation or problem, so that the problem no longer exist.

Internal VS External

Nepal Singapore

Facing a problem

People in Nepal prefer to work together as a group. The Nepalese would help one another when someone needs help. So when living in Nepal, help one another.

Tips for living in Nepal

For thousands of years, marriage has acted as a way to strengthen economic and cultural ties. Despite new geopolitical boundaries, the tradition continues and carries with it a glimpse into the history of family structure and the more fluid/dialectical cultural identity in this region.

Tips for living in Nepal

The majority of participants cited personal linkage as the most important way of getting things done within Nepalese civil service. A person is considered more important than a job in organizations and society

Tips for living in Nepal

John Ong

Manager Challenges

JOH

N O

NG

Background

Age: 36Gender: MaleCountry: Singapore

A supervisor of customer service in a hotel in Nepal, John is an experienced staff in the company.

Comparing Nepal and John.

John

Nepal

Managing challenge 1The company has hired a staff 6 months ago, and he got promoted to a higher position than John. John found out that the new staff is actually the son of the company CEO. He was angry and decided to confront the CEO of the company. It was then rebutted that this is the company’s decision. John got very angry and decided to submit his resignation letter. Being an experienced and valued worker, the company did not want to lose John.

What happened?

With Nepal being ‘ascription-oriented’ , the staff are promoted based on the family background. Which is for who they are. Therefore, the new staff is being promoted as he is the son of the CEO.

While John thinks that promotion should be earned through hard work, he thinks that he stands a better chance of being promoted as compared to the son of CEO.

Solution: Internal and External As the Nepalese are more ‘external-

oriented’, they should adapt to the problem by promoting both John and the son of CEO. This will ensure that there is no conflict on the matter that who should or should not be promoted.

John should also not be too over-reacting that he submit his resignation letter. He should try to keep his calm.

Managing challenge 2

After having a weekly departmental staff meeting, John decided to arrange a staff drinking session after work in the restaurant at the hotel. The staff were very put off by it and rejected the offer immediately.John insisted to have the session. The staff then grew angry with John and confronted him.

What happened?

As Nepal is ‘diffuse-oriented’, they tend to have a bigger private space where they do not mix personal stuff with people who are not very close to them.

John being a ‘specific-oriented’ person thinks that it is fine to hang out and have a get-together session with the staff.

Solution: Internal and External As the Nepalese are more ‘external-

oriented’, they should try to adapt to the situation and agree to the session.

John being ‘external-oriented’ as well, should also adapt to the situation by not insisting that the staff go for the session. But only, when they agrees.

Managing challenge 3

As it is a peak period, there seems to be more crowd and people staying in the hotel. The staff are working for many hours and feeling very tired. This leads to them making loads of mistake. John being the supervisor confronted, scolded and reprimanded the staff for making too many mistakes.

What happened?

Being a ‘Neutral-oriented’ person, the Nepalese tends to keep things to themselves and not reveal what thoughts and feelings they have for the situation. This leads to John not aware of the situation.

John being an ‘affective-oriented’ person tend to reprimand the staff for neglecting their job scope and not focus.

Solution: Universalism and particularism As John is a ‘particularism-oriented’ person, he

should understand the situation clearly and give some concession to the staff. He can also consider bending rules to help the staff by either giving them breaks or go home for the day to rest. While on the other hand, he try to get more staff to work.

3 tips to behave in managing in the target country

Working in Nepal is different as compared to Singapore. The Nepalese tends to keep things to themselves. Therefore, in order to understand them, we have to ensure that there is a certain degree of rapport build among both parties.

Should things happen, we should not jump to conclusion immediately but get to know the situation before reacting to avoid conflicts.

Neutral Vs Affective

3 tips to behave in managing in the target country

Nepalese are people who do not mix personal issues with work. Very often, they do not have other personal related interactions with colleagues.

However, when they are closer to someone, they will tend to open up their private space to them.

Therefore, in order for interactions and communication into a deeper level to take place, one must build rapport.

Specific Vs Diffuse

3 tips to behave in managing in the target country

When it comes to promotion of a status in the company, Nepal tends to offer positions to their own family members.

We must be more open to such idea. If not, try to be closer to the manager or someone who is of higher authority.

Therefore, when encountering such situations, try to keep your cool and talk things out.

Achievement Vs Ascription

Jesmond HengKang Guo Lau

Case Study

KFC and Pizza Hut shut down in Nepal

Nepal announced indefinite closure of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) fast-food restaurant , Pizza Hut and Cream Bell outlets in Kathmandu, citing labor problems.

“As some staff members have been beating up their senior managers, threatening them to take their life and refusing to take instructions from the management, we are forced to shut down our services for an indefinite period under existing Labor Act,” Vishnu Reddy, country director of Devyani International Nepal, said in the statement. 

Case Study

PROBLEM 1: Nepalese are more ‘particularism-oriented’ by

nature. They do not think that they should follow the rules

and instructions all the time. However, this cause them to manhandled the

senior manager. They could be beating up the senior manager

because the senior manager might have mistreated one of the staff.

Therefore, the other staff members might be angry about this issue and decided to attack the manager.

PROBLEM 2: The government and labour parties cannot

agree with each other. The Nepalese government are individualism

and they make their own decision that will only benefits themselves.

On the other hand, the labour parties are communitarianism and they work in groups giving help and protection to one other.

Therefore, they couldn’t agree with each other.

Fights broke up due to this.

PROBLEM 3: The labour wanted to form a union,

because they are communitarianism and they works in group

But the employer doesn’t want to due to the fact that they are individualism

They rejected the idea and conflict happened between them.

SOLUTION:

To solve the conflict, the only way is to close the store.

Due to the fact that the staff are manhandled and they have different ways of thinking.

If they continue to work together more and more conflict will happen.

Business - cultural challenge

Nothing in Nepal works on time. Don't expect punctually. Public buses don't run on time, road traffics are unpredictable, and I didn't know about the meeting time - the kind of excuses you will hear from someone who shows up late in Nepal. Expect everything to slow down.

Did you know that it takes hours just to pay your Electricity Bills, forget about paying your telephone Bill - it might take a whole day of waiting in a line! So expect delay at all levels from getting a bus, taxi, plane and getting a room in your hotel

Challenges

One of the challenges that people will face when they go to Nepal to start a business is trust issue. Due to the Nepalese don’t really trust other people that come to their country to start a business. So it will be very difficult to make a income when they first started out.

By using the third dimension 3, relationships are build step-by-step and by using this dimension, it will help to build the relation slowly and business will grow rapidly in Nepal.

Specific Vs Diffuse

Solution

To solve this problem, you must be able to handle setbacks and failure from the start and slowly build up trust with the Nepalese. With good attitude, the Nepalese will slowly trust them and slowly will start to build up.

1.Be patience:To successful run a business in Nepal, u must be patience and not give up half way. One example of a successful business in Nepal in is the Bhat Bhateni Supermarkets. It take more than almost a decade before it expand from a one-room small cold storage to a small department store and now, it have shop in more than one or more location.

2.HonestyLong term business usually last because of trust. To successful run a business in Nepal, One must be honest when doing business. You must have mutual trust with your creditors, debtors, workers, employees and customers.

3.PersistenceYou must be able to due with setbacks and failures. Even if you face all this, you must not give up and have the willpower to continue and have the energy and push ahead to success.

3 tips for running a business in Nepal

Question and Answer