Strategic planning and organizational development

Riordan

Internal Dynamics at Riordan

Riordan Manufacturing is an international plastics manufacturer with revenues in excess of $1 billion. The company's primary stakeholders consist of Riordan Industries, who founded the company in 1991. The organization has experienced rapid growth since its organization. The organization's current headquarters are in San Jose, California with many other a facility located Georgia, Michigan and the organization has even expanded to China. Projected earnings for the company are greater than $46 million with a product mix that consists of the manufacturing and sale of plastic beverage bottles, custom plastic parts, and plastic fan parts. Riordan has become a global competitor in the plastics industry with more than 550 employees at their different locations.

The internal dynamics at a company the size as Riordan Manufacturing will be complex; especially with the amount of revenues the company generates as well as the fact that it operates in several international locations. The cultural difference between the location and the parent company will make effective communication more complicated. The differences that lie between Eastern and Western cultures will make the HR role even more dynamic and essential to the organization's success (Naor, Linderman, & Schroeder, 2010). It is important that these internal dynamics are accounted for so that these communication obstacles do not disrupt business continuity during operations.

Managing a global team that is spread out across the globe will be a challenging endeavor. It is recommended that Riordan use a regional format to overcome the diversity that operations and the culture barriers encounter. Communication with such a large and diverse group would likely be the most formidable challenges that the group will face and building teams on a regional basis could help to overcome language and cultural barriers.

There could also be a central office team that could facilitate knowledge transfer between different regions that could share different competencies as well as share best practices. One study has identified that the absorptive capacity of knowledge transfer is correlated with the employees' abilities and willingness to learn (Minbaeva, Pedersen, Bjorkman, Fey, & Park, 2003). Therefore, Riordan should access the company's human resources in terms of their willingness and their ability to learn to better understand the knowledge transfer opportunities that it has.