FOCUS
It’s a First
GENERATION
CORPORATE SOCIETY
BY TOMMY WEIR
“I
t’s utterly different, yet completely the same!”
I highlighted to my Executive MBA students in their
elective: Leadership in Emerging Markets. Each had just
presented a collage depicting their view of the workforce
in these vibrant and growing economies. Deconstructing
my assertion, I explained that the differences which they
believed set emerging market workforces apart from those
of developed economies are in fact similarities. Listening to
them speak, it was as if they were describing America at the
turn of the 20th century when the titans of industry were iconic
names such as Ford, Flagler, Rockefeller and Vanderbilt.
Granted, there was a one-hundred-year-plus time discrepancy
between my students’ interpretations and the USA’s Gilded age,
but the workforce dynamics remain the same. Issues of child
exploitation, women’s rights, low-cost labor, poor working
conditions and an under-skilled workforce often dominate
discussions over the corporatization of emerging markets.
But, as history attests, these issues are not new—nor is it the
first time that we’ve faced the corporatizing of a society.
When expanding into the emerging and fast-growing frontier
markets, corporate leaders need to understand that our
world is split into two. On the one hand, there is the corporate
society that many developed markets belong to, while on the
other, there are first-generation corporate societies. This
idea is of greater significance than the labeling of a market
as ‘emerging’, ‘frontier,’ or whatever term you choose. Why?
Because it highlights the struggle that organizations face when
trying to grow in the emerging markets and, more importantly,
paves the way to addressing it.
WHAT IS A FIRST GENERATION
CORPORATE SOCIETY?
A first generation corporate society is one in which the majority
of employees are among the first in their families to work in
a corporate environment. Without family members who have
traveled that road before them, the first-generation simply has
not been exposed to the way that a structured private sector
works. So, they do what’s natural to them and employ the skill
sets they have been exposed to.
32 Emerging Markets Business Summer 2016 • Issue No. 1
CORPORATE LEADERS NEED TO
UNDERSTAND THAT OUR WORLD IS
SPLIT INTO TWO. ON THE ONE HAND,
THERE IS THE CORPORATE SOCIETY
THAT MANY DEVELOPED MARKETS
BELONG TO, WHILE ON THE OTHER,
THERE ARE FIRST-GENERATION
CORPORATE SOCIETIES.
A call with the Vice-President for International Operations at a
British multinational supermarket chain illustrated the need for
business leaders to grasp what it means to be a first generation
corporate society. Eager to understand the supermarket’s
expansion plans into China, I asked the VP what the average age
of his employees in the country would be—specifically those
taking up the commodity jobs. After a long pause, in which it
was obvious he was struggling to come up with an answer, he
responded with, “18 years old.” I continued the conversation.
“You know, they’ve never been to a supermarket.” Another
pause. “I know,” he said , “we are not there yet.”
My questions were not aimed at deciphering if these Chinese
employees had ever been to the supermarket in question.
Rather, the point was to stress the fact that the future
workforce of this multinational retailer had, in all likelihood,
never even set foot inside a grocery store. With few exceptions,
the Chinese employees they would be hiring would typically
eat what was locally produced and available at the stalls in the
nearby market. They were first generation corporate citizens.
Clearly, the vice-president did not realize what his team was about
to walk into. The supermarket powerhouse planned to send expat,
corporatized, store managers to lead a first-generation corporate
workforce assuming they had a lifetime of store conditioning, as
citizens in the UK and every other corporatized society would have.