Interexchange—Communicating Across Functional Boundaries
9 Pages Posted: 21 Oct 2008
Abstract
Katherine Mason is a program officer at InterExchange, a firm that administers academic-exchange programs with the former Soviet Union. After returning from an extended period of time in three of the former Soviet republics, Mason discovers that the finance department has instituted new reimbursement policies. She must decide how to interpret and react to the memos concerning expense-report reimbursement. The twist in the case is that because of a past incident, Mason does not have a positive relationship with either her division head or the controller. Mason is convinced that the new policies fail to take into account the individual nature of financial transactions conducted in foreign countries. How should she present her arguments and explain her position to the controller?
Excerpt
UVA-BC-0138
InterExchange—Communicating
Across Functional Boundaries
After an unscheduled journey in the spring of 1999, Katherine Mason was home. Mason was a Program Officer at InterExchange—a Washington, DC firm that administered academic exchange programs with the former Soviet Union. Although she was happy to be back in the United States, Mason was not looking forward to completing her expense report. She looked with dismay at the pile of receipts and tiny bits of paper all over her desk, remnants of her five-week trip to the former Soviet republics of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Russia. Procrastinating, she thumbed through the stack of internal mail that accumulated while she was gone. Mason fluttered to attention as she recognized several check and reimbursement requests that she submitted before her trip. They were stapled to two memos from the finance department. According to the memos, new procedures were put into place for processing check requests and reimbursements. While Mason was out of the country, the paperwork just sat on her desk. It looked like no one was paid. Mason shook her head, cringing at the thought of trying to apologize to her scholars and associates.
Company History and Structure
InterExchange was founded in 1968 to organize and administer academic exchange programs with the Soviet Union. Originally created to foster academic freedom in the then-Communist USSR through one-to-one exchanges of Soviet and American university professors, InterExchange's focus during the past 30 years expanded into other regions and disciplines.
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Keywords: communication strategy, conflict managment, management skills
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