Business units within large organizations constantly compete and negotiate with each other for resources, this was a constant theme in most of the cases we studied within the collaboration module. Teams within business units either lose or gain as a result of these negotiations and changes in resource allocations. We learnt that organizations that are good in collaboration capably handle such trade-offs within business units and find some optimum that is good for the larger organization as a whole.
A typical scenario is happening at a global level with this whole issue on the value of the Chinese currency. As mentioned in this New York Times article, many US corporations will lose heavily if China heeds to pressure from the US government and appreciates its currency – an appreciated Chinese currency would also mean that US consumers would have to pay higher for many retail items that are imported from China. On the contrary, many corporations who are exporters of goods to China would gain with higher volumes of business if the Chinese currency appreciates. The article discusses similar such contradicting stories among Chinese corporations.
What is most striking, as mentioned in the article, is that both the governments are well aware of the fact that a balanced relation between the US and Chinese currencies is good for global trade. However, from the article, It is clear that both countries are looking for local optimum and not inclined to collaborate, although they know such a collaboration would be positive for the larger organization (or) world trade and ultimately positive for them. The question is why. As we discussed in class, most organizations fail in collaboration because they are unable to find a global optimum that works well for the organization. Maybe the case here is that though the countries know what to do, they don’t know how to accomplish it in a way that doesn’t give strategic advantages to the other.