the Human Resources

Case 1 – Panama

You are the Human Resources Director for a relatively large corporation in the United States. Your organization is planning an expansion into Panama. This would be the company’s first non-U.S. operation. The Panama Department is headed by a new officer who was hired just for this purpose.

The Panama office will be located in the city of Penonome in the province of Cocle. All Panamanian operations will be coordinated from this office. The senior officer who will be assigned in Panama is an Assistant Department Head. Three U.S. national employees will also be assigned to the office. The Panamanian operation will harvest an abundant resource from the Cocle province for importation to the U.S. where it will be converted to a highly profitable and completely legal product.

This resource is used by the local citizens in a spiritual ceremony. The locals ingest a reduction from the resource which induces a mind altered state as part of the ceremony. The resource is abundant and the Department Head does not anticipate the corporate operations will infringe upon the ceremonial use of the substance. The provincial government frowns on the use to which the local populous has applied the substance. It is technically illegal but the local constabulary has never arrested, nor has the judiciary convicted anyone of any crime associated with its use.

The corporation plans its first visit to Panama in the near future. The Department Head, Assistance Department Head, the three U.S. citizen employees plus five interns age 19 and 20 will be traveling to Panama. The Department Head, Assistant Department Head and one of the three employees are males. Two remaining employees are females. All interns are females.

What are some of the considerations you should be concerned about?