Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), one of the world’s largest advanced computer chip manufacturers, continues finding its efforts to get its Arizona facility up and running to be more difficult than it anticipated. The chip maker’s 5nm wafer fab was supposed to go online in 2024 but has faced numerous setbacks and now isn’t expected to begin production until 2025. The trouble the semiconductor has been facing boils down to a key difference between Taiwan and the U.S.: workplace culture. A New York Times report highlights the continuing struggle.
One big problem is that TSMC has been trying to do things the Taiwanese way, even in the U.S. In Taiwan, TSMC is known for extremely rigorous working conditions, including 12-hour work days that extend into the weekends and calling employees into work in the middle of the night for emergencies. TSMC managers in Taiwan are also known to use harsh treatment and threaten workers with being fired for relatively minor failures.
TSMC quickly learned that such practices won’t work in the U.S. Recent reports indicated that the company’s labor force in Arizona is leaving the new plant over these perceived abuses, and TSMC is struggling to fill those vacancies. TSMC is already heavily dependent on employees brought over from Taiwan, with almost half of its current 2,200 employees in Phoenix coming over as Taiwanese transplants.
I remember watching a documentary a few years ago where this exact situation happened. Chinese company buys American company, tries to establish their work culture and it just doesn’t work.
It’s the same the world over. I’ve worked for years for a western company which has got a large part of their business in Asia and China.
You try taking our “western ways” of leadership to China and see how well it fares; what I would consider “leaving space for a leader to operate and feel accountable” is seen as “my leader has no fucking clue what he is doing; he never tells me what he wants me to do”.
Culture eats everything for breakfast. As a western leader in China you have to act like a controlling maniac (in my cultural frame) to be seen as an effective leader in China.
And it goes both ways. My brother reports to a Chinese manager transplanted to the west and she “desperately wants to micromanage everything” according to the western team.
We are all trying our best.
Probably American Factory from 2019. Definitely a recommended watch for anyone unfamiliar with the topic.
Yep that’s probably the one. Super depressing, especially all the anti-union tactics.
Went back to see the trailer and yeah, that’s the one.