The purpose of this study is to analyze the handling of difficulties encountered by Swedish managers in Swedish subsidiaries in South Korea. By identifying the most common and possibly most manageable difficulties specific to the market we categorized them into three different groups; external difficulties, internal difficulties and difficulties related to the leadership. Depending on where in the environment and in relation to which stakeholder the difficulties originate the managing process comes to be supported through sometimes contradictory theories. Our study implies that the proper handling is crucial to satisfy local expectations which are critical for survival of Swedish companies. It also implies that the leadership skills acquired by the Swedish managers combined with the level of acceptance for foreign managers among the Korean coworkers affect how influential the manager?s ambitions are.