Chapitre 19

Question 1

What is Human Resource Management (HRM) and what are its components

Answer 1

Use of Human Resources effectively, through:
HR strategy,
staffing,
performance structure,
Management development,
Compensation, &
Labor Relations (unions)

Question 2

Impact HRM

Answer 2

Increase profitability by hiring people w values that aligns with the Company’s culture (staffing), strong culture leads to increase productivity (less turnover and increase job satisfaction) therefore reduces cost

Question 3

Relationship HRM & organizational architecture

Answer 3

HRM impacts
incentives (compensation, e.g. tie bonus to diversity goals),
control systems performance appraisal by choosing performance metric by which to compare candidates),
people (staffing) and culture (all aspects of organizational structure are interdependant, thus they have the power to reinforce it or not)

Question 3

What is the staffing policy’s impact on the firm

Answer 3

Staffing Policy = How u select individuals. Impact = choose individuals who’s values align with the firm to reinforce corporate culture to better implement the firm’s strategy

Question 4

Types of staffing policy

Answer 4

Ethnocentric, Polycentric & Geocentric

Question 5

Pros and Cons Polycentric

Answer 5

Polycentric: Manager is from host country’s subsidiaries & parent company national occupy key positions at hq.
Pros: Less expensive than Ethnocentric (bc no foreign service premium pay), less likely to have cultural myopia, good for localization strategy (high local responsiveness)
Cons: Lack of integration between subsidiaries and hq & limited opportunities

Question 6

What is cultural myopia

Answer 6

Failure to understand host country’s cultural differences

Question 7

Pros and Cons Ethnocentric

Answer 7

Ethnocentric: Mgmt positions filled by parent-company’s country bc host country lacks qualified individuals,
Pros: Unifies culture, easier to reproduce core competencies’ task, good for International Strategy
Cons: Resentment in host countries, lead to higher turnover, thus decrease in productivity, can lead to cultural myopia

Question 8

Pros and Cons Geocentric

Answer 8

Geocentric: Best people for the job, regardless of nationality
Pros: Best use of human resources, decreases cultural myopia, helps build informal network, first step towards diverse culture & good for Global Standardization Strategy & Transnational Strategy
Cons: Expensive (foreign service premium), national immigration policies can limit implementation

Question 9

What is an expatriate manager

Answer 9

Country citizen working in another country, e.g. US citizen working in Saudi Arabia

Question 10

Failure rate of expatriate managers

Answer 10

Expatriate from US have higher failure rate, then Europe then Japan.
Expatriate leave at 2x the rate of regular manager and cost per failure is approximately 3x that of an expatriate’s annual salary

Question 11

Reason failure rate for different country

Answer 11

Top reason for US & Europe = inability for the partner to adjust, versus Japan have this reason ranked 5th. Explanation: Most expatriate are men & Japanese’s society see women’s role traditionally

Question 12

4 dimensions to decrease expatriate failure

Answer 12

Self-orientation, others-orientation, perceptual ability & cultural toughness

Question 13

What is the Self-Orientation dimension

Answer 13

Self-esteem & well-being

Question 14

What is the others-orientation dimension

Answer 14

Relationship development w national country & willingness to communicate in their language

Question 15

What is the perceptual ability dimension

Answer 15

Empathy, nonjudgmental & ability to adapt to new norms

Question 16

What is the cultural toughness dimension

Answer 16

If girl applying in male dominated field, difference in entertainment, food difference and language barriers

Question 17

Inpatriate

Answer 17

Japanese manager working for Microsoft and living in the US (only possible with Geocentric staffing policy

Question 18

What is a Global mindset

Answer 18

Fundamental attribute for manager going to subsidiary, adaptability & cultural sensitivity as apposed to technical skills

Question 19

Language Training

Answer 19

Willingness!! (no need to be fluent) to communicate will increase effectiveness in dealing with host-country nationals

Question 19

Cultural Training

Answer 19

Info about host’s country culture, history, politics to ease cultural shock

Question 20

Training vs Development

Answer 20

Training: Skills for foreign posting
Development: Develop manager’s skills for his current position

Question 21

Practical Training

Answer 21

Help expartiate manager & his family envision in day to day in host ocuntry, e.g. with an expatriate community

Question 22

Repatriation of expatriate

Answer 22

HRM should focus on his return (will he have a better position when he returns)

Question 23

Development definition

Answer 23

Management education, e.g. rotation of managers w different jobs within the firm to build informal network & unifies culture. Good for transnational strategy

Question 24

Performance appraisal problems

Answer 24

Relies on hard data, e.g. productivity/market share of their subsidiary and they are subject to external factor (e.g. increase exchange rates leading to less investment in their subsidiary)

Question 25

How to reduce bias in performance appraisal problems

Answer 25

Communication between home-manager and foreign-manager for roles because:
1-Onsite manager sees soft-variable (e.g. cross-cultural awareness), not just hard data
2- Both managers should communicate to avoid cultural misunderstanding

Question 26

Difference in compensation

Answer 26

Problem in geocentric staffing (transnational & global standardization strategy). Should they pay consistently throughout the globe or according to prevailing standard

Question 27

Expatriate pay

Answer 27

Balance Sheet Approach: base + foreign service premium (extra pay for working abroad) + allowances (hardship, housing, cost of living & education). Example hardship = lower standard than home so need to pay more for same standard of living, education: expatriate manager might need more money because school system is worse in host thus will have to pay for public school, company will cove the costs & expatriate might have to pay income tax in home and host country, company will pay the income tax in the host country). So it’s expensive to expatriate, u want to minimize it but ethnocentric & geocentric need to.

Question 28

Why does a diverse workforce increase performance?

Answer 28

If diverse workforce, you have more insights into the needs of diverse customers, e.g. you can offer better marketing & it boosts your brand image (which is good from a customer pov and to attract top talent)

Question 29

Steps to build a diverse workforce?

Answer 29

Organizational change has to be driven from the top (e.g switch staffing from ethnocentric or polycentric to geocentric), recognize it adds value, set clear goals (not quotas) and how far ur status quo is from that goal, hold manager accountable for achieving these goals (i.e. assess their performance based on diversity & tie bonus to diversity goals) and hire people from diverse background.

Question 30

Diversity workshop

Answer 30

Remind employees about unconscious bias and reduce stereotypes with role playing

Question 31

Union’s bargaining power

Answer 31

They challenge the company’s decision with the threat of a strike or refusing to work overtime

Question 32

Multinational’s bargaining power

Answer 32

They can move the production to other countries or (if the case) noit unionize

Question 33

Strategy of Union

Answer 33

Try to lobby for international labour organizations so MNC lose their bargaining power (if unionized in many countries) & to be able to disrupt production on international scale, e.g. with international Trade Secretariats: worldwide links in certain industries (mostly cars) and is largely unsuccessful because although all union want better condition for their workers, they sometime have to compete against each other to attract production facilities in their country.

Question 34

Approach to labor relations: Centralized

Answer 34

hq is responsible for control over labor relations across all nations. Current trend is towards centralized because companies want the threat of moving production oversee in negotiation but big % of total cost therefore requires input from hq & production can be a source of the company’s competitive advantage therefore easier to transfer core competencies when centralized (i.e. transfer knowledge from hq to plant because your way to operate is your core competency and it has to be consistent all thoughout your plants)

Question 34

Approach to labor relations: Decentralized

Answer 34

Different countries = different labr laws and all subsidiaries operate in different manner

Question 35

Current threat to geocentric staffing policy

Answer 35

Increase in restriction in immigration law, making it hard for geocentric staffing policy (e.g. for Microsoft to attract top engineer to the US because of protectionist law of Trump), Microsoft expanded their operations to neighbour country Canada