15/10/2020

Chapter 5
Sourcing HR for Global Markets:
Staffing, Recruitment & Selection
International HRM

5Chapter
Manzar Bashir, Chartered MCIPD, PPABP

Week 5
Nov 5, 2020
 2

Objectives
1. Examines various approaches to international staffing

2. Outlines pivotal role of international assignments

3. Focuses on recruitment & selection as major factors in success of

global assignments

4. Issues related to approaches to staffing foreign ops.

5. Expatriate & non-expatriate roles in supporting international

business activities

6. Debate about expatriate failure, selection criteria, & gender in IHRM

Staffing attitudes of 3

internationalizing firms

Ethnocentric – PCNs are favored & manage subsidiaries, strategic decisions at HQ

Polycentric – HCNs manage subsidiaries, some autonomy, HCNs aren’t moved to

HQ and PCN rarely transferred to Host Countries

Geocentric – Ability is more important than nationality, global approach to

operations, HQ and Subsidiary make unique contributions

Regiocentric – Similar to geocentric, but limited to a given region. Staff can come out
but within a region. Regional managers not promoted to HQ but have
certain amount of autonomy.
Table 5.1a
4

Advantages & disadvantages of using PCNs

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Advantages & disadvantages of using PCNs

Table 5.1c
6

Advantages & disadvantages of using HCNs

 Figure 5.1
Determinants of staffing choices 7

the legal environment and

the education system.
Transferring staff for international activities 8

Reasons for international assignments

Position filling

- lack of available skills  PCN works abroad

Management development
- training, development, common corp. values

Organization development
- transfer of knowledge, competence, practices
- exploit global market opportunities
Types of international assignments 9

Short term up to 3 months

Extended up to 1year

Long term 1 to 5 years

(traditional expatriate assignment)

Some non-standard assignments:

Commuter go home every one to two weeks

Rotational commute for set period followed by break in home country

Contractual specific skills employees hired for 6-12 months on specific projects

Virtual employee manages international responsibilities from base in home country

Table 5.2
10

Differences between traditional & short-term assignments

Figure 5.2
The role of an expatriate 11
Factors that influence effectiveness 12

of international assignments
• Open environment

»Support for cross-fertilization of ideas

»Implementation of best practice

• Knowledge/info travels freely between expatriate, host country, & parent country

• Consideration for personal networks

• Some knowledge transfer requires longer assignments (e.g., where there is much tacitness)

• Expatriate’s ability & motivation to act as an agent of knowledge transfer

• Abilities, motivations, relationships of locals

Issues with international Transferring staff for 13

business travelers international activities

• Desire to create global core competency &

• Home & family issues

• Work arrangements cultural diversity of strategic perspectives

• Travel logistics • Desire to provide career opportunities in HCs

• Health concerns
• The emergence of developing markets which
• Host culture issues
often are difficult locations for expatriates:

• Quality of life adjustment

• Cultural adjustment
International vs. domestic 14

recruitment & selection

Smaller number of external recruits
Preference for internal recruitment
»To reduce selection risk

»To secure present & past human capital investments

Table 5.3 Expatriate failure rates

Figure 5.3
15

Factors in expatriate selection

Figure 5.4
16

Overview of important adjustment variables

Table 5.4
17

Tasks & exercises used in an assessment center

Table 5.5
Evaluation scheme for a role play 18

in an intercultural assessment center

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IHRM solutions for

dual career couples

• Inter-firm networking

• Job-hunting assistance

• Intra-firm employment

• Language training, educational assistance

• Employer-sponsored work permits

• Career planning assistance

Table 5.6
Strategies for breaking the
20

expatriate glass ceiling

 mail@mail.com
Manzar Bashir, Chartered MCIPD, PPABP
Manzar.bashir@gmail.com
www.manzarbashir.com

manzar@potentialmapping.com mail@mail.com