International Business: The Challenges of Globalization, 7e (Wild)
Chapter 16 Hiring and Managing Employees
1) The process of staffing a company and ensuring employees are as productive as possible is
called human resource management.
2) Citizens who are working and living in their home country are called expatriates.
3) Companies use polycentric staffing to re-create local operations in the image of home-country
operations.
4) An ethnocentric staffing strategy can facilitate the transfer of special know-how to branch
operations.
5) In ethnocentric staffing, operations outside the home country are managed by individuals from
the host country.
6) Polycentric staffing places managerial responsibility in the hands of people intimately familiar
with the local business environment.
7) The major drawback of polycentric staffing is the potential for losing control of the host-
country operation.
8) In geocentric staffing, operations outside the home country are managed by the best-qualified
individuals, regardless of their nationality.
9) An ethnocentric policy toward staffing is typically reserved for top-level managers.
10) A major drawback of geocentric staffing is that it is expensive.
11) The first phase of human resource planning is estimating the company’s future HR needs.
12) The process of reducing the size of an organization’s workforce is called decruitment.
13) The process of recruitment involves screening and hiring the best-qualified applicants with
the greatest performance potential.
14) To speed up the process of getting government approval for local operations, companies
must hire home country nationals.
15) Companies typically recruit locally for nonmanagerial positions.
16) The process of identifying and attracting a qualified pool of applicants for vacant positions is
called selection.
17) Reverse culture shock is the trouble expatriates face while adjusting to a new environment in
which they find themselves.
18) Expatriate failure refers to an employee’s early return from an international assignment
because of inadequate job performance.
19) The psychological process of readapting to one’s home culture is seldom difficult for
expatriates who have successfully adapted to new cultures.
20) Reverse culture shock is much milder than the initial culture shock an expatriate faces.
21) Guerrilla linguistics is often used in the cultural assimilation stage.
22) Sensitivity training constitutes the most basic level of cultural training for managers on
international assignments.
23) Training local workers on how to work on an assembly line is an example of cultural
assimilation.
24) The compensation of nonmanagerial workers is strongly influenced by increased cross-
border business investment.
25) Centralizing the decisions that directly impact workers’ lives contribute to better labor—
management relations.
26) Codetermination allows labor representatives to participate in high-level company meetings.
27) ________ is the process of staffing a company and ensuring that employees are as productive
as possible.
A) Business process reengineering
B) Human resource management
C) Organizational diagnostics
D) Industrial relations
28) Citizens of one country who are living and working in another are called ________.
A) local employees
B) domicile residents
C) repatriates
D) expatriates
29) Alec is an American working for a software company in Texas. He has been assigned to
work on a project in China for a year. He would be considered as a(n) ________ in China.
A) domicile resident
B) expatriate
C) host-country national
D) third-country national
30) The customary means by which a company fills up vacancies in its offices is called
________.
A) a staffing policy
B) an employment policy
C) onboarding
D) outsourcing
31) Which of the following is an appropriate and widely-used method for staffing international
business operations?
A) collective narcissism
B) cronyism
C) nepotism
D) geocentric approach
32) Individuals from the home country manage operations outside the home country in ________
staffing.
A) ethnocentric
B) polycentric
C) regiocentric
D) geocentric
33) Which of the following statements is true of ethnocentric staffing?
A) Ethnocentric staffing appeals to companies that maintain loose control over decision-making
in branch offices abroad.
B) Companies that use ethnocentric staffing formulate policies designed to work in every
country in which they operate.
C) Ethnocentric staffing is generally used to fill positions at all levels of an organization.
D) In ethnocentric staffing, individuals from the host country manage the operations abroad.
34) A(n) ________ policy can be pursued to hire employees at all levels in an organization.
A) ethnocentric staffing
B) polycentric staffing
C) vertical integration
D) horizontal integration
35) Which of the following statements regarding ethnocentric staffing is true?
A) It can facilitate the transfer of special know-how.
B) It is a relatively inexpensive policy to implement.
C) It allows a company to “blend in” with the local market.
D) It is a poor choice for companies operating in highly nationalistic markets.
36) Which of the following is a major drawback of ethnocentric staffing?
A) high costs of relocating managers
B) loss of control over host-country operations
C) loss of control over home-country operations
D) difficulty in the transfer of special know-how between branches
37) In ________, operations outside the home country are managed by individuals from the host
country.
A) vertical integration
B) horizontal integration
C) ethnocentric staffing
D) polycentric staffing
38) A(n)________ policy would give the foreign units of a company a degree of autonomy in
decision-making.
A) centralized production
B) vertical integration
C) mass customization
D) polycentric staffing
39) An important advantage of polycentric staffing is that it ________.
A) re-creates local operations in the image of home-country operations
B) eliminates the high cost of relocating expatriate managers and their families
C) helps a company develop global managers who can adjust easily to any business environment
D) employs managers from home who will look out for the company’s interests
40) The major drawback of polycentric staffing is the potential to ________.
A) lose control of host-country operations
B) experience a high incidence of expatriate failure
C) create barriers for the host-country office
D) create legal problems for the home-country office
41) A company that hires the best-qualified individuals, regardless of nationality, to manage
foreign operations is utilizing a ________ approach.
A) horizontal integration
B) geocentric staffing
C) ethnocentric staffing
D) vertical integration
42) Which of the following statements is true of geocentric staffing?
A) It reduces the high cost of relocating expatriate managers and their families.
B) It employs managers exclusively from the home country to look out for the company’s
interests.
C) It helps develop global managers who can adjust to any business environment.
D) It emphasizes on re-creating local operations in the image of home-country operations.
43) A geocentric staffing policy is generally reserved for ________.
A) top-level managers
B) mid-level managers
C) nonmanagerial employees
D) lower-level staff
44) The major disadvantage of a geocentric staffing policy is its potential for ________.
A) creating barriers for the host-country office
B) being costly due to high salaries and moving costs of managers
C) creating legal problems for the home-country office
D) losing control of host-country operations
45) The process of forecasting both a company’s human resource needs and its supply is called
________.
A) human resource planning
B) human resource accounting
C) recruitment
D) selection
46) Which of the following is the first phase of human resource planning?
A) developing a plan to recruit and select people to fill vacant and anticipated new positions
B) estimating the company’s future human resource needs
C) taking an inventory of the company’s current human resources
D) promoting employees to positions of greater responsibility
47) Which of the following phases of human resource planning involves decruitment?
A) developing a plan to recruit and select people to fill vacant and anticipated new positions
B) estimating the company’s future human resource needs
C) taking an inventory of the company’s current human resources
D) promoting employees to positions of greater responsibility
48) Planning for decruitment normally occurs when a company ________.
A) discontinues manufacturing or selling in a market
B) finds that current HR levels are lesser than anticipated needs
C) plans to establish multiple foreign subsidiaries
D) hires new executive leadership to implement a growth strategy
49) Which of the following terms is defined as the process of identifying and attracting a
qualified pool of applicants for vacant positions?
A) orientation
B) outsourcing
C) recruitment
D) selection
50) To help speed up the process of getting approvals for local operations, a firm would most
likely benefit from hiring ________.
A) home-country managers from the company’s headquarters
B) managerial talent from the host country
C) recent college graduates trained in the home country
D) third-country expatriates with extensive experience in the field
51) ________ would most likely be recruited for nonmanagerial positions at foreign subsidiaries
that do not require specialized skills.
A) Recent graduates from colleges in the home country
B) Home-country specialists
C) Workers from the local host-country market
D) Current employees from the company headquarters
52) Companies typically recruit ________ to train individuals placed in more demanding
nonmanagerial positions at foreign branches.
A) workers from the local market
B) recent college graduates from the host country
C) qualified third-party nationals
D) specialists from the home country
53) The process of screening and hiring the best-qualified applicants with the greatest
performance potential is called ________.
A) performance appraisal
B) orientation
C) recruitment
D) selection
54) The early return by an employee from an international assignment because of inadequate job
performance is called ________.
A) culture shock
B) decruitment
C) reverse culture shock
D) expatriate failure
55) Which of the following is a psychological process affecting employees living abroad and is
characterized by homesickness, irritability, confusion, aggravation, and depression?
A) social loafing
B) groupthink
C) culture shock
D) halo effect
56) The psychological process of readapting to one’s home culture after working in a host-
country culture is called ________.
A) social loafing
B) assimilation effect
C) reverse culture shock
D) expatriate failure
57) An expatriate manager who returns after a few years from an overseas assignment to find
that there is no position for him in his home country office experiences a(n) ________.
A) reverse culture shock
B) expatriate failure
C) cognitive dissonance
D) assimilation effect
58) Which of the following is a reason why there are only a few managers who are ready and
willing to go to foreign branches on short notice?
A) expatriate failure
B) decruitment
C) culture shock
D) social loafing
59) Which of the following is most likely to occur in the honeymoon stage of culture shock?
A) new arrivals are fascinated by aspects of the new culture
B) individuals become annoyed by unpredictable quirks of the new culture
C) emotions hit rock bottom for visitors
D) visitors better understand and appreciate local customs and behavior
60) Which of the following constitutes the most basic level of training to prepare managers for
international assignments?
A) environmental briefings
B) language training
C) cultural assimilation
D) field experience
61) A manager could most likely gain information on a local area’s housing, health care,
transportation, schools, and climate by participating in ________.
A) language training
B) environmental briefings
C) field experience
D) sensitivity training
62) Which of the following offers insight into a host country’s political, legal, economic, and
social institutions as a way of enhancing environmental briefings?
A) language training
B) field experience
C) sensitivity training
D) cultural orientation
63) Which of the following is the correct order of the different methods of cultural training from
the least advanced to the most advanced?
A) environmental briefings; language training; cultural orientations
B) cultural orientations; field experience; language training
C) cultural assimilation; language training; field experience
D) sensitivity training; cultural orientations; field experience
64) ________ teaches an expatriate a culture’s values, attitudes, manners, and customs.
A) Cultural assimilation
B) Cultural orientation
C) Language training
D) Cultural environmentalism
65) Which of the following methods of cultural training involves the use of guerilla linguistics?
A) cultural orientation
B) language training
C) cultural assimilation
D) cultural narcissism
66) Which of the following trains managers to be considerate and understanding of other
people’s feelings and emotions?
A) cultural orientation
B) sensitivity training
C) language training
D) cultural narcissism
67) Which of the following approaches to cultural training gets a trainee “under the skin” of the
local people?
A) language training
B) cultural narcissism
C) sensitivity training
D) cultural orientation
68) Which of the following training approaches involve employees visiting another culture,
walking the streets of its cities and villages, and becoming absorbed by the culture for a short
time?
A) language training
B) field experience
C) sensitivity training
D) cultural orientation