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Questions
20-1. Identify three compelling reasons to pursue an expatriate assignment.
20-2. Explain why you would seek or, alternatively, avoid an expatriate assignment.
Teaching Tips: Review the PowerPoint slides for Chapter Twenty and select those
you find most useful for enhancing your lecture and class discussion. For additional
visual summaries of key chapter points, also review the figures and tables in the text.
CLOSING CASE: Tel-Comm-Tek: Selecting the Managing
Director of its Indian Subsidiary
[see Map 20.1]
Tel-Comm-Tek (TCT) manufactures a variety of small office equipment such as copying
machines, dictation units, laser printers, and paper shredders. The company is headquartered in
the U.S., but has an Indian subsidiary. Mark Hopkins, the managing director of TCT’s Indian
subsidiary, has just resigned and needs to be replaced. Six candidates have been identified as
possibilities to fill the position. Due to plans for the construction of a factory in Bengaluru, the
new director will need to have manufacturing experience as well as the ability to function
effectively in other aspects of the position.
_________________________
QUESTIONS
20-3. Identify the key advantage of each of the six candidates. Identify their key limitation.
Rank-order the candidates, from the most to least qualified, for the position of Managing
Director of TCT India.
20-4. What operational and personal challenges might the person you recommend encounter if
named managing director?
20-5. What steps would you recommend your preferred candidate take to manage those
challenges?
Tom Wallace:
Brett Harrison:
Atasi Das:
20-6. What are the pros and cons of posting a foreign national versus an Indian-born candidate
to the position of Managing Director?
Installing an Indian-born candidate to the position of Managing Director eliminates the
expense of posting a foreign national (such as financial incentives, housing, relocation,
ADDITIONAL EXERCISES: Human Resource Management
Exercise 20.1. Ask students to discuss the human resource implications for an MNE that
pursues (a) a multidomestic strategy, (b) a global strategy, and (c) a transnational strategy.
Then ask them to follow that discussion by examining the relationship among the human
resource function and the sourcing/manufacturing and the marketing functions of MNEs that
pursue each of those strategies. (LO: 1, Learning Outcome: To discuss the importance of
human resource management, AACSB: Dynamics of the Global Economy.)
Exercise 20.2. Research suggests many expatriate employees encounter problems that limit
both their effectiveness in foreign assignments and their contributions to the firm once they
return home. Ask students to discuss the primary causes and consequences of these
problems. What can a firm do to reduce the occurrence of such problems? (LO: 2, Learning
Outcome: To explain the types of expatriates, AACSB: Analytical Skills.)
Exercise 20.3. A key issue in international labor relations is the degree to which organized
labor can limit a firm’s ability to pursue a global or a transnational strategy. Ask students to
identify MNEs whose operations reflect each of those management strategies. Then ask
them to discuss the ways in which organized labor can possibly affect (or has affected) their
pursuit of those strategies. What, if anything, can MNEs do to counter those efforts? (LO: 3,
Learning Outcome: To profile the staffing frameworks used by MNEs, AACSB: Dynamics
of the Global Economy.)
Exercise 20.4. Have the students pick a country other than their home country in which
they would like to work. What challenges do they think they would face working in that
country? Would they feel that learning another language would be a prerequisite for
working there? What type of compensation package would they expect? (LO: 4, Learning
Outcome: To assess how MNEs select, prepare, compensate, and retain managers, AACSB:
Analytical Skills.)
Exercise 20.5. Divide the class into two groups, one representing the management of a
large MNE and the other representing workers at one of the company’s plants in Chile. Tell
the students representing Chilean workers that they are unhappy with their current
compensation and working conditions. Have the two sides discuss the situation and come to
an understanding of the challenges and likely negotiating positions on both sides. (LO: 1,
Learning Outcome: To discuss the importance of human resource management, AACSB:
Communication Abilities.)
