Chapter 17: Managing Global Human Resources 17- 6
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17-2: The need for adapting human resources activities to intercountry differences
influences employers’ HR processes.
17-3: Staffing the global organization is a major challenge.
17-4: After selecting the employees to send abroad, attention turns to training and
maintaining your expatriate employees.
17-5: The worldwide trend is for employee engagement to converge around the
current global average of about 61% of employees engaged.
17-6: With employers increasingly relying on local rather than expatriate
employees, it’s important for managers to understand how to implement a
global HR system.
Discussion Questions:
17-1: You are the president of a small business. What are some of the ways you expect
“going international” will affect HR activities in your business?
This item can be assigned as a Discussion Question in MyManagementLab. Student
17-2: What are some of the specific, uniquely international activities an international HR
manager typically engages in?
Formulating and implementing HR policies and activities in the home-office of a
multinational company. This HRM manager would engage in selecting, training, and
transferring parent-company personnel abroad and formulating HR policies for the firm
17-3: What intercountry differences affect HRM? Give several examples of how each may
affect HRM.
1) Cultural Factors – U.S. managers may be most concerned with getting the job done.
Chinese managers may be most concerned with maintaining a harmonious environment.
Hispanic managers may be more concerned with establishing trusting, friendship
relationships. 2) Economic Factors – U.S. economic systems tend to favor policies that
Chapter 17: Managing Global Human Resources 17- 7
Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Inc.
17-4: You are the HR manager of a firm that is about to send its first employees overseas
to staff a new subsidiary. Your boss, the president, asks you why such assignments
often fail, and what you plan to do to avoid such failures. How do you respond?
Estimates say that 20% to 25% of all overseas assignments fail. Reasons include
spouse’s inability to adjust, managers’ inability to adjust, other family problems, and
managers’ inability to cope with responsibility. We will need to select a manager that
17-5: As an HR manager, what program would you establish to reduce repatriation
problems of returning expatriates and their families?
This item can be assigned as a Discussion Question in MyManagementLab. Student
Individual and Group Activities:
17-6: Working individually or in groups, outline an expatriation and repatriation plan for
your professor, whom your school is sending to Bulgaria to teach HR for the next 3
years.
In developing their expatriation and repatriation plan, students should use Internet
resources to find information on various cultural, economic, and legal factors that could
affect their professor. They should include a description of the type of training program
17-7: Give three specific examples of multinational corporations in your area. Check on
the Internet or with each firm to determine in what countries these firms have
operations. Explain the nature of some of their operations, and summarize whatever
you can find out about their international employee selection and training HR
policies.
The examples will vary according to what companies have operations in your area. This
can be an exciting opportunity for students to find out more about companies and what
17-8: Choose three traits useful for selecting international assignees, and create a
straightforward test to screen candidates for these traits.
There are an infinite number of responses that you might get to this question. First, make
sure that the traits either are on the list in the chapter, or are reasonable and logical traits
Chapter 17: Managing Global Human Resources 17- 8
Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Inc.
that would be useful. Second, assure that the tests that the students develop are ones that
17-9: Use a library or Internet source to determine the relative cost of living in five
countries as of this year, and explain the implications of such differences for
drafting a pay plan for managers being sent to each country.
The most common approach is to equalize purchasing power across the countries, a
technique known as the balance sheet approach. The basic idea is that each expatriate
17-10: Appendices A and B at the end of this book list the knowledge someone studying for
the HRCI (Appendix A) or SHRM (Appendix B) certification exam needs to have in
each area of human resource management (such as in Strategic Management and
Workforce Planning). In groups of several students, do four things: (1) review
Appendix A and/or B; (2) identify the material in this chapter that relates to the
Appendix A and/or B required knowledge lists; (3) write four multiple-choice exam
questions on this material that you believe would be suitable for inclusion in the
HRCI exam; and (4) if time permits, have someone from your team post your
team’s questions in front of the class, so that students in all teams can answer the
exam questions created by the other teams.
The material from this chapter that is applicable to the HRCI certification exam would
include: the HR challenges of international business, how intercountry differences affect
17-11: An issue of HR Magazine contained an article titled “Aftershocks of War,” which
said that soldiers returning to their jobs from Iraq would likely require HR’s
assistance in coping with “delayed emotional trauma.” The term delayed emotional
trauma refers to the personality changes such as anger, anxiety, or irritability that
exposure to the traumatic events of war sometimes triggers in returning veterans.
Assume you are the HR manager for the employer of John Smith, who is returning
to work next week after 1 year in Iraq. Based on what you read in this chapter, what
steps would you take to help smooth John’s reintegration into your workforce?
There are several suggestions in the section “Repatriation: Problems and Solutions.” At
minimum, you should arrange for a sponsor/mentor, career counseling, and a
reorientation program. You need to also make sure that there are clear and open doors
Experiential Exercise: A Taxing Problem for Expatriate Employees
Chapter 17: Managing Global Human Resources 17- 9
Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Inc.
Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to give you practice identifying and analyzing some of
the factors that influence expatriates’ pay.
Required Understanding: You should be thoroughly familiar with this chapter and with the
Web site www.irs.gov.
How to Set up the Exercise/Instructions: Divide the class into teams of four or five students.
Each team member should read the following: One of the trickiest aspects of calculating
expatriates’ pay relates to the question of the expatriate’s U.S. federal income tax liabilities. Go
to the Internal Revenue Service’s Web site, www.irs.gov. Scroll down to Individuals, and go to
Overseas Taxpayers. Your team is the expatriate-employee compensation task force for your
company, and your firm is about to send several managers and engineers to Japan, England, and
Hong Kong. What information did you find on the site that will help your team formulate expat
tax and compensation policies? Based on that, what are the three most important things your firm
should keep in mind in formulating a compensation policy for employees you’re about to send to
Japan, England, and Hong Kong?
Application Case: “Boss, I Think We Have a Problem”
17-12: Based on this chapter and the case incident, compile a list of 10 international HR
mistakes Mr. Fisher has made so far.
Among his mistakes, Fisher has not properly identified candidates; cultural sensitivity,
interpersonal skills, and flexibility have not been included as required job skills; there is
no system in place to assess candidates for proper skills; the company does not have
realistic cost projects for cross-border operations; the company has not determined
17-13: How would you have gone about hiring a European sales manager? Why?
I would have investigated the market to determine the appropriate level of compensation
and benefits. Expatriate compensation packages should consider tax equalization clauses
or other measures for dealing with differing costs of living. The company should also
Chapter 17: Managing Global Human Resources 17- 10
Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Inc.
17-14: What would you do now if you were Mr. Fisher?
Fisher needs to seek legal counsel in regard to his labor situation. He is likely in the
wrong, in which case, he will need to reinstate the employees and apologize. He will in
Continuing Case: Carter Cleaning Company – Going Abroad
17-15: Assuming they began by opening just one or two stores in Mexico, what do you see
as the main HR-related challenges Jack and Jennifer would have to address?
The students will not only need to incorporate their learnings from this chapter to answer
this question, they should also include information from all the chapters in the text to
17-16: How would you go about choosing a manager for a new Mexican store if you were
Jack or Jennifer? For instance, would you hire someone locally or send someone
from one of your existing stores? Why?
The students should use the information in the chapter on selecting international
managers. The students are likely to differ in their choices as to which type of
17-17: The cost of living in Mexico is substantially below that of where Carter is now
located: How would you go about developing a pay plan for your new manager if
you decided to send an expatriate to Mexico?
The students should use information from Chapters 11, 12, and 13, and the Internet
17-18: Present a detailed explanation of the factors you would look for in your candidate
for expatriate manager to run the stores in Mexico.
The students should include information presented in Chapters 1 through 15, in addition
to the information presented in this chapter, to develop their list of HR-related functions
Chapter 17: Managing Global Human Resources 17- 11
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Hotel Paris: Improving Performance at the Hotel Paris: Managing Global Human
Resources
17-19: Provide a one-page summary of what individual hotel managers should know in
order to make it more likely incoming employees from abroad will adapt to their
new surroundings.
Hotel managers need to know all the issues facing ex-pats and be prepared to assess the
job fit and other items required to make a foreign assignment successful. Figure 17-1 will
17-20: In previous chapters you recommended various human resource practices Hotel
Paris should use. Choose one of these, and explain why you believe they could take
this program abroad, and how you suggest they do so.
Answers will vary widely. Instructors should look for solid, text-based justification of
17-21: Choose one Hotel Paris human resources practice that you believe is essential to the
company specifically for achieving its high-quality-service goal, and explain how
you would implement that practice in the firm’s various hotels worldwide.
Answers will vary widely. Instructors should look for solid, text-based justification of
My Management Lab
Students can find the following assisted-graded writing questions at mymanagementlab.com.
Answers to these questions are graded against rubrics in the MyLab.
17-22: What special training do overseas candidates need? In what ways is such training
similar to and different from traditional diversity training?
17-23: Your boss wants you to transfer from headquarters in Columbus, Ohio to the firm’s
Moscow, Russia office. You’re pretty sure you’re suited to work abroad, but to be sure
you decide to write a short essay based on what you learned in this chapter titled “Why I
think I would be successful in an overseas assignment.” What would you say in your
essay?
Key Terms:
Chapter 17: Managing Global Human Resources 17- 12
Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Inc.
International Human Resource Management (IHRM) – The human resource management
concepts and techniques employers use to manage the human resource challenges of their
international operations.
Works Councils – Formal, employee-elected groups of worker representatives.
Codetermination – Employees have the legal right to a voice in setting company policies.
Expatriates (expats) – Non-citizens of the countries in which employees are working.
Home-Country Nationals – Citizens of the country in which the multinational company has its
headquarters.
Locals – Citizens of the countries in which employees are working; also called host-country
nationals.!
!
Third-Country Nationals – Citizens of a country other than the parent or the host-country.
Virtual Teams – Groups of geographically dispersed coworkers who interact using a
combination of telecommunications and information technologies to accomplish an
organizational task.
Ethnocentric – The notion that home-country attitudes, management style, knowledge,
evaluation criteria, and managers are superior to anything the host-country has to offer.
Polycentric – A conscious belief that only the host-country managers can ever really understand
the culture and behavior of the host-country market.
Geocentric – The belief that the firm’s whole management staff must be scoured on a global
basis, on the assumption that the best manager of a specific position anywhere may be in any of
the countries in which the firm operates.
Adaptability Screening – A process that aims to assess the assignee’s (and spouse’s) probable
success in handling a foreign transfer.
Foreign Service Premiums – Financial payments over and above regular base pay, typically
ranging between 10% and 30% of base pay.
Hardship Allowances – Payments that compensate expatriates for exceptionally hard living and
working conditions at certain locations.
Mobility Premiums – Typically, lump-sum payments to reward employees for moving from one
assignment to another.