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OPENING CASE: A Global Team at Mary Kay Inc.
Summary
QUESTION 1: How are Mary Kay’s marketing and human resources strategies related?
ANSWER 1: Mary Kay uses a direct-sales approach to marketing, relying upon the interpersonal
QUESTION 2: In what ways does the Mary Kay workforce model motivate employees?
ANSWER 2: Mary Kay believes that recognizing employee achievements heightens ambition
QUESTION 3: What type of staffing approach does Mary Kay use? What are its advantages and
disadvantages?
ANSWER 3: Because Mary Kay uses a direct sales approach based on the connection of its
CRITICAL THINKING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
QUESTION 1: What are the main advantages and disadvantages of the ethnocentric, polycentric,
and geocentric approaches to staffing policy? When is each approach appropriate?
ANSWER 1: An ethnocentric staffing policy is one in which key management positions are filled
by parent country nationals. The advantages of the ethnocentric approach are: (1) overcomes lack
QUESTION 2: Research suggests that many expatriate employees encounter problems that limit
both their effectiveness in a foreign posting and their contribution to the company when they
return home. What are the main causes and consequences of these problems, and how might a
firm reduce the occurrence of such problems?
ANSWER 2: The primary causes of expatriate problems are the inability of the spouse to adjust,
inability of the employee to adjust, other family problems, personal/emotional maturity, and an
inability to cope with the larger overseas responsibilities. The consequences of such problems
QUESTION 3: What is the link between an international business’s strategy and its human
resource management policies, particularly with regard to the use of expatriate employees and
their pay scale?
ANSWER 3: In firms pursuing a localization strategy, a polycentric staffing approach is most
common and there are relatively few expatriates or the associated pay issues. Expatriates are
more common in firms with international strategies, and when an ethnocentric staffing approach
QUESTION 4: In what ways can organized labor constrain the strategic choices of an
international business? How can an international business limit these constraints?
ANSWER 4: Organized labor can significantly constrain the choices firms make with respect to
location. International firms (or domestic ones for that matter) often choose to locate new
facilities in places where there is relative labor peace and harmonious working relations. Labor
QUESTION 5: Reread the Management Focus on McDonald’s global compensation practices.
How does McDonald’s approach help the company to take local differences into account when
reviewing the performance of different country managers and awarding bonus pay?
ANSWER 5: When McDonald’s revamped its global compensation practices it asked for input
from local managers on how the new system should work. By doing so, McDonald’s not only
CLOSING CASE: IBM and Its Human Resources
Summary
The closing case explores how IBM built its Human Resources function into a global strategy
that helped the company expand quickly and consistently around the world. Discussion of the
case can revolve around the following questions:
QUESTION 1: In Palmisano’s view, the quality and strategic deployment of human capital is
what separates winners from also-rans, with the idea that companies that rely on technological or
manufacturing innovations alone cannot be expected to dominate their markets indefinitely.
Would you say that technological or manufacturing innovations are more dependent on human
resources? Why?
ANSWER 1: Technological and manufacturing innovations provide only a temporary advantage
QUESTION 2: IBM realized that national units were not effective in developing human
resources, were not aligned with IBM’s strategic focus on human resources, and lacked a global
approach to HR management. How global versus national should HR management be?
ANSWER 2: Student responses will vary. Much of this decision depends on the type of business
in question. For IBM, a global approach to HRM and staffing made sense because the company
QUESTION 3: The ultimate goal of IBM’s Workforce Management Initiative was to enable the
company to find and deploy the best people within the company to help solve client problems or
respond to their requests. But, what about cultural differences and international business
knowledge? Can client problems be solved solely on the merits of the technological knowledge
of IBM employees?
ANSWER 3: Cultural differences can be a significant obstacle to implementing a global,
QUESTION 4: IBM has transformed itself over the years from a manufacturing company to a
services company and this story is well told in the news media. However, is IBM’s Smarter
Workforce Initiative taking this services positioning too far?
ANSWER 4: Student answers will vary. Some will argue that IBM must return to developing and
MHE INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS VIDEO LIBRARY
Please click here to visit our International Business Video Library on Pinterest, which is updated
on a monthly basis. While there, be sure to "like" the clips that work well for you, and add notes
that might be helpful to your colleagues.
INCORPORATING globalEDGE™ EXERCISES
Use the globalEDGE™ site {globaledge.msu.edu/} to complete the following exercises:
Exercise 1
The impact of strikes and lockouts on business activities can be substantial. Since your
manufacturing company is planning to expand its operations in the Asian markets, you have to
identify the countries where strikes and lockouts could introduce interruptions to your
operations. Using labor statistics from the International Labour Organization (ILO) to develop
your report, identify the three Asian countries with the highest number of strikes and lockouts, as
well as the total number of lost worker days. What types of precautions can your company take
to prevent interruptions from occurring in these markets?
Exercise 1 Answer
ILOSTAT is a database of labor statistics, providing annual labor market statistics for over 100
indicators and over 200 countries, areas, and territories. It includes data on labor costs,
occupational injuries, strikes and lockouts, union activity, and many other labor-related data.
Exercise 2
You work in the human resources department at the headquarters of a multinational corporation.
Your company is about to send a number of managers overseas as expatriates (or expats) to
France and New Zealand. You need to create an executive summary evaluating, comparing, and
contrasting the possible issues expats may encounter in these two countries. Your manager tells
you that a tool called Expat Explorer created by HSBC can assist you in your task.
Exercise 2 Answer
Search phrase: Expat Explorer
Resource Name: HSBC Expat Zone
Website: http://www.expat.hsbc.com/1/2/hsbc-expat/expat-experience
globalEDGE Category: Travel/Living Abroad
Additional Info:
HSBC’s website dedicated to providing resources to expatriates (expats). The Expat Explorer
tool is under the Destinations section and allows users to compare countries based on rankings
by real expats. One of the tools under the Expat Explorer allows the user to directly compare two
countries based on a large number of criteria important for expatriates.
