The White Water Rapids of Robin Earl

Transcription

1 The White Water Rapids of Robin Earl Mark E. Mendenhall Gary R. Oddou Günter K. Stahl Summary of Reading We have structured the introduction to the book to be both a reading and a case in and of itself. We introduce the themes of the book through the eyes of Robin Earl, a human resource manager who has been charged to prepare for the HR implications of her company s new strategy to operate internationally. Though Robin Earl is a North American human resource manager in a North American company, she could just as easily be a manager in any medium-sized European, Asian, South or Central American, Australian or New Zealand, or African company. The issue is not her gender, her nationality or the nationality of her firm, but rather the challenges she faces due to globalization. Scenario Robin Earl is Director of Human Resources for BCN, a firm that among other things manufactures a line of semiconductors. BCN has been very successful in the last 10 years. Sales have increased at an annual rate of 7 percent and profits have correspondingly grown. BCN has had overseas sales offices for the last seven years, exporting its products from its local manufacturing operations to South America and Southeast Asia. Recently,

2 BCN s top management has been mulling over the possibility of developing manufacturing and distribution capabilities in South America and Asia and possibly even in Europe. Doing so would allow BCN to take advantage of cheaper labor rates in some of these countries and avoid to export barriers in others. In addition, it could be more responsive to local demand for its products, and in the age of globalization, move toward being a truly global firm. The reading/case is a great way to introduce students to the types of challenges, paradoxes, and difficulties associated with varying areas inherent in international human resource phenomena. Her concerns revolve around major issues, with questions around those issues: How Will International Assignments Fit into BCN s Business Strategy to Become a Truly Global Firm? Do we have a clearly focused business strategy for becoming a multinational firm? How will the development of BCN s human resources fit into such a plan? I wonder why I am not on that planning team? What kind of perspective and experience should BCN s future top management have if they want to be leading a true multinational firm? How will that experience be best obtained through international assignments or by the use of consultants? Am I going to be responsible for educating management regarding international issues? I could always hire experts to evaluate the bid proposals of consulting

3 firms, but that would run into serious budget squeezes for my department. Who should we send our high potentials who are destined to lead the company in the next 10 years or our non-designated personnel? How important will it be to have a global perspective at the top vs. having one throughout the levels of the company? Will local managers if we use local managers want to be promoted to U.S. headquarters? Will top management want that? Fifteen years from now what will, and what should, BCN s top management look like: an Asian manag ing a South American plant and a mixture of South Americans, Asians, Europeans, and Americans at headquarters? The cost of hiring the numbers of new workers not to mention well qualified managers is not going to be loose change. I hope they aren t ignoring the cost of hiring well qualified managers and retaining them in their financial analyses How will we retain the best and the brightest? What do Asians want in rewards? What do South Americans want? Is a good salary enough or are other factors involved? Which Countries Have Cultures That Best Fit BCN s Needs? Which countries have educational systems that would best support the knowledge base that our personnel will need? Which countries have social systems that favor unions more than management? Which cultures within these regions are most favorable to American expatriates and their families? Most importantly, which cultures promote a strong work ethic? Which countries have governments that are stable and are not likely to change

4 and upset the equilibrium of our workers and managers work schedules? What about the possibility of terrorism? Will I have to devise a terrorismprevention training program? Which countries are friendly to us, not just business-wise but in their perceptions of Americans and their right to manage the local residents? I wonder how much kidnap insurance costs? Should We Send Our Own Personnel Overseas or Hire Locally? Which countries in Asia, South America, or Europe have qualified personnel to staff manufacturing operations from top to bottom? Do some countries have laws that require hiring a certain percentage of local workers? Can or should the subsidiary management come from BCN headquarters? If not, where would we find local managers to hire? The universities? If we send our personnel, who should go? How long should their assignments be? How expensive will it be to house an American family at their accustomed standard of living in the new country? How should we select the Americans to send? Should we base our decisions on experience in the company, adaptability potential, or desire to relocate? What if nobody wants to go? How Will We Train Employees for Such Assignments? How much training will they need before they go? How in depth will it need to be? Do they need language training or is English good enough? Will the firm budget my department the resources necessary to do quality training or will I be left with a budget that will allow nothing more than bringing in a few

5 local professors for a couple of hours each to do area briefings? Who can I call on to do the training? How will I know if the training these external consultants provide is valid and helpful or just a dog and pony show? Can I, with my staff, develop our own training program that would be strong enough to make a difference? What kind of time and money will such an endeavor require? What Are the Career Implications of Foreign Assignments? Should the assignments be developmental or should slots simply be filled as they open up, regardless of whether or not the move will develop the employee? If the assignment is developmental, what will we do when the employee returns? How will we reintegrate these employees into BCN s home operations? How will the HRM department be kept informed of the needs, concerns, performance, and evaluation of the overseas employees? By phone? Telex? Fax? Site visits? How Productive Will the Cheap Labor Be? If we do opt to set up in a country where the labor rates are inexpensive, can we introduce our management systems into the manufacturing plants? Will those systems be in harmony with the work culture of that country? How do we train local workers to understand how we do things at BCN? Will I have to design those training programs too? I wonder if our managers will have to develop unique incentive systems to get their subordinates to work. No, probably not... well, then again, maybe. After all, the people under me have different buttons that make them work harder those buttons are not the same for everyone here in the U.S.

6 Is it possible for some cultures to have work norms that are antithetical to promotion and pay inducements? What about motivating and evaluating the Americans overseas? How Should We Do Performance Evaluation? Can we just use the same forms, procedures and criteria, or is there something unique about a foreign assignment that requires unique performance evaluation systems? When should we evaluate people? Would it be fair to evaluate employees before six months? When would it be valid? After eight, ten, or twelve months? Should the criteria by which to judge performance in Asia and other places be relative to the country in question, or should we use the same evaluation criteria everywhere? Who should do the evaluating? Headquarters, the regional subsidiary superiors, peers, or a mixture of superiors and subordinates? Should the criteria revolve around bottom-line figures or personnel objectives? If financial type performance criteria are emphasized, what happens if the dollar depreciates significantly against the local currency and wipes out the expatriate manager s cost savings and profits? How can the expatriate manager be evaluated, motivated, and rewarded under such conditions? What about nationality differences in performance evaluation? If an American manager is being evaluated by a Peruvian subsidiary manager, will the evaluation be fair or is there potential for some sort of cultural bias? What if the American manager is a woman? Will we be able to put together an attractive, but not too costly, compensation

7 package for our expatriates? I wonder what such a package would look like. We need to offer something good to entice the employee to go, especially if the employee might lose the spouse s income; yet if there s too great a difference in the package between the repatriate and local personnel, that will create we-vs.- them problems. Will the Unions Be Trouble? I remember reading somewhere, she mused, that in order to shut down a manufacturing facility in France (or was it Germany or Sweden?), management had to give the workers a full year s notice, retrain them, and then find them new jobs! Well, maybe the Asian labor markets are less unionized and won t be as problematic. Maybe dealing with unions wouldn t be all bad... maybe unions would protect us from questionable ethical nightmares, We have a hard enough time in our California and Texas plants, let alone overseas! Where Can I Go for Help? Ideas and Questions to Stimulate Discussion 1. The last question that Robin considers is an effective starting point for an out-ofclass team assignment. If you have your class formed into work/study teams, give them one of the set of questions above, and assign them to find the answer to the question. When they ask you for guidance, tell them they are Robin Earl s staff and this assignment simulates reality: What do you do, where do you go, when you don t know the answer to a business question? During the class session when the assignment is given, brainstorm with the class where Robin and her staff

8 should turn for valid and reliable information. Results of a brainstorming session will elicit responses such as: a. The internet b. University professors c. Personal HR peer network d. Professional societies e. Consultants f. Trade organizations g. Books. 2. The list above is of course not comprehensive but it is a start. After a reasonable list of sources has been generated, facilitate a class discussion regarding the strengths and weaknesses of each source as being a reliable and valid one for Robin and her staff. (Some issues to raise would be: validity and rigor of information on the internet, personal bias of consultants, scope of knowledge in this specific domain on the part of university professors, depth and rigor of publications by professional societies, etc.) 3. The assignment at this point can go in one of two directions: (a) ask the team to simulate Robin Earl s staff situation and to go and bring back a report that they will present in class by next class session; or (b) have each team draft a strategy for procuring the information that is, elaborate on how they would concretely go about finding out what they need to find out. 4. Note: The above assignment can be done at an individual vs. a team level as well. 5. Another approach is to assign this reading/case to the class and have them come to class prepared to answer the following questions: a. How is it that someone at Robin Earl s level of responsibility is so

9 ignorant about the international aspects of HRM? This fictional case reflects a common reality why do you think this reality exists? b. Though the authors contend that the case is not a North American case that the issues Robin confronts are essentially the same as any firm would face no matter the country it is based in are there yet aspects of the case that seem to you that reflect a strong U.S. perspective, mindset, or assumptions? What aspects of this case do you think are universal and which are idiosyncratic to an American firm? c. Are all her concerns equal in importance? Which issues should she focus the lion s share of her effort upon and which can she table for awhile? Rank order her concerns from most critical to least critical.