(Assignment 1

Student: Thant Zin Aung Student ID: 131537

Lecturer: Subject: Course:

Mr. Colin Kittel International Human Resource Management JNB 513 Graduate Diploma Maritime & Logistics Management

Due Date: 26 March 2012 Word Count: 1960

ii Abstract

Firms operating in cross-border alliances require expatriates to control their businesses and to reduce risks and uncertainties. This report evaluates the dilemma of the director of personnel development of Trianon, an Anglo-French avionics firm, to appoint a quality compliance manager at their newly set up joint venture firm in Hungary. As risks and uncertainties are involved, and to control the interests of the parent company, an expatriate with technical skills and cross- cultural abilities is selected. The recruitment and selection process of Trianon was also proposed to fit with best practices as well as how it will meet the strategic need of this company through the job description creation and describing the selection methods to be used. This paper concluded by discussing how the best candidate was selected and how the recruitment and selection process of Trianon was proposed.

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iii Table of Contents

Abstract Table of Contents Introduction Choosing the right Candidate Recruitment and Selection Process at Trianon Conclusion References

ii iii 1 2 5 8 9

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International Human Resource Management Assignment 1

Introduction

Human resource management (HRM) practices have been recognized increasingly as a basis for achieving sustained competitive success, particularly for firms operating in challenging and rapidly changing international competitive environments (Pfeffer 1994).Firms operating in cross-border alliances require expatriates to control their businesses and to reduce risks and uncertainties. The case study, Quality Compliance at the Hawthorn Arms describe the dilemma of the Trianon s director of personnel development, to select one of the short listed candidate for the quality compliance manager post at their newly set up joint venture firm in Hungary and key factors to select this candidate were discussed in subsequent sections. The recruitment and selection process of Trianon was also proposed to fit with best practices as well as how it will meet the strategic need of this company through the job description creation and describing the selection methods to be used.

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Choosing the right Candidate

The strategic importance of alliances has increased in the course of globalization (Schuler & Tarique 2006) and there are two types; mergers and acquisitions and international joint ventures. Human resource management is critical for both types of alliances, in order to carry out the strategic goals of these alliances as much research confirms that HRM can have a significant positive effect on firm performance (Evans, Pucik & Bjorkman 2011). One of the major processes in human resources management is staffing, selecting the most qualified persons to fill job vacancies seems to be a universal goal for both human resource and line managers around the world, as a mismatch between jobs and people could dramatically reduce the effectiveness of other HRM functions (Dunnette & Borman 1979).

In the case study, Quality Compliance at the Hawthorn Arms , three final candidates have been short listed and the task was to choose for the role of Quality compliance Manager. The role is for three years and to be based in Hungary and to work for the newly set up joint venture, which has been recently set up, between Anglo-French avionics firm, Trianon and the Hungary government-backed firm. The three candidates listed were two females; Sinead Marrinan-McGuire, a TCN (Third-country national) from Ireland, Marie Erten-Loiseau, a PCN (Parent-country National) from France and one male; Janos Gabor, a HCN (Hostcountry National) from Hungary (Pattanayak 2005).If forced to make a decision tomorrow, as

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3 stated in the case study, Marie Erten-Loiseau should be selected for the post of Quality Compliance Manager.

The study by Edstrom & Galbraith (1977) explains why international transfer of managers occurs. They found three general company motives for making this type of transfer. The first was to fill positions, which mainly concerns the transfer of technical knowledge to developing countries, where qualified local nationals are not available. The second major motive is management development. The transfer gives the manager international experience and develops him/her for future important tasks in subsidiaries abroad or with the parent company. This kind of transfer would be carried out even if qualified host-country nationals were available. For the third reason for international transfers, the final goal is not individual development but organization development, transfers that are used to change or maintain the structure and decision processes of the organization and as a coordination and control strategy. This strategy consists of two elements: socialization of both expatriate and local managers into the corporate culture and the creation of a verbal information network that provides links between subsidiaries and headquarters.

The first motive of filling the position or the persons ability to perform the required tasks is an important consideration and technical and managerial skills are an essential criterion. For this criterion, Marie Erten-Loiseau will be favorable, as she was educated as an aeronautical engineer in France and Germany. In addition, she has worked for thirteen years with Trianon on different projects in two different countries with remarkable success. These attributes will International Human Resource Management Assignment 1

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4 also facilitate the knowledge transfer to the joint venture firms employees, as knowledgeintensive firms need to share knowledge held by employees if they are to gain the most from their intellectual capital and compete effectively in the marketplace as noted by (Swart & Kinnie 2003). Maries leadership skills in the success of the recent projects carried out in Poland and Czech Republic can also assist Trianon in this new joint venture in Hungary.

For the case of Trianon, the third motive, which is, to have organizational control over the joint venture, must also be taken into consideration. Since this is the first joint venture that Trianon has been involved outside of the UK, Germany or France, selection process must be done carefully, as global staffing has become a significant challenge for firms, not only in terms of financial costs but also in strategic terms as noted by (Scullion & Collings 2006). Control is one of the most important reasons for using or transferring expatriates as noted by Scullion (1994) and a firm such as Trianon, which is at the early internationalization stage usually should pursue a high level of control by using an ethnocentric approach by choosing a PCN (Shen 2006). There will also be an assurance that this new joint venture will comply with the overall corporate objectives and policies. Hungary, formerly an eastern bloc country may poses political risk conditions which may create an environment of uncertainty and political exposure as noted by (Sundaram & Black 1992).In order to manage this uncertainty, Trianon may exert control over the situation by sending a PCN, Marie to impose policies and practices prescribed by headquarters (Pucik 1992) .

The challenges for the expatriates on overseas assignment have been especially the inability of the spouse to adjust as noted by Tung (1982).In the case of Marie, her spouse is semiThant Zin Aung International Human Resource Management Assignment 1

5 retired, in which this may not pose a problem as her spouse may not have left a career behind as dual career issue may prove to be a greater barrier for female mobility (Dowling, Feisting & Engle 2008). Marie and her spouse have only one child, who is in the university, and this will not also poses any challenges for her to consider the overseas assignment, as disruption to the childrens education is an important consideration for the expatriate candidates (Dowling, Feisting & Engle 2008).The cultural environment in which expatriates operate is an important factor in determining successful performance and Marie, who was born in Prague and who already have projects carried out in Poland and Czech Republic, over the last three years would have been equipped with the cross-cultural abilities to operate in Hungary.

Recruitment and Selection Process at Trianon

Organizations whose hiring practices engender a good match (or fit) between the characteristics of managers and the requirements of organizational strategy will likely achieve superior performance compared to firms whose selection practices do not emphasize manager-strategy fit (Gupta & Govindarajan 1986).Effective international human resources management can make the difference between survival and extinction for many multinational enterprises (Schuler, Budwar & Florkowski 2002). Schaffer et al. (2006) had stated that utilizing expatriates is an important dimension of global staffing in many firms, given the internationalization of markets, competition and technology.

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6 The first step in recruitment and selection process for Trianon HR team, is to create a job description for the role of Quality Compliance Manager for the joint venture in Hungary. As stated by Dressler (2011), job analysis provides information about what duties the job entails and what human characteristics are required to perform these activities and this information can be used by the HR team at Trianon to develop the job description for that role. Since the job role is for three years and to be based in Hungary, these details must be clearly stated along with the job specification. A very useful function of a position description is, in aligning roles and responsibilities very clearly against organizational requirements while achieving role clarity. A typical position description, in addition to including job identification details, will also include: position purpose, reporting and client relationships, responsibilities or duties, complexity factors in performing the job such as problem solving and decision making, indicators of the job size, and performance goals or key result areas. From a recruitment and selection viewpoint, they should also include experience/knowledge, qualifications and skills required to do the job (Parrott 1998).

The next step is to advertise the job opening and both internal and external labor markets should be included to achieve a larger pool of qualified applications. This can be done through the Trianon website and also through executive search firms. The company website is used mostly to attract applicants from the internal market and executive search firms are used for external labor market applicants.The resumes of the applicants are to be sifted using the key criteria, which is to have engineering back ground and project management skills to short list them for the next step, which is, the interview. Short listing can be enhanced by commencing the process of contacting referees before agreeing on who should be given an Thant Zin Aung International Human Resource Management Assignment 1

7 interview. Trianon HR team can source for referees reports for the internal applicants by contacting the supervisors or managers of the applicants.

The selection methods that Trianon can use are personal interviews, cognitive ability tests and work samples to for this level of final selection. For the personal interviews, the interview panel should be formed, consisting of, the Director of Personnel Development, the General Director of Joint Ventures, Mergers and Acquisitions and the Operations Director of the Display Division. This has the advantage of enabling information to be shared and reducing overlaps. The interviewers can discuss their joint impressions of the candidates behaviour at the interview and modify or enlarge any superficial judgements (Armstrong 2006).The interview questions should focused on whether the applicants is right fit for the role as organizations devote substantial resources to establishing and maintaining a "good fit" between people and their jobs because they assume that certain people are better suited to perform some jobs than others (Caldwell & O'Reilly 1990).The interview questions from Trianon interview panel should emphasize on the applicants cross-cultural suitability and technical abilities to carry out the tasks to meet the strategic goals of Trianon.

Cognitive ability tests can also be carried to the applicants to differentiate individuals on their mental rather than physical abilities (Kramar et al. 2011). Trianon HR team can create tests to examine applicants on quantitative ability and reasoning ability to work effectively, in a new set up joint venture firm in an another country. Work sample tests can also be arranged to test the applicants on their technical skills and interpersonal relation skills. Quality control issues Thant Zin Aung International Human Resource Management Assignment 1

8 of engineering products can be simulated and the applicants can be examined based on these sample tests. Cross cultural communication and knowledge transferring abilities can also be arranged and these tests can further evaluate the candidates abilities.

Conclusion

In the age of globalization, firms are expanding their businesses by cross border alliances through mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures. The case study, Quality Compliance at the Hawthorn Arms, the dilemma of Alistair Mackay, the director of personnel development of Trianon was studied. Marie Erten-Loiseau was selected as the final candidate suitable for the role of Quality Compliance Manager, the major factors being a PCN (Parent-Country National), equipped with technical abilities and cross-cultural suitability. Maries family was also taken into consideration for her to accept this role when she was selected as the expatriate for Trianon to work in Hungary. In order to recruit candidates for this level of final decision, firstly, the job description of this expatriate role should be created. Job vacancy should be advertised for both internal and external labour markets through different media. Trianon should also use several selection methods including personal interviews, cognitive ability tests and work sample tests.

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References

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10 Schaffer, M., Harrison, D., Gregersen, H., Black, J.S. and Ferzandi, L. 2006, You can take it with you: Individual Differences and Expatriate Effectiveness, Journal of Applied Psychology, vol.91, pp.109-125. Schuler, R.S., Budwar, P. S. & Florkowski, G. W. 2002, International Human Resource Management: Review and Critique, The International Journal of Management Review, vol.4, no.1, p.42. Schuler, R. S. & Tarique, I. 2006, Alliance Forms and Human Resources Issues: Implications and Significance, in Handbook of Strategic Alliances, (eds) O. Shenkar & J.J. Reuer, Sage Publications Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA, pp.219-239. Scullion, H. 1994,Staffing Policies and Strategic Control in British Multinationals, International Studies of Management and Organization, vol.24, no.3, pp.86-104. Scullion, H. & Collings, D. 2006, Global Staffing, Routledge, London. Shen, J. 2006, Factors Affecting International Staffing in Chinese Multinationals (MNEs), The International Journal of Human Resources Management, vol. 17, no.2, pp. 295-315. Sundaram, A.K. & Black, J.S. 1992, The Environment and Internal Organization of Multinational Enterprises, The Academy of Management Review, vol.17, no.4, pp. 729-757. Swart, J. & Kinnie, N. 2003, Sharing Knowledge in Knowledge-Intensive firms, University of Bath Human Resource Management Journal, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 60-75. Tung, R.L. 1982,Selection and Training Procedures of U.S, European and Japanese Multinationals, California Management Review, vol.25, no.1, pp.57-71.

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