Chapter 18- Human Resource Management

Question 1

What is an expatriate and what are the advantages and disadvantages?

Answer 1

An employee who is assigned overseas.
Advantages: know the corporate company culture well, already has the skills, knowledge and expertise relevant to the job, protect the interests of headquarters. Loyal to the company.
Disadvantages: very expensive to send someone abroad (all the relocation and additional allowances). Risk blackouts- have to be called home early, or brownouts- underperforming employees. Also since assignments are usually 3 years, employees could become shortsighted, only focusing on their personal success instead of the whole company’s long term success.

Question 2

What is Lingua Franca?

Answer 2

The common language used by an international business- all business carried out in this language.

Question 3

Factual Cultural Knowledge?

Answer 3

Information about a country’s culture, working conditions and environment that can be found through various reports.

knowledge obtainable from specific country studies, published by governments, private companies, and universities and also available in the form of background information from facilitating agencies such as banks, advertising agencies, and transportation companies.

Question 4

Area expertise?

Answer 4

knowledge specific to a certain region that the expatriate (manager) is responsible for knowing.
i.e. if sent to Singapore, there area expertise could be singapore or extend to a larger area and they are responsible for understanding how to do business, the local traditions/holidays and overall culture.

Question 5

What is adaptability screening?

Answer 5

The process by which a employee is evaluated before possibly being sent abroad. It is meant to predict if the employee will be successful going abroad. Screening also includes the adaptability of the employee’s family, as it plays a huge role in their success abroad.
Personal characteristics and demographics are also important. In some cultures, certain types of people may be more successful.

Question 6

What is the purpose of an orientation program?

Answer 6

A program that familiarizes new workers with their roles; the preparation of employees overseas.

Orientation programs are extremely important in increasing the likelihood of an expatriates success.

Internal and External aspects (compensation versus understanding the culture)

Question 7

What steps are in the 4-tiered approach to orienting a new expat?

Answer 7

1) Clearly state criteria of new position
2) rigorous procedures to determine the suitability of that individual across those criteria
3) appropriate orientation
4) constant evaluation of effectiveness of procedures.

Question 8

What is culture shock, and what are the various stages of it?

Answer 8

Psychological disorientation many people feel when they move to a new area that has a very different culture from their own, for an extended amount of time.

1) Euphoria- spectator of culture
2) irritation and hostility- actively participate in culture
3) adjustment- often can lead to corporate accusations of going “native”
4) re-entry- returning home with a possible new perspective of your home culture.

Question 9

Base salary?

Answer 9

salary not including special payments such as allowances paid during overseas assignments

Question 10

COLA?

Answer 10

Cost-of-living-allowance. an allowance paid to expats so that they can maintain the same standard of living as they had in their home country. calculated as a percentage of the base salary. If the new country has a lower cost of living, then now COLA is assigned.

Question 11

Housing allowance?

Answer 11

Allowance for housing

Question 12

Education allowance?

Answer 12

allowance for the education of the children- may have to be sent to international school, or private school.

Question 13

Foreign service premium?

Answer 13

A financial incentive (bribe) to go overseas. Usually determined as a percentage of the base salary.

Question 14

Hardship allowance?

Answer 14

Premium paid to employees who are going to a country that will be especially difficult to adapt to.

Question 15

Tax equalization?

Answer 15

Reimbursement from the company for differences in taxes between home and new country.

Question 16

What is self management, and what regions is it most employed?

Answer 16

independent decision making, a high degree of worker involvement in corporate decision making.
• Currently the greatest amount of cooperation between labor and capital in participative leadership is in the Germanic group of European countries.

Question 17

What is codetermination?

Answer 17

A management approach in which employees are represented on supervisory boards to facilitate communication and collaboration between management and labor.
In the US, most unions do not like this approach, especially when management-labor relations are confrontational.

Question 18

What is minority-participation?

Answer 18

Participation of a group that has less than the number of votes for control–including the minority groups.

Question 19

What is a works council?

Answer 19

councils that provide labor a say in corporate decision making through a representative body that may consist entirely of workers or of a combination of managers and workers.

Question 20

What is quality of work life?

Answer 20

various corporate efforts in the areas of personal and professional development undertaken with the objectives of increasing employee satisfaction and increasing productivity.

Question 21

What are work redesign programs?

Answer 21

programs that alter jobs to increase employee satisfaction as well as efficiency. There are two components:

Horizontal- increasing task complexity, incorporating steps that are usually done before and after.

Vertical- increasing the responsibility of the employee- give more power to decide how the work is done.

Question 22

What is team building?

Answer 22

process that enhances the cohesiveness of a department or a group that helps its members learn how to organize their work and take responsibility for it.

Question 23

Quality circles?

Answer 23

small groups that meet regularly to discuss issues related to productivity.

Question 24

Work-scheduling? Flextime?

Answer 24

preparing schedules for how long employees are to be at work.
flex-time gives the employees to pick their own starting and ending hours within a given range.
good because it reduces absenteeism, however it is not appropriate for all jobs (like assembly line jobs).