Changing patterns of global staffing in the multinational enterprise: Challenges to the conventional expatriate assignment and emerging alternatives

Abstract

We argue that many MNCs continue to underestimate the complexities involved in global staffing and that organisations and academics must take a more strategic view of staffing arrangements in an international context. We suggest that the context for the management and handling of the international assignment has altered significantly, leading in some quarters to a fundamental reassessment of the contribution of, and prospects for, the international assignment as conventionally understood. We explore a variety of supply side issues, cost issues, demand side issues and career issues as triggers to this reassessment. Alongside the conventional expatriate assignment, we point to the emergence of a portfolio of alternatives to the traditional international assignment including short-term assignments, commuter assignments, international business travel and virtual assignments. In the context of these developments, we argue that a standardised approach to international assignments is untenable and that it is essential to develop HR policies and procedures that reflect differences in the various forms of emerging alternative international assignment and their associated complexities. Here recruitment and selection, training, reward, and occupational health and safety issues and implications are all explored.

Talent management motives and practices in an emerging market: A comparison between MNEs and local firms

“…MNEs frequently engage in cross-subsidiary transfer of employees and the deployment of universal HRM systems help to allocate resources, identify and measure high performers and build organizational culture (Collings et al, 2010b, Collings et al, 2007, Wöcke et al, 2007.…”

Developing tomorrow's leaders—Evidence of global talent management in multinational enterprises

“…Allied with increasing numbers of firms internationalizing, as well as the growth of emerging markets (e.g. Central and Eastern Europe and China), the demands for managerial talent are further increasing (Collings, Scullion & Morley, 2007;Scullion, Collings & Gunnigle, 2007). Third, owing to the more demanding skill-set that internationally operating companies require, talent management is more complex in MNEs than in domestic firms (cf.…”

Career Mobility in a Global Era: Advances in Managing Expatriation and Repatriation

“…While expatriates are pivotal to a firm's international strategy in starting-up a foreign operation or enabling control over overseas subsidiaries, Collings, Scullion and Morley (2007) suggest that firms should develop a portfolio of alternatives to traditional expatriates, typically parent country nationals (PCNs) with staffing by local employees to be considered as the default option. The employment of local nationals in key decision making positions can provide several benefits, including the engendering of trust and goodwill, dispelling the common perception of a glass ceiling for locals, i.e., the inability for local talent to progress beyond a certain level at the subsidiary of a foreign-run multinational.…”