Chapter 6
Exercise
Multinational Recruitment and Selection
‘During the start-up phase McDonald’s drew upon the expertise of their employees from
around the world. Initially there were 45 Western managers from various countries.
This number was gradually reduced, so that by March 1991 only seven remained. All these
managers were replaced by Soviets ...
[For crew members] Moscow McDonald’s placed a single advertisement in Moscow
newspapers soliciting applications. By the fall of 1989, when they started to hire workers they
had received approximately 27000 applications. This created a base for selecting the most
energetic, motivated, intelligent and outgoing young men and women ... following its practice
widely used in its US restaurants, McDonald’s decided to hire Moscow teenagers as crew
members ... people with no prior work experience. The idea was that it would be easier to
instill McDonald’s work habits and standards in people who knew no other way to work than
to disabuse people of unacceptable work habits they had acquired in previous jobs.’
(Vikhanski and Puffer, 1993: 104)
‘All the Directors at Nissan UK are British, except the finance director and deputy managing
director. None of the managers are Japanese. Only a handful of Japanese are seen in the
factory, mostly specialist engineers on temporary assignment to help iron out problems in the
early stages of production of the new car.’ (Popham, 1992)
Discuss the extent to which these examples correspond to the patterns of recruitment and
selection associated with multinational corporations, i.e. ethnocentric, polycentric,
regiocentric and geocentric.
Answer guidelines
This exercise invites you to revisit the approaches of recruitment and selection typically
associated with multinational organisations (i.e. ethnocentric, polycentric, regiocentric and
geocentric) and assess the extent to which each of the case studies demonstrates similarity to
one of those four approaches.
Considering the McDonald’s Moscow example, the following might appear relevant.
McDonald’s is a multinational organisation with Western, particularly American roots.
The venture into culturally different Russia was both unusual and challenging. In the start up
phase one could argue an ethnocentric approach (the early days of a new subsidiary with
power and control maintained at HQ) or geocentric approach (worldwide recruitment as
opposed to parent or host alone). However, one could also argue elements of regiocentric
approach as the particular needs of opening a McDonald’s venture in Russia might be seen as
unique because of the needs of this culturally different region. The approach quickly moved
towards a more polycentric one, where the host country nationals replaced all but seven of the
45 Western managers originally deployed.
Interesting subsidiary comments can also be made on the organisation’s practice of hiring
solely host nationals for non-managerial positions with no prior work experience, a practice
copied from US restaurants.
The Nissan example demonstrates the approach of one successful Japanese organisation
with a subsidiary in the UK. The organisation appears to have chosen to adopt a regiocentric
approach to the recruitment and selection of senior managers. Most, but not all, senior
managers are British with (one assumes) the two who are not British chosen for their
particular expertise. Japanese engineers provide initial assistance. It can be argued that this
organisation has chosen to locate in the UK as part of its European regional drive, and a mix
of local knowledge, especially in relation to employment and legislation has driven host
nation appointments; whilst product knowledge has driven parent nation appointments; with
others being recruited as deemed most appropriate from the world labour market.