Managing Multinational Company (MNC)

How should an HR department evolve to match a company’s expansion overseas? Which leadership roles are most important in this scenario? Answer- Creating a global work force effective means knowing when to use “expats” when to use hires “locals” and to create a different new class of employees-the glopats. The strategy requires global H.R. leadership with standard systems along with local adaptation. The main underlying ideas are to fulfil the company's global human resources requirement through the feeder mechanisms at regional, national and local levels, and to leverage your current assets fully by actively engaging people in developing their own careers (Hedlund, G., & Rolander, D. (1990). Leadership roles important in this scenario include participative leadership styles in which leader encourages the participation from the peer and employees. Steps of HR can be presented in below ten steps • Break all the "local national" glass ceilings by ending favouritism based on the nationality and relation of the employees • Tracing the lifeline of the company strategy • Building company database and proper allocation of the talent in the company • Constructing the mobility pyramids in the form of Glopats, Globals, Regionals, mobile national locals and Rooted national locals. • Identifying the company leadership capitals • Assessing the company bench strength and skills gaps • Recruiting regularly • Advertising the post internally also to attract the talent within the organisation also • Institutes succession planning • The last but not the least concern is to retain the talent in the company. In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges facing MNC’s in today’s economy and why? Allow for political, technological, and economic challenges. Answer-The multinational company are vast in structure so they have to face the challenges at different level. 1-The first and foremost challenge is the problem of currency fluctuation, as they have to deal in different country having their different currency and inflation rates. 2-The multinational company has also have to deal with different form of political establishment in different company, thus have to abide different sets of rules of regulation in separate regions. 3-In Some parts of the world, different social organisation raises movement to boycott MNC in the name of protecting the national industries. 4-As the MNC exist in different countries so they are also the targets of different scammers and hackers, so these MNC has also have to deal with problem of technological breakdown (Bartlett, C. A., Doz, Y., & Hedlund, G. (Eds.). (2013)). Characterize the future of US-based companies desiring to expand overseas within the next 5 years. What political, economic, and technological challenges might those companies face and why? How can they be overcome? The future of US based companies to expand overseas within the next 5 years in full of challenges and difficulty. First of all as America and Europe is undergoing in the present economic crisis so the capital requires to expand in foreign market is hard to accumulate. The current inflation rate and government policy to minimise the cost also hampers company growth in near future. In many parts of the world there is political unrest and social movements is going on against their national government for example in form of Arabs uprising, creates problem for the peaceful business activities. The competitions from the company belonging to China and India are also fierce to American company because the company of developing countries believes in mass productions due to presence of cheap labour in their country. The American company can overcome these problems if the government intensifies its effort to curb the inflation and start investing in building the infrastructure to stir the whole economy. The company should believe in outsourcing the non-core process to company of developing country because it helps in cost cutting and increasing the effectiveness of the company. The strategy should be frame according to regions as any global strategy lacking the local adaptation is sure to fail in present situation. The American company can uses their political influences to sign the free trade agreement with government of different developing nation so they can easily expand in the unexplored areas. Which of the cross-cultural themes do you feel is most vital to the success of an MNC and why? Today the world is globalised in true sense because now company has to manage the diverse workforce in different countries to run the day today operation within the MNC. No MNC can afford to recruit the person of only one country, so they have to manage the mix work force consisting of different nationality. Managing cross-cultural theme is not easy as different cultures have their own traditions and set of beliefs, one set of work, which is considered appropriate in one culture, may be considered wrong in other. The MNC should develop such work culture, which stop the racial discrimination and give equal chances to get employed based on education and talent of the individuals. Discrimination based on language, appearance and food habits should be avoid at all workplaces to promote the talent for working according to strategy of company. Cross-cultural effectiveness is based on ‘reconciling and combining the best of both worlds’ rather than on thinking in terms of ‘one culture fits all’. It requires senior leaders to make it a top priority on their agenda: How well do we understand the local cultures in the markets in which we operate Why is it useful to have an 8-step negotiation model? What are the consequences if a step is skipped? Answer- 8 steps negotiation model 1-Prepare: Basic research to know the opponent and clear strategy and result in mind 2. Open: Clear discussion to know each other view points 3. Argue: Back-up your case with evidence and uncover defects in their argument. 4. Explore: Establishing common ground and agreeable outcomes. 5. Signal: Show that you are ready to reach an agreement. 6. Package: Put together different acceptable options for both parties. 7. Close: Come to an agreement and finalize the negotiation. 8. Sustain: Ensure that their side, and yours, follows through with the negotiated agreement. Advantage- It provide the strategy, step by step model to be followed during the negotiation process. It also gives the time to understand the viewpoint of opponents and give the common ground to get the best possible outcome. The solution achieves through this process has sustainability because all the short and long term effects has been analyse before reachi9ng to final consequences. Some people does not believes in importance of preparation as they think to be its as waste of time but in actual sense this step is most important as it give negotiator the knowledge of history and base. If any of steps is skip in the process, solution might n=be reached faster but there has been always a question of sustainability of the solution achieved. If any options is skips there is chance that healthy discussion might not be done and some options in clearly ignored which is not good in terms of company point of view. References Hedlund, G., & Rolander, D. (1990). Action in heterarchies: New approaches to managing the MNC. Managing the global firm, 15-46. Hedlund, G., & Kogut, B. (1993). Managing the MNC: The end of the missionary era. Organization of Transnational Corporations, The United Nations Library on Transnational Corporations, 6, 343-358. Bartlett, C. A., Doz, Y., & Hedlund, G. (Eds.). (2013). Managing the global firm(Vol. 3). Routledge. Björkman, I., Barner-Rasmussen, W., & Li, L. (2004). Managing knowledge transfer in MNCs: the impact of headquarters control mechanisms. Journal of International Business Studies, 35(5), 443-455.