Research Project - Week Three

INTRODUCTION

The management composition of any organization has been considered to be among the most important factors that determine the success of any organization. This is from the top to the bottom in the employee hierarchy as each member of the management has a role to play that leads to the overall success of the organization. An organization is therefore obligated to hire the most efficient management, especially at the top, for it to increase its chances of succeeding in its sphere of operation. Furthermore, with the continued rooting of globalization, managers are required to have certain qualities that will warrant their success in their expatriate assignments. This research project, therefore, seeks to find out the issues that determine the success of a particular manager.

The research question on the other will be 'Does the use of local staff in international branches of the company yield higher productivity than current levels'. The hypothesis formulated is that when a company uses local staff, it is able to adapt better to the requirements of the local country. Through research, three types of staffing policies have identified in international businesses (and are among the options open to be used by companies): the geocentric approach, ethnocentric approach and the polycentric approach. I will review each of the policies and recommend the strategy that should be pursued by the firm. The most eye-catching staffing policy is undoubtedly the geocentric approach. This is despite the fact that it has several impediments to adopting it.

An ethnocentric staffing policy is one whereby all key management positions are occupied by parent-country nationals. A polycentric staffing policy on the other hand needs the host-country citizens to be hired to manage subsidiaries, while the parent-country citizens occupy major positions at their corporate headquarters. The third, which is the geocentric staffing policy, looks for the best individuals for key jobs all over the organization, notwithstanding the nationality.

BACKGROUND RESEARCH

Sending employees to work in foreign countries has been a trend for many years. The employees are for a long time been chosen on the basis of leadership skills; technical proficiency and domestic track record, until the 1990s. Senior executives in 200, on the other hand considered the capacity to control emotions as of more importance than technical skills. During the 1980s and 1990s however, it became apparent that expatriate maladjustment was a main cause of unproductive expatriate performance and premature returns. Nevertheless, most organizations still use staff from the company’s cradle land. This is to protect and preserve their culture. (Caligiuri et al, 2009). This way, the main offices are able to exercise control over the kind of operations that is carried out in the branches. This is quite important in ensuring the services or products a company offers are standardized.

SAMPLING APPROACH

First and foremost, I will move on to my choice of organizations and interviewees. Sampling, as the name suggests, means that you amass data from a smaller group that is part of a large population (Saunders et al., 2009). This is because of time and budget limitations that make it challenging to collect data from the whole population; thus, the researcher needs to pick a sample. By doing this, the data collection process is made more controllable as a smaller number of people is included. The initial step in the sample selection involves defining the population which we need sampled (Burns, 2000). In this study, the population comprises of multinationals. In keeping with Saunders et al. (2009) there exist different techniques of sampling, which can then be categorized into two groups; the probability and non-probability sampling. In probability sampling, any event can be counted in the sample and are picked statistically. On the other hand, with non-probability samples, cases cannot be generalized on statistical grounds. On the contrary, they are based upon subjective judgements. The non-probability techniques of sampling to be used for this research paper are purposive and self-selection sampling. In purposive technique, cases are chosen which best allows us to answer our research question. From the beginning, I decide to focus on multinational companies; I had a vivid idea of what type of organizations and how to contact them. I will then prepare a list of appropriate companies together with the information about these companies, to enable me get the desirable sample. I will then narrow the sample size with regard to the available time and resources. I would select interviewees from different industries; however, the reason is not to compare the organizations but rather to acquire a range of viewpoints. Fewer cases from which to gather data can lead to more detailed outcomes (Saunders et al., 2009).

ETHICAL ISSUES

A few ethical concerns are involved with conducting this research. They can be categorized as Matters involving participants, Matters involving researchers, matters pertaining to the recruitment of participants, the nature of participants and confidentiality issues. As of matters involving participants, it becomes an ethical issue when either Children or people under the age of 18 are involved, when vulnerable people (the mentally ill, bereaved among others) are involved, when the participants are either my own students or colleagues, when the participants might not effectively understand verbal explanations or written material or have a low functional literacy. On matters involving the researchers; there may exist a conflict of interest. On matters pertaining to the recruitment of participants; ethical issues may come into play when participants are approached in a public space, when participation is not voluntary, or if there is any form of coercion or enticement to participate, if the researcher has any form of financial interest in the project, The respondent may not be able to pull out from the project or when any form of deception is involved. Ethical issues may also be involved depending on the nature of the participants; this happens when participants reveal that they have gone against the law, when issues of confidentiality and privacy, security of personal data, lack of anonymity, retention or disposal of data.

Reference

Caligiuri, P., Tarique, I., & Jacobs, R. (2009). Selection for international assignments. Human Resource Management Review, 19(3), 251-262. Hauser, P. M. (1942). Proposed Annual Sample Census of Population. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 81-88.