Ch.19 Global Human Resource Management Verified Test Bank

Student name:__________

1) What is human resource management? Why is HRM an important strategic component?

2) What are the three types of staffing policies in international business? Briefly describe each one. Which is the most attractive approach and why?

3) Why should a firm pursue an ethnocentric approach to staffing? What are the disadvantages of this approach?

4) Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of a polycentric approach to staffing.

5) How can the polycentric approach to staffing result in the creation of a “federation” within the firm? Why is this a disadvantage for the firm?

6) Discuss the reasons expatriate managers fail to complete their foreign assignment.

7) Discuss Mendenhall and Oddou’s assertion that an executive who performs well in a domestic setting may not adapt to a different cultural setting.

8) Discuss why the repatriation process is so difficult for so many expatriates.

9) Describe the notion of management development programs as a tool for increasing the overall skill levels of managers. What is the goal of this type of program?

10) How can firms reduce the bias in performance appraisals of expatriate managers?

11) Should a firm pay executives in different countries according to the prevailing standards in each country, or should it equalize pay on a global basis? Defend your answer.

12) What is the most common approach to expatriate pay? Explain this form of compensation. What is the advantage of this approach?

13) Discuss the concerns of organized labor.

14) What are the three actions taken by organized labor to respond to the increased bargaining power of multinationals? How successful have these efforts been?

15) Explain how the wide variation in union structure around the world has been an impediment to cooperation between international companies and various unions.

16) A strong _____, the organization’s norms and value systems, can help a firm to implement its strategy.

A) corporate culture
B) human resources division
C) mission statement
D) beliefs systems

17) What is an advantage of the geocentric staffing policy?

A) It enables the firm to grow its human resources department.
B) It enables the firm to build a cadre of international executives who feel at home working in a number of cultures.
C) It enables the firm to build a cadre of home-country executives.
D) Firms may be better able to create value despite adverse experience curves and poor location economies.

18) Which policy is mainly concerned with the selection of employees for particular jobs?

A) retention policy
B) staffing policy
C) incentive policy
D) appraisal policy

19) A Japanese firm prefers expatriate Japanese managers to head its foreign operations because these managers have been socialized into the firm while employed in Japan. This indicates that the firm

A) believes that such managers cannot progress beyond middle-manager positions in their parent company.
B) follows an ethnocentric staffing policy to maintain a unified corporate culture.
C) is trying to create value by transferring core competencies to a foreign operation.
D) requires host-country nationals to be recruited to manage subsidiaries.

20) In an ethnocentric staffing policy,

A) all key management positions are filled by host-country nationals.
B) host-country nationals are recruited to manage subsidiaries.
C) all key management positions are filled by parent-country nationals.
D) the best people are recruited for key jobs throughout the organization, regardless of nationality.

21) Cultural myopia refers to a firm’s failure to

A) adapt to certain ethnocentric cultures.
B) act confidently in host countries.
C) understand host-country cultural differences.
D) prevent gender discrimination within the firm.

22) What is the difference between an ethnocentric and a polycentric staffing approach?

A) An ethnocentric staffing approach alleviates cultural myopia, while a polycentric staffing approach can lead to cultural myopia.
B) An ethnocentric staffing approach may be more expensive compared to a polycentric staffing approach.
C) An ethnocentric staffing approach seeks host-country nationals for all key positions, while a polycentric staffing approach seeks the best people for key jobs regardless of nationality.
D) An ethnocentric staffing approach is now used in most international businesses, while the polycentric staffing approach is on the wane.

23) If a company recruits host-country nationals to manage subsidiaries while parent-country nationals occupy key positions at corporate headquarters, the firm is following _____ staffing policy.

A) a polycentric
B) an ethnocentric
C) a geocentric
D) an internal

24) Which of the following is a drawback of the polycentric approach to staffing?

A) Firms are likely to suffer from cultural myopia.
B) Host-country nationals are vulnerable to cultural misunderstandings.
C) This approach increases the cost of value creation.
D) Host-country nationals have limited opportunities for advancement beyond senior positions in their subsidiary.

25) _____ seeks the best people for key jobs throughout the organization, regardless of nationality.

A) A polycentric staffing policy
B) An ethnocentric staffing policy
C) A geocentric staffing policy
D) A uniform staffing policy

26) A polycentric approach may be effective for firms pursuing

A) an international strategy.
B) a localization strategy.
C) a transnational strategy.
D) a global standardization strategy.

27) A firm using a polycentric staffing policy will

A) be less likely to suffer from cultural myopia.
B) seek the best people for key jobs throughout the organization, regardless of nationality.
C) most likely follow an ethnocentric strategy.
D) be likely to have improved communication between host-country managers and parent-country managers.

28) What is the most important advantage of using a geocentric staffing policy?

A) It enables the firm to build a cadre of international executives who feel at home working in a number of cultures.
B) It may be less expensive to implement than other policies, reducing the costs of value creation.
C) The higher pay managers on an international fast track enjoy is a source of inspiration within a firm.
D) It reduces the need for futile and time-consuming documentation.

29) An ethnocentric approach to staffing is appropriate for firms that are pursuing

A) a localization strategy.
B) an international strategy.
C) a global standardization strategy.
D) a transnational strategy.

30) Which of the following staffing approaches will be most effective for a firm that is pursuing a transnational strategy?

A) a polycentric staffing policy
B) an ethnocentric staffing policy
C) a geocentric staffing policy
D) an internal staffing policy

31) A geocentric staffing policy

A) requires host-country nationals to be recruited to manage subsidiaries, while parent-country nationals occupy key positions at corporate headquarters.
B) leads to ineffective use of human resources.
C) requires extensive documentation.
D) is compatible with both international and localization strategy.

32) An organization’s norms and value systems are known as its

A) corporate culture.
B) mission statement.
C) human resources.
D) organizational structure.

33) A firm with _____ staffing policy will fill all key management positions with parent-country nationals.

A) a geocentric
B) an ethnocentric
C) a eurocentric
D) a polycentric

34) A firm following _____ approach to staffing believes that the host-country nationals should be recruited to manage subsidiaries, while parent-country nationals occupy key positions at corporate headquarters.

A) a geocentric
B) a eurocentric
C) a polycentric
D) an ethnocentric

35) _____ staffing policy seeks the best people for key jobs throughout the organization, regardless of nationality.

A) An ethnocentric
B) A polycentric
C) A eurocentric
D) A geocentric

36) _____ staffing policy can be expensive to implement because training and relocation costs increase when transferring managers from one country to another.

A) A geocentric
B) A eurocentric
C) A polycentric
D) An ethnocentric

37) A polycentric approach to staffing is one in which

A) host-country nationals are recruited to manage subsidiaries while parent-company nationals occupy key positions at corporate headquarters.
B) standard psychological tests are used to assess perceptual ability and cultural toughness, when selecting a manager for foreign posting.
C) all key management positions are filled by parent-company nationals.
D) the best people, regardless of nationality, are recruited to fill key positions throughout the organization.

38) Broadly speaking, a geocentric approach is compatible with

A) an international strategy.
B) both global standardization and transnational strategies.
C) a localization strategy.
D) both an international and a localization strategy.

39) The ability to understand why people of other countries behave the way they do is

A) self-orientation.
B) others-orientation.
C) perceptual ability.
D) cultural toughness.

40) Expatriate managers who lack _____ tend to treat foreign nationals as if they were home-country nationals.

A) self-orientation
B) cultural toughness
C) others-orientation
D) perceptual ability

41) A citizen of France who moves to the United States to work at Ford is a(n)

A) a host-country national.
B) a local.
C) an inpatriate.
D) an acquired citizen.

42) Expatriate failure refers to

A) expatriates who follow host-country norms instead of their home-country norms.
B) the inability of expatriate managers to treat foreign nationals as if they were home-country nationals.
C) the premature return of an expatriate manager to his or her home country.
D) the ethical drawbacks of the ethnocentric staffing approach.

43) In a seminal study, R.L. Tung found that among American multinationals, the biggest impediment to expatriate success was the

A) inability of the spouse to adjust.
B) manager’s inability to adjust.
C) manager’s inability to cope with larger overseas responsibilities.
D) lack of adequate technical training.

44) In a seminal study, R.L. Tung found that for Japanese multinationals, the biggest impediment to expatriate success was

A) the inability of the spouse to adjust.
B) inadequate compensation.
C) the manager’s inability to cope with larger overseas responsibilities.
D) the lack of adequate technical training.

45) Mendenhall and Oddou’s “others-orientation” dimension, in their study on what predicts success in foreign jobs postings, refers to the

A) expatriate’s self-esteem, self-confidence, and mental well-being.
B) expatriate’s ability to interact effectively with host-country nationals.
C) expatriate’s ability to understand why people of other countries behave the way they do.
D) relationship between the country of the assignment and how well an expatriate adjusts to a particular posting.

46) Which dimension of Mendenhall and Oddou’s study suggests that an expatriate with high self-esteem, self-confidence, and mental well-being is likely to succeed in a foreign job posing?

A) self-orientation
B) others-orientation
C) cultural toughness
D) perceptual ability

47) _____ is the ability to understand why people of other countries behave the way they do.

A) Others-orientation
B) Cultural myopia
C) Perceptual ability
D) Cultural toughness

48) Mendenhall and Oddou identified cultural toughness as one of the dimensions in their study on dimensions that predict success in foreign jobs postings. This dimension refers to the

A) expatriate’s self-esteem, self-confidence, and mental well-being.
B) expatriate’s ability to interact effectively with host-country nationals.
C) expatriate’s ability to understand why people of other countries behave the way they do.
D) relationship between the country of the assignment and how well an expatriate adjusts to a particular posting.

49) In a seminal study, R.L. Tung found that for managers of European firms, the biggest impediment to expatriate success was the

A) manager’s inability to cope with larger overseas responsibilities.
B) lack of adequate technical training.
C) inability of the spouse to adjust.
D) manager’s inability to adjust.

50) Which of the following issues was not addressed by Mendenhall and Oddou’s study?

A) expatriate failure due to a spouse’s inability to adjust
B) expatriate failure due to a manager’s lack of self-esteem
C) expatriate failure due to lack of relationship development
D) expatriate failure due to a manager’s inability to empathize

51) The premature return of an expatriate manager to his or her home country is known as

A) repatriation.
B) inpatriation.
C) expatriate failure.
D) outpatriation.

52) Which of the following is one of the factors that impact a spouse adjusting to expatriation?

A) the inability of the spouse to get a job in the foreign country due to poor training and education
B) laws against spouses freely coming and going from their home in the foreign country
C) spouses not being welcomed into the expatriate community
D) language differences making it difficult for a spouse to make new friends and feeling trapped at home

53) _____ refers to the relationship between the country of assignment and how well an expatriate adjusts to a particular posting.

A) Cultural toughness
B) Self-orientation
C) Perceptual ability
D) Others-orientation

54) Historically, most international businesses have been

A) more concerned with training than with management development.
B) focused on smoothly transitioning their home-country nationals back from foreign postings to home postings.
C) more concerned with management development than with training.
D) less focused on training their home-country nationals for foreign postings than with training home-country managers.

55) _____ is considered the language of world business.

A) Chinese
B) English
C) Spanish
D) Hindi

56) Training can help a manager and spouse cope with issues of adjusting to the foreign environment. _____ is aimed at helping the expatriate manager and family ease themselves into day-to-day life in the host country.

A) Language training
B) Practical training
C) Others-orientation training
D) Cultural training

57) Firms pursuing _____ strategy increasingly are using management development as a strategic tool.

A) a localization
B) a global standardization
C) a transnational
D) an international

58) Bringing managers together in one location for extended periods and rotating them through different jobs in several countries helps the firm build

A) an expatriate community.
B) a formal management network.
C) an inpatriate community.
D) an informal management network.

59) Which of the following statements is true regarding management development?

A) Historically, most international businesses have been more concerned with management development than with training.
B) Management development facilitates the creation of an informal network for sharing knowledge within the multinational enterprise.
C) Management development refers to specific training efforts to prepare home-country nationals for foreign postings.
D) Typically, management development programs use standard psychological tests to select managers for specific foreign postings.

60) Practical training is

A) provided to foster an appreciation for the host country’s culture.
B) aimed at helping expatriates improve their communication skills.
C) aimed at helping expatriate managers to build relationships in the host country.
D) aimed at helping the expatriate manager and family ease themselves into day-to-day life in the host country.

61) Management development programs aim to

A) facilitate an ethnocentric approach to staffing.
B) reduce job rotations of managers.
C) build a formal management network.
D) build a unifying corporate culture.

62) Bringing managers together in one location for extended periods and rotating them through different jobs in several countries is a part of

A) the ethnocentric approach.
B) the global standardization strategy.
C) cultural toughness programs.
D) management development programs.

63) _____ makes it difficult to evaluate the performance of expatriate managers objectively.

A) Unintentional bias
B) Lack of proximity
C) Intentional bias
D) Inadequate hard data

64) When evaluating expatriates, home-country managers usually rely on

A) the manager’s ability to develop cross-cultural awareness.
B) hard data such as market share.
C) the ability of the expatriate to work with local managers.
D) a set of subjective criteria such as interpersonal skills.

65) Which among the following should be done in order to reduce bias in the performance appraisal process for expatriates?

A) More weight should be given to an off-site manager’s appraisal than to an on-site manager’s appraisal.
B) The on-site manager should be of a different nationality than the expatriate manager.
C) Home-office managers should be consulted before an on-site manager completes a formal termination evaluation.
D) A former expatriate who served in the same location as a current expatriate should not be allowed to participate in the appraisal.

66) _____ makes it difficult to evaluate the performance of expatriate managers objectively.

A) Cultural relativism
B) Internal documentation
C) Unintentional bias
D) Others-orientation

67) If a firm is serious about building an _____, it may have to pay its international executives the same basic salary irrespective of their country of origin or assignment.

A) expatriate community
B) international cadre
C) inpatriate community
D) international corps

68) An expatriate’s base salary typically

A) varies from the base salary for a similar position in the home country.
B) is paid half in the home-country currency and half in the local currency.
C) is in the same range as the base salary for a similar position in the home country.
D) is paid in Eurocurrency.

69) When a reciprocal tax treaty is not in force, the firm typically

A) pays the difference the higher income tax rate makes on the expatriates’ take-home pay into a 401k plan.
B) pays the expatriate’s income tax in the home country.
C) reduces the expatriate’s take-home pay to cover the difference in tax rates.
D) pays the expatriate’s income tax in the host country.

70) What is the most common approach to expatriate pay?

A) balance sheet approach
B) net-to-net approach
C) host-country approach
D) cost-based approach

71) A foreign service premium is

A) paid when the expatriate is being sent to a difficult location.
B) the extra pay that an expatriate receives for working outside his or her country of origin.
C) normally given to ensure that the expatriate can afford the same quality of housing in the foreign country as at home.
D) paid to ensure that the expatriate enjoys the same standard of living in the foreign posting as at home.

72) A hardship allowance is paid

A) when the expatriate is being sent to a location where basic amenities are grossly deficient by the standards of the expatriate’s home country.
B) to ensure that an expatriate’s children receive adequate schooling (by home-country standards).
C) to ensure that the expatriate will enjoy the same standard of living in the foreign posting as at home.
D) to ensure that the expatriate can afford the same quality of housing in the foreign country as at home.

73) A _____ may be paid to ensure that the expatriate enjoys the same standard of living in the foreign location as at home.

A) housing allowance
B) hardship allowance
C) cost-of-living allowance
D) differential allowance

74) A _____ may be paid to ensure that the expatriate can afford the same quality of housing in the foreign country as in the home country.

A) cost-of-living allowance
B) hardship allowance
C) housing allowance
D) differential allowance

75) Which of the following is a concern of organized labor regarding multinational firms?

A) A company can counter a union’s bargaining power with the power to move production to another country.
B) An international business will keep low-skilled tasks in its home country and farm out only highly skilled tasks to foreign plants.
C) An international business can attempt to import employment practices and contractual agreements from its host country.
D) A multinational company is more likely to receive government support in the case of hostile labor relations.

76) Which of the following is an action taken by organized labor to respond to the increased bargaining power of multinational corporations?

A) trying to establish international labor organizations
B) increasing competition between national unions
C) lobbying the European Union for legislation to restrict multinationals
D) trying to achieve international regulations on multinationals through such organizations as the United Nations

77) What was the long-term goal of international trade secretariats (ITSs)?

A) to increase the competition between national unions
B) to be able to bargain transnationally with multinational firms
C) to accommodate wide variation in union structure
D) to be able to regulate multinationals with regard to labor policies

78) The international trade secretariats (ITS) have had virtually no real success. Which of the following is a cause of the ITSs’ ineffectiveness?

A) National unions compete with each other to attract investment from international businesses.
B) The structure and ideology of unions tend to be very similar from country to country.
C) Organized labor has had overwhelming success in its efforts to get national and international bodies to regulate multinationals.
D) The codes of conduct developed by International Labor Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development prevented the ITSs from exercising absolute power.

79) Which of the following is true regarding approaches to labor relations?

A) International businesses use mostly similar approaches to international labor relations.
B) The trend is toward greater decentralized control of international labor relations.
C) Historically, most international businesses have centralized the labor relations function.
D) Many firms are now using the threat to move production to another country in their negotiations with unions.

80) Unions’ bargaining power is

A) largely derived from their ability to threaten to disrupt production.
B) rooted in their government backing.
C) largely derived from their ability to control corporate managers.
D) rooted in their financial resources.

81) Trade unions around the world

A) developed simultaneously and in coordination with each other.
B) are widely varied in their structure.
C) have virtually the same ideology.
D) employ the same union structure.

82) From a strategic perspective, the key issue in international labor relations is the degree to which organized labor can

A) improve the profitability of the company.
B) enhance the choices of an international business.
C) increase the integration and consolidation of global operations.
D) limit the choices of an international business.

83) An expatriate manager is a citizen of one country who is working abroad in one of the firm’s subsidiaries.

⊚ true
⊚ false

84) HRM professionals have a critically important strategic role.

⊚ true
⊚ false

85) The most popular staffing policy is the ethnocentric approach.

⊚ true
⊚ false

86) Cultural myopia refers to a firm’s failure to understand host-country cultural differences that require different approaches to marketing and management.

⊚ true
⊚ false

87) In the case of an ethnocentric approach, it is possible that managers may make decisions that are ethically suspect because they do not understand the culture in which they are managing.

⊚ true
⊚ false

88) A firm that adopts a polycentric approach to staffing is likely to suffer from cultural myopia.

⊚ true
⊚ false

89) Firms may choose an ethnocentric approach to staffing as opposed to a polycentric approach because of the cost savings it promotes.

⊚ true
⊚ false

90) A geocentric approach tends to weaken local responsiveness.

⊚ true
⊚ false

91) The geocentric approach is the most popular because it is the least expensive to implement.

⊚ true
⊚ false

92) A citizen of Japan who moves to the United States to work at Microsoft would be classified as an inpatriate.

⊚ true
⊚ false

93) Expatriate failure refers to a manager’s failure to understand host-country cultural norms and values, leading to ineffective work.

⊚ true
⊚ false

94) In a seminal study, R.L. Tung revealed that for European firms, the top reason for expatriate failure was the inability of the manager to cope with larger overseas responsibilities.

⊚ true
⊚ false

95) An executive who performs well in a domestic setting may not be able to adapt to managing in a different cultural setting.

⊚ true
⊚ false

96) An expatriate needs to have language fluency to show willingness to communicate.

⊚ true
⊚ false

97) According to Mendenhall and Oddou, poorly adjusted expatriates tend to be nonjudgmental and nonevaluative in interpreting the behavior of host-country nationals.

⊚ true
⊚ false

98) Cultural toughness refers to the relationship between the country of assignment and how well an expatriate adjusts to a particular posting.

⊚ true
⊚ false

99) A manager might be sent on several foreign postings over a number of years to build his or her cross-cultural sensitivity and experience as part of a management development program.

⊚ true
⊚ false

100) Selection is the first step in matching a manager with a job.

⊚ true
⊚ false

101) Historically, most international businesses have been more concerned with training than with management development, focusing on preparing home-country nationals for foreign postings.

⊚ true
⊚ false

102) Most managers believe that knowledge of a foreign language is necessary to succeed in an international posting.

⊚ true
⊚ false

103) Where an expatriate community exists, firms often devote less effort to ensuring that the new expatriate family is quickly integrated into that group.

⊚ true
⊚ false

104) A firm’s performance appraisal systems are an important element of its control systems.

⊚ true
⊚ false

105) Most expatriates believe that more weight should be given to an on-site manager’s appraisal than to an off-site manager’s appraisal.

⊚ true
⊚ false

106) In polycentric firms, the lack of managers’ mobility among national operations implies that pay can and should be kept country-specific.

⊚ true
⊚ false

107) Base pay in most firms is set with regard to global market conditions.

⊚ true
⊚ false

108) From a strategic perspective, the key issue in international labor relations is the degree to which organized labor can limit the choices of an international business.

⊚ true
⊚ false

109) Labor unions generally prefer it if an international business keeps highly skilled tasks in its home country and farms out only low-skilled tasks to foreign plants.

⊚ true
⊚ false

110) Union influence in the auto industry is increasing in part due to Japanese carmakers building autos in the United States.

⊚ true
⊚ false

111) The international trade secretariats have had tremendous success.

⊚ true
⊚ false