Section A: Answer all question that follow the Case (COMPULSORY)

Case study: Repatriation and Loss Prevention at ISCAM

On his last day of work at ISCAM, Wayne Bullova wrote up his letter of resignation, took the five weeks of vacation he was due and walked through the February snow across the downtown Denver Street to open his own Safety and Security consulting firm. Only three years earlier, Wayne had jumped at the chance to take the assignment as Loss Prevention and Safety Director at ISCAMs new regional center in Peru. As a global mining engineering firm with decades of international activities, ISCAM had done a very good job of preparing Wayne and his family for the differences between Lima and Denver. The children had quickly adjusted to the American school, surprisingly his Mexican born wife had enjoyed being involved in both the expatriate community and the local Peruvian church group associated with the Cathedral, and Wayne had immediately enjoyed the increased responsibilities and centrality of his new role. As an ex-US Army Ranger Captain, his security role did provide occasional adrenalin rushes as he responded to Sendero Luminoso activities in mine sites around Huaneayo, but the evident success of the counterterrorism and security protocols he developed were gratifying.

His return to Denver, some six months ago, was a different matter. He knew that things would be different at home after the corporate restructuring that occurred a year into his expatriate assignment. His long-time mentor and friend, Herman Balkin, had taken a reportedly very generous early retirement package after a long-simmering executive power struggle unpredictably came to a head. Several restructuring aftershocks relocated many of his colleagues outside of Colorado. During his assignment in Peru Wayne was more and more frustrated as his informal corporate intelligence network dissolved and the role of his liaison was passed around among a series of increasingly junior, and to his mind clueless, executives.

The assignment he was promised by the company president was rethought and when he returned six months ago he spent the better part of a month trying to get an office and understand his new job. Everyone he talked to had a different perspective on what he was being asked to do. He felt claustrophobic (stifling), and to make matters worse, the new counter-terrorism and security protocols he had developed and used, with great success, in Peru were either systematically ignored or so modified by his supervisors that they were unrecognizable.

At a Broncos football game he shared his growing frustrations with Balkin. On the home front, the new house they had purchased upon return having sold their home at the advice of the HR director at the time of the international assignment was expensive, hard to heat and placed them in a city school district that the children were having problems with. He had looked at private schools, but the tuitions were astronomical and his salary was not much more than it had been three years ago. His wife had started to complain about Denver winters again. At work, Wayne felt as if he had returned to a totally different world. Balkin asked if ISCAM had asked Wayne to renew his executive non-competition agreement. Wayne replied that ISCAM had not. Well, there you go, said Balkin, Lets do what we have talked about for years. With your technical expertise and my industry contacts, we can work for ourselves at least we will know who our bosses are and what the job is.

Required:

a. What criteria do you think ISCAM used in selecting Wayne for the assignment? Explain any three. (12 Marks)

b. What do you think ISCAM did to prepare Wayne and his family for the differences between Lima and Denver that enabled them to adjust so quickly and easily? Explain any two.

(8 Mark)

c. State and explain the compensation approach/options in your view, that ISCAM could have used to incentivize Wayne whilst he was on the assignment in Peru, as is most widely used for similar international assignments. (4 Marks)

d. Would you say Wanyes expatriation was a success? Why? (4 Marks)

e. What are the things that resulted in Wanyes mounting frustration at the workplace and at the home front? State two. (4 Marks)

f. Preparing the repatriate and family for re-entry appears to have some value. The potential for mismatch of expectations regarding the future may be addressed as part of re-entry training before the return, and discussed during re-entry counseling sessions (debriefing) between the receiving organization in the home country and the repatriate. As the person in charge of the process mention any four topics/areas you will cover in designing a repatriation programme for your repatriates. (8 Marks)

Section B: Answer any two questions from this section

Question one

a. In todays global environment, successful organizations of the future will be those which can attract the best global talent and nurture, develop and retain by having a compelling work environment and sophisticated succession management strategies. With this in mind, discuss thoroughly any five difficulties associated with planning and forecasting of global workforce and indicate how these difficulties can be ameliorated. (30 Marks)

Question two

a. There are staffing issues that internationalizing firms (MNCs) confront that are either not present in a domestic environment or are complicated by the international context in which these activities take place. For example. an India MNC may wish to appoint a new Finance Director for its Ghanaian subsidiary. The MNC can hire a combination of nationals. Drawing from an in-depth research, discuss two (2) of the three options available from which this director could be hired. (10 Marks)

b. There are different staffing approaches/policies to managing and staffing subsidiaries. An MNC will ultimately apply one of these approaches depending on what its intentions are, to staff its MNC and subsidiaries globally. Discuss any three (3) of the four staffing approaches, giving practical examples, and bringing out at least two (2) advantage and at least two (2) disadvantage each, of the approaches that you discuss. (20 Marks)

Question three

a. The more countries with which MNCs interacts, the more complex and difficult conducting business becomes. The central causes of this complexity and difficulty pertains to the importance and critical nature of the differences between national cultures countries. Drawing from the preceding preamble, discuss in rich details the findings of Geert Hofstede on the cultural values of multinational enterprises.

(20 Marks)

b. Discuss any two implication of these findings for the practice of International HRM? (10 Marks)