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International Human Resource Management.

Master in Management, MBA.

This case is based upon a real Latin-American multinational company operating in France. The character called Anne, Human Resources Director of the French subsidiary, has to implement an organizational project, while at the same time managing local constraints. She also deals with the internal employee survey on working conditions. Through this case study, students will analyze international human resources issues in a company that has offices in different locations and therefore has to deal with different cultural and legal constraints. It tackles questions of employee satisfaction, working conditions and internal communication. It deals with the specific role of the Human Resources (HR) Director of a multinational company’s foreign subsidiary, who has to comply with headquarters’ instructions concerning the implementation of organizational projects and also abide by local laws and regulations.

“The Paradox of Development” case has four main learning objectives: It illustrates some well-known cultural values frameworks, such as Hall and Hall’s (1990), Hofstede’s (1991), Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner’s (1998) and the GLOBE study’s (House et al., 2004) in a concrete way. It teaches students how to deal with the particular issues and constraints of multinationals when operating abroad, especially when the company’s headquarters are located in a developing country while the subsidiaries are in a developed country. And it helps them better understand the role of an HR Director in such a context. It illustrates the shift from standardization–localization debate [global integration – local adaptation dilemma, Bartlett and Ghoshal (1989); Prahalad and Doz (1987)] towards the choice of HR practices among three options, not two: standardization towards headquarters’ practices, standardization towards global best practices and localization (Pudelko and Harzing, 2007, 2008). It tackles the issues of employee satisfaction and working conditions in an international context where employees have different cultural values.

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CSS 6: Human Resource Management

This paper aims to deepen the understanding of the impact of cultural and national idiosyncrasies on businesses. The authors concentrate on the cultural particularity of the Brazilian jeitinho to assess the ethicality of the concept in buyer–supplier relationships.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 Brazilian professionals working for both national and international companies, allowing for the analysis of the context in which the Brazilian jeitinho is perceived either as positive or negative in terms of ethics.

The authors propose five distinct dimensions (harm to third parties, seriousness of the issue, formality of relationships, personal benefit and assessed pertinence of rules and laws) to the assessment of Brazilian jeitinho as creativity, corruption or more nuanced classifications between them and offer a reviewed definition of the practice.

The results of the study may offer new insights into the Brazilian business environment. Deeper comprehension of the contexts in which jeitinho is used and its different connotations may optimise the relations between foreign and Brazilian companies and between foreign and Brazilian professionals and employees.

Within the context of intensified international trade, global supply chains and geographically spread operations, an understanding of cultural and national idiosyncrasies may provide managers with a powerful tool to conduct their business more effectively. With the economic emergence of countries such as China, Russia and Brazil, local practices are also gaining increased importance as they seem to have a direct influence on management in these places and beyond.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of mobile robotic telepresence systems on face time – which refers to people “seeing and being seen” – and analyse whether they allow overcoming the challenges associated with telecommuting.

This research is based on a qualitative methodology in two French high-tech companies using interviews to better understand how the use of a telepresence robot is experienced by teleworkers, co-workers and their managers.

The results demonstrate that telepresence robots do offset the absence of teleworkers by allowing them to engage in face time, even remotely. It shows how the telepresence robot's affordances impact the different dimensions of face time and examine the processes through which teleworkers and co-workers anthropomorphize the robot and manage their privacy needs.

This article further elaborates the concept of face time and offers six dimensions to study in a digitally driven environment, including two newly identified dimensions. It also discusses the surveillance and privacy needs issues raised by the use of mobile robotic telepresence (MRP) systems.

Some scholars state that multinational enterprises (MNEs) from developing markets manage their subsidiaries in a different way than MNEs from developed markets because the former have to overcome the liability of their country of origin. To analyze this question through the lens of human resource management (HRM), we study the case of a BRIC MNE's subsidiary in France.

We adopted an exploratory and descriptive single case study research design. We used multiple data sources: interviews, internal company documents, academic publications, and media sources.

The results show that the BRIC MNE subsidiary standardizes its HRM practices towards global best practices to compete successfully with MNEs from developed markets. Furthermore, the subsidiary's origin that was considered as a shortcoming in the past is an advantage at present time. Finally, according to the interviewed managers, French subsidiary must overcome a country of origin liability in that it has to change the way that it may be perceived in terms of the issues linked to France's labor relations system.

MNEs originating from developing markets should consider their origin as an advantage: they may be perceived as dynamic, growing, and aspiring to be the best. Another implication concerns the use of global best practices that may facilitate the global coordination of MNEs.

This paper contributes to the literature on the HRM practices of MNEs from developing markets operating in developed markets.

The purpose of this paper is to study the case of one French multinational company which has undergone a process of radical restructuring and “internationalization” because of acquisitions of Anglo‐Saxon multinational companies. It examines how the organizational changes influenced the company's approach to the international human resource management (IHRM).

The methodology of this research is the single case study. Sources of evidences are direct participation and observation, interviews with top managers, and documentation.

The results show that the ethnocentric model, when French managers were placed on the top of the foreign subsidiaries, becomes non‐efficient in the company which doubled its size and the geographical spread of its activities. It is argued that the forces of globalization constrained this multinational company to change from an ethnocentric approach to a geocentric approach to its IHRM.

The case demonstrates that national and organizational cultures are important contextual factors which influence the company's approach to its IHRM. The paper outlines the interconnectedness of globalization and the geocentric approach to the IHRM.