A Staffing Decision for an MNC

A Staffing Decision for an MNC

In this case a decision must be made over the three most appropriate candidates to proceed in the next stage(s) of the selection process for a particular job in a Multi-National Corporation (MNC). Information on these five candidates has been collected by an executive search (“head-hunting”) firm, who collected information on them and has already approached them to discuss the possibility of working for “our” company. The initial reaction of all these candidates has been positive (that is they would seriously consider working for “us”).

It is suggested that you first work individually, reading the case and making your own choices/decisions; and then you discuss with your group and you try to reach a decision.

Individual work

Read the background information and descriptions of each of the applicants. Consider the job and the cultures within which the individual to be hired will be operating. Rank the candidates from 1 to 5, with 1 being your first choice, and enter your rankings on the ranking sheet in the column marked “My Ranking.”  Briefly, list the reasons for each of your rankings. Keep in mind that the top three rated candidates will be invited to proceed to the next stage(s) of the selection process (e.g., Interview) while the rest will cease being considered for the job.

Group work

After the individual work, work with your group. Discuss the applicants and rank them in the order of group preference (i.e., rank the candidates from 1 to 5, with 1 being the group’s first choice, and enter your group rankings on the ranking sheet in the column marked “Group Ranking.”). Again, keep in mind that the top three rated candidates will be invited to proceed to the next stage(s) of the selection process while the rest will cease being considered for the job.

Briefly list the reasons for each of the group’s rankings.

If there is any time left, consider what the next stage of the selection process should consist of.

The CASE

Background Information

You are a member of the management committee of a multinational company that does business in 23 countries.  While your company’s headquarters are in Holland, your offices are scattered fairly evenly throughout the four hemispheres.  Primary markets have been in Europe and North America; the strongest emerging market is the Pacific Rim.  Company executives would like to develop what they see as a powerful potential market in the Middle East.  Sales in all areas except the Pacific Rim have shown slow growth over the past two years.

At present, your company is seeking to restructure and revitalize its worldwide marketing efforts.  To accomplish this, you have determined that you need to hire a key marketing person to introduce fresh ideas and a new perspective.  There is no one currently in your company who is qualified to do this, and so you have decided to look outside.  The job title is “vice-president for international marketing”; it carries with it a salary well into six figures (US$), plus elaborate benefits, an unlimited expense account, a car, and the use of the corporate jet.  The person you hire will be based at the company’s headquarters and will travel frequently.

A lengthy search has turned up five people with good potential.  It is now up to you to decide whom to hire.  Although all the applicants have expressed a sincere interest in the position, it is possible that they may change their minds once the job is offered.  Therefore, you must rank them in order of  preference so that if your first choice declines the position, you can go on to the second, and so on.

Applicants Park L., age 41, Married with Three Children

Park L, is currently senior vice president for marketing at a major Korean high technology firm.  You have been told by the head of your Seoul office that his reputation as an expert in international marketing is outstanding.  The market share of his company’s products has consistently increased since he joined the company just over fifteen years ago.  His company’s market share is now well ahead of that of competing producers in the Pacific Rim.

Mr Park started with his present company immediately after his graduation from the University of Seoul and has worked his way up through the ranks.  He does not have a graduate degree.  You sense that Mr Park has a keen understanding of organizational politics and knows how to play them.  He recognizes that because the company he works for now is family controlled, it is unlikely that he will ever move much higher than his present situation.  Mr Park has told you that he is interested in the growth potential offered at your company.

In addition to his native tongue, Mr Park is able to carry on a reasonably fluent conversation in English and has a minimal working knowledge of German and French.  His wife, who appears quiet and quite traditional, and his children speak only Korean.

Kiran K., age 50, Widow with One Adult Child

Kiran K. is a Sikh woman living in Malaysia.  She began her teaching career while finishing her DBA (doctorate in business administration) at the Harvard Business School and published her first book on international marketing 10 months after graduation.  Her doctoral dissertation was based on the international marketing of pharmaceuticals, but she has also done research and published on other areas of international marketing.

Two months after the publication of her book, Kiran went to work in the international marketing department of a Fortune 500 company, where she stayed for the next 10 years.  She returned to teaching when Maura University offered her a full professorship with tenure, and she has been there since that time.  Her academic position has allowed her to pursue a number of research interests and to write authoritative books and papers in her field.  At present, she is well published and internationally recognized as an expert on international marketing.  In addition, she has an active consulting practice throughout Southeast Asia.

You have learned through your office in Kuala Lumpur that Kiran’s only child, a 23-year-old son, is severely mentally and physically disabled.  You sense that part of her interest in the job with your company is to have the income to guarantee his care should anything happen to her.  Her son would go with her to Holland, should she be given the job, where he will need to be enrolled in special support programs.

In addition to fluency in Malay, English and Hindi, Kiran speaks and writes German and Spanish and is able to converse in Japanese and Mandarin.

Peter V., age 44, Single

Peter is a white South African.  He had worked in a key position in the international marketing division of an American Fortune 100 company until the company pulled out of his country eight months ago.  While the company wanted to keep him on, offering to move him from Johannesburg to its New York headquarters, Peter decided that it was time to look elsewhere.  He had begun to feel somewhat dead-ended in his position and apparently sees the position at your company as an opportunity to try out new territory.  Like your other candidates for the position, Peter has a long list of accomplishments and is widely recognized as outstanding in his field.  People in your company who have had contacts with him say that Peter is creative, hard working and loyal.  In addition, you have been told that Peter is a top-flight manager of people who is able to push his employees to the highest levels of performance.  And, you are told, he is very organized.

Peter has a PhD in computer science from a leading South African university and an MBA from Purdue’s Krannert School of Business.

Peter had been a vehement opponent of apartheid and is still very much a social activist.  His high political visibility within South Africa had made his life there difficult, and even now, with the end of apartheid, he would like to get out.  His constant male companion, P.K. Kahn, would be coming with him to Holland, and Peter would like your personnel office to help P.K. find an appropriate position.

Peter speaks and reads English, Dutch, Afrikaans and Swahili and can converse in German.

Tex P., age 36, Divorced with One Child

Tex is currently job hunting.  His former job as head of marketing for a single-product high-technology firm – highly specialized work stations for sophisticated artificial intelligence application – ended when the company was bought out by Texas Instruments.  Tex had been with his previous company virtually from the time the company was started six years earlier.  Having to leave his job was an irony to Tex as it was largely due to the success of his efforts that the company was bought out.  You sense that he is a little bitter, and he tells you that jobs offered to him by TI were beneath him and not worthy of consideration.

Tex has both his undergraduate and MBA degrees from Stanford University.  In addition, he was a Rhodes Scholar and won a Fulbright scholarship, which he used to support himself while he undertook a two-year research project on the marketing of high-technology equipment to Third World countries.

You have learned through your New York office that Tex has a reputation for being aggressive and hard driving.  Apparently he is a workaholic who has been know to work eighteen to twenty hours a day, seven days a week.  He seems to have little time for his personal life.

In addition to his native English, Tex has a minimal command of French – which he admits he hasn’t used since his college days.

Zvi C., age 40, Married with Five Children

Zvi began his career after receiving his MBA from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  His first job was as marketing manager for a German company doing business in Israel.

Zvi’s phenomenal success with this company led to his being hired away be an international office equipment company in England.  Again, he proved to be outstanding, boosting the company’s market share beyond all expectations within two years.  After five years, Zvi was offered a chance to go back to Israel, this time to oversee and coordinate all the international marketing programs for an industrial park of fourteen companies run as an adjunct to Israel’s leading scientific research institution.  It has been his responsibility to interface the research component with product development and sales as well as to manage the vast marketing department.  Again, he has shown himself to be a master.

You have learned through your Haifa office that Zvi is highly respected and has extensive contacts in the scientific and high-tech worlds.  He is exceptionally creative in his approach to marketing, often trying bold strategies that most of his peers would dismiss as too risky.  Zvi, however, has made them work and work well.

Zvi is a religious man who must leave work by noon on Friday.  He will not work Saturdays nor any of his religion’s major and minor holidays – about eighteen a year.  He will, however, work on Sundays.

In addition to his native language, Dutch (Zvi and his family moved to Israel from Holland when Zvi was six), he speaks and writes fluent Hebrew, English, German and Arabic.

Ranking Sheet

Rank candidates from one to five with one as your first choice.