Michael Segalla

Symbolic vs functional recruitment:: Cultural influences on employee recruitment policy

This paper reports the results of a study of the cultural influences cm employee recruitment. The authors report the conclusions reached during the first phase of a large European study on managerial decision-making. Nearly 300 managers participated in this phase, which surveyed 25 firms from the financial sectors of France, German, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Models built upon the works of Perlmutter and Heemans (1974) international staffing policy framework and others are examined. The results of this study indicate that nationality is a good determinant of the choice of internal or external promotion systems. The data provide evidence that certain cultures are likely to recruit managers who represent a symbolic value for the organisation or its clients while other follow a more instrumental recruitment strategy. It also finds that individual self-interest remains an important factor in managerial decision-making because lower skilled managers may resist hiring higher skilled recruits. The authors conclude that human resource programs designed to standardise career management policy across Europe may fail because of intentional and unintentional barriers.

Cultural influences on employee termination decisions:: Firing the good, average or the old?

This paper reports the results of an empirical study of the cultural influences on the choice of who to terminate in a general workforce reduction. The authors report the conclusions reached during the first phase of a large European study on managerial decision-making. Nearly 300 managers participated in this phase, which surveyed 25 firms from the financial sectors of France, German, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Models built upon classical economic theory and social justice theory are examined. The results of this study indicate that nationality is a good determinant of the choice of whom to dismiss. Some nationalities are more concerned about the social effects of dismissal on the individual and work group. Others are more concerned about the economic benefits or costs to the firm. The authors conclude that human resource programs designed to standardize career management policy across Europe may fail because of intentional and unintentional barriers.

Cultural impact on European staffing decisions in sales management

This paper tests propositions derived from the sales and human resource management literature about the adoption of sales personnel recruitment and promotion policies in an international context through a comparative study of managers in six European countries. The results indicate that the regional culture of decision-makers has a strong effect on their choice of recruitment and promotion candidates. This study attempts to identify key sales personnel characteristics for international staffing policies.

Culture and Career Advancement in Europe: Promoting Team Players vs. Fast Trackers

This paper reports the results of a study of the cultural influences on career systems and job promotion. The authors report the conclusions reached during the first phase of a large European study on managerial decision-making. Nearly 300 managers participated in this phase, which surveyed 25 firms from the financial sectors of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Models built upon Sonnenfeld and Peiperls11 career typology and on Derr 12 and Evans et al. 13 cultural career maps are examined. The results of this study indicate that nationality is a good determinant of the choice of internal or external promotion systems. It also finds that individual self-interest remains an important factor in managerial decision-making. The authors conclude that human resource programs designed to standardise career management policy across Europe may fail because of intentional and unintentional barriers.

Overview:: Understanding values and expectations of foreign employees creates a better company

This study finds that nationality and cultural group are good determinants of many common managerial problems related to human resource management, especially in situations of cross-border mergers, acquisitions, joint-ventures and alliances. This conclusion is based on the results of the first phase of a large European study on managerial decision-making. Nearly 300 managers participated in this phase, which surveyed 25 firms from the financial sectors of France, German, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The author develops the hypothesis that two different decision logics, economic rationality and group rationality, co-exist and are used independently to create and justify organisational policies. He suggests that some cultures are better able to balance the competing logics by compartmentalising them in such a way that they are used for different type of common problems.

Management FocusSymbolic vs functional recruitment:: Cultural influences on employee recruitment policy

This paper reports the results of a study of the cultural influences cm employee recruitment. The authors report the conclusions reached during the first phase of a large European study on managerial decision-making. Nearly 300 managers participated in this phase, which surveyed 25 firms from the financial sectors of France, German, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Models built upon the works of Perlmutter and Heemans (1974) international staffing policy framework and others are examined. The results of this study indicate that nationality is a good determinant of the choice of internal or external promotion systems. The data provide evidence that certain cultures are likely to recruit managers who represent a symbolic value for the organisation or its clients while other follow a more instrumental recruitment strategy. It also finds that individual self-interest remains an important factor in managerial decision-making because lower skilled managers may resist hiring higher skilled recruits. The authors conclude that human resource programs designed to standardise career management policy across Europe may fail because of intentional and unintentional barriers.

Factors for the success or failure of international teams

There appears to be a growing interest in developing large‐scale international research projects on managerial subjects. Because of the relative novelty of these projects some practical advice may be useful for those who would like to create or participate in an international research project. This paper offers such advice based on its author’s own experience and on his perspective as organiser of a symposium held at the 1997 Academy of Management Meetings entitled “Creating, managing, and benefiting from international research teams”.

What Foreign Policy Makers Want From Foreign Policy Researchers

In an effort to address the question of how scholarly research products can be made more relevant to foreign policy makers, the authors undertake a systematic analysis of government-sponsored external research on foreign affairs to determine the kinds of products in which practitioners are most interested. Beyond mapping the foreign affairs external research domain to determine the nature of the scholarly products sought by policy makers, the study compares the funding emphases of various agencies that have foreign affairs interests to see to what extent these emphases reflect different research orientations, as well as a distinctiveness of missions among the members of the foreign policy establishment. Two basic conclusions are drawn from the study. First, contrary to much conventional wisdom, the foreign policy establishment supports a substantial amount of research that is basic (as opposed to applied), global in scope (as opposed to regionally specific), international in disciplinary orientation (as opposed to national or cross-national), and temporally open-ended (as opposed to immediate). There is no indication from this study that scholarly research would be more supported and used by policy makers if it were more problem-specific. Second, one must be careful in generalizing about the research needs of foreign affairs practitioners insofar as there is considerable differentiation among agencies with respect to the nature of the scholarly products in which they are interested.

An international study of dysfunctional e-mail usage and attitudes among managers

There is a rich body of literature regarding the choice of medium for business communications. Much of this literature seeks to understand the choice and usage of, and attitudes towards, differing media. Theories about the choice of using electronic media range from symbolism, message equivocality, the distance between message partners, the number of message partners, the perceived richness of the media, and the attitudes of message recipients (Trevino et al., 2000). The past few years have seen the choice of electronic media, specifically e-mail, grow enormously. Increasingly, the advantages of e-mail seem to be linked to dysfunctional behaviour and attitudes. This study explores these questions with a survey of 750 European business executives. The survey specifically focuses on identifying dysfunctional usage and attitudes among a cross-section of managers who routinely use e-mail for their work in large firms.