Whom to Hire

Whom to Hire?

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Whom to Hire?

Introduction

Global marketing refers to the process of adjusting the marketing strategies of an organization to facilitate success in international markets. Some of the processes involved in global marketing include promotion, positioning, and planning of the products in a global market. In the case in question, the organization would hire a global marketer from a list of four candidates. The organization should ensure the successful candidate has certain qualifications that would enable them advance the international marketing practices of the organization. Some of the main qualifications that the organization should use to choose the most qualified candidate include educational qualifications, experience, language competency, and cultural competency.

Overview of Ranking

Based on the biographies of each applicant, below is the ranking of the candidates from the most qualified to the least qualified.

Saya K.

Park L.

Peter V.

Joe P.

Saya K. would be the most qualified candidate for the position of Vice President of Global Marketing. She is the most culturally competent candidate among all the candidates. She studied at Harvard Business School, which is based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Saya is currently a full professor at Maura University and is currently living in Malaysia. Her background shows that she can easily adapt and succeed in different backgrounds. The job opening requires the successful candidate to travel regulations to other regions across the globe. Therefore, since Saya has cultural diversity, she would easily fit into the cultural orientation of different regions, which would improve the chances of success of her global marketing efforts.

Saya is also highly conversant with international marketing. Her doctoral dissertation was on international marketing. She has also undertaken research and drafted books on international marketing. Saya also has practical international marketing skills as she has an active consulting practice throughout Southeast Asia and has worked for a Fortune 500 company for ten years. Saya is also fluent in Malay, English, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish, and German.

Park L. would be second choice for the vacant position. He is currently working in South Korea, which is one of the main target markets of the company, as the senior vice president of a major South Korean technology firm. Therefore, he can help in improving sales in this region, as he is conversant with the market environment. His skills and experience would enable him introduce new ideas and perspectives to improve sales in target markets of the company. Park is highly successful in his job as highlighted by the fact that he worked his way up through the ranks of his company. Park can also converse in his native language and is reasonably fluent in English. He also has minimal knowledge on French and German, which he can improve with time if he is employed by the organization.

Peter V. is the third choice for the vacant position. Peter is not cultural diverse, which would make him experience certain challenges in interacting with people from different cultures during his travels if he is hired by the company. However, he has an MBA from Purdue’s Krannert School of Business, which is located in Indiana, the United States. Therefore, he has some experience on new cultures, as his home country is South Africa. Peter also has experience having worked in a key position in the international marketing division of a U.S. Fortune 100 company, which had operations in South Africa. Peter can also read and write English, Dutch, Afrikaans, and Swahili and can also speak in German.

Joe P. is the least qualified for the position of Vice President of Global Marketing. He has limited experience in international marketing. In addition, he does not have good exposure in other cultures. Joe is only conversant with his native English and has limited understanding of French. This would limit his ability to perform his roles effectively if he were employed by the organization.

Cultural Bias in Decision Making

A strived to ensure I remained objective when ranking the candidates to ensure the ranking was not affected by my cultural bias. As such, I desisted from relying on my feelings, politics, or personality traits to choose the most suitable candidate for the open position. I acknowledged the fact that there may be bias during the hiring process as decisions on the right candidate may be based on the “culture fit” of the candidate with the corporate culture of the organization. The use of culture fit to choose the right candidates is prone to biases as it leads to the use of feelings, personality traits, or politics in the choice of the right candidate.

When selecting the right candidates, I focused on the skills, experiences, and competencies of the candidates. The use of these criteria helped in selecting the right candidate who can use her skills, experiences, and competencies in international marketing to meet the needs of the MNE. I acknowledged the fact that the amount of exposure that candidates have to different cultures and their adaptability in different cultures would have a significant impact on their ability to perform their roles as the Vice President of Global Marketing effectively.

Even though culture fit is relevant in the recruitment of candidates, hiring managers should not use it to make biased hiring decisions. Hiring managers can use scorecards to prevent the occurrence of bias due to culture fit. The hiring managers should evaluate culture in the same manner they do skills and abilities during the hiring process. The hiring managers should map the skills of diverse candidates to fit with the cultural requirements of the job. Diversity is critical among expatriates that aspire to get a job in international marketing. This is because they have to travel frequently to various locations across the globe to implement and manage marketing strategies. This implies that they would interact with people from different cultures (Stoermer, Davies, & Froese, 2021). Therefore, diversity would help them adapt and appreciate the importance of cultural differences. Implementing culturally biased decisions may lead make an organization face significant challenges.

Cultural Observations

While raking the candidates suitability for the job, I made some observations that I believe are culturally acceptable in my culture but may not be acceptable in other cultures. The most significant cultural observations I made was the ranking of Saya as the most qualified candidates. Saya is has vast experience in international market. However, she is currently living in Malaysia and may be unwilling to relocate to the company’s headquarters in Netherlands or travel freely as demanded by her work obligations due to family commitments. Even though this observations is acceptable in the Saudi culture where women as regarded as house managers, it is not acceptable in the western culture. The western culture regards this observation as gender discrimination and the violation of the rights of women.

Saudi Arabia has one of the lowest labor participation of women in the world. This limits the economic potential of the country as research has shown providing women with equal access to jobs helps in improving the economy of a country. Even though women have closed the gender gap with men in access to education, there is still a high level of unemployment among women in Saudi Arabia (Alfarran, Pyke, & Stanton, 2018). The recent increase in educational gender equality in Saudi Arabia and other Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries has not led to an improvement in the economic participation of women.

Implication of Cultural Differences on Business Dealings

Expatriates should have a good understanding of the cultural differences between their home counties and their host country. The expatriates should be sensitive and open to the new cultures to ensure they fit in. Saya, the most qualified candidate, has a multicultural orientation. She is currently living in Malaysia. However, she studied in the U.S. at Harvard Business School and has an active consulting practice throughout Southeast Asia. Therefore, her experiences in different cultures provide her with the ability to adapt various environments that have different cultures. Saya is also proficient in several languages. This would make it easier for her to work in different regions that use different languages.

Saya can apply her experiences to improve the sales of the company in the Middle East, European Union, Pacific Rim, and North America. She is less likely to be negatively affected by a culture shock and would adapt easily to different cultures. Therefore, she would easily adapt to any cultural differences. For instance, the Middle East culture has high regard for religion. It controls all aspects of life of individuals. However, in other regions this is not the case. Being conversant and respecting cultural differences would enable Saya, as the Vice President of Global Marketing, to ensure she engages in activities that provide an example on how other employee should tackle cultural differences.

Expatriate Adjustments for the Candidate

In the contemporary world, it is crucial for organizations to have cultural competent employees, as this is a strategic requirement. This is the main reason as to why multinational corporations send their professionals abroad. This enables the organization to focus on knowledge building while developing global leadership through the international assignments. The MNE should provide expatriates with foreign assignments to generate and distribute information or to improve their global leadership skills.

The company should ensure it grants overseas assignments to employees that have high cultural competency. The company should ensure it provides the successful candidate with the right work environment to fulfil her roles efficiently and effectively. The company should ensure the successful candidate not only the technical skills required to work in the overseas locations but are also culturally competent and can live happily in the overseas locations.

The company should ensure it does not provide expatriate assignments as a reward to its employees. The expatriate assignment should make long-term economic sense. Therefore, organizations should consider the long-term impact of overseas assignments before doing so.

To prepare the candidate for the overseas assignment, it should prepare him or her on what to expect. Any language barrier with the candidate should also be addressed prior to the overseas assignment. The company should provide the candidate with all the necessary support he or she would need to settle into the overseas location. After being deployed in the foreign country, the expatriate would experience a culture during the first few weeks or months. Culture shock would occur if the candidate feels they cannot fit in with the society or culture of the foreign location. This would make the candidate experience frustration. The company should acknowledge the emotions that expatriates are experiencing during this period (Tahir, 2018). Therefore, they should provide emotional support to the expatriate until a period when he or she can easily interact with other people in the foreign location.

Decision-Making Process

Cultural adaptation was one of the main criteria used in selecting the right candidate. According to Luthans and Doh (2018), expatriates are anxious during the beginning of their foreign assignments. However, as people become older, they start experiencing a form of culture shock. They feel depressed and lonely in their foreign location.

Most organizations ensure their expatriate managers have good mental and physical wellbeing. Therefore, anxious employees or employees with emotional instability should not be considered for foreign assignments. Emotional instability would limit their ability to cope with cultural shock in the foreign location.

Ensuring there is a blend of age and experience was also used in making decisions. According to Sageder and Feldbauer-Durstmüller (2018), younger expatriates are more ready for international assignments. They are also more “global” than older executives. On the other hand, young adults do not have real-world experience, technical, or organizational awareness that would enable them function effectively in the foreign locations. Therefore, a blend of age and experience was used in decision making to select the right candidate.

The ability to understand the language used in the foreign location is also critical. Language is an essential factor as the expatriate would have to interact with other people in the foreign location who would be using the foreign language.

Conclusion

The MNE should ensure it hires the right candidate as Vice President of Global Marketing. Cultural competency is one of the main factors that would increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the chosen candidate. Saya is the most qualified among the three candidates. However, the company should ensure it considers several issues that may affect Saya’s ability to work in the foreign location.

References

Alfarran, A., Pyke, J., & Stanton, P. (2018). Institutional barriers to women’s employment in Saudi Arabia. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 37(7), 713-727.

Luthans, F., & Doh, J. P. (2018). International management: Culture, strategy, and behavior (10th ed.) New York, NY: McGrawHill Education.

Sageder, M., & Feldbauer-Durstmüller, B. (2018). Management control in multinational companies: a systematic literature review. Review of Managerial Science, 1-44.

Stoermer, S., Davies, S., & Froese, F. J. (2021). The influence of expatriate cultural intelligence on organizational embeddedness and knowledge sharing: The moderating effects of host country context. Journal of International Business Studies, 52(3), 432-453.

Tahir, R. (2018). Expanding horizons and expatriate adjustment. Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, 25 (3), 401-424.