Final case MBA 727
Team Case
Professor
September 24, 2014
AstraZeneca is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Their headquarters are in London, England and staffs over 65,000 employees. European culture being one of the largest staffed at 51 percent, America is 32 percent and 17 percent is dispersed among Asia, Africa and Australia. AstraZeneca focuses on building a global workforce of talent and it’s led by managers with global perspective. They are comfortable moving around the world and interacting with different cultures when doing business. The company will move managers from country to country to help broaden their experiences in different countries and help create a great strength within those managers.
Firms need to ensure there is a fit between their human resource practices and strategies (Hill, C. W., 2013). The role of human resources and the strategic role of international business construct of people, processes, structure, culture, and incentives and controls. The human resource area is responsible for culture and incentives and controls. AstraZeneca believes in utilizing the polycentric and geocentric staffing approaches to create their “high potential” employees. Polycentric staffing refers to as “host country nationals are recruited to manage subsidiaries in their own country, while parent country nationals occupy key positions at corporate headquarters” (Hill, C. W., 2013). That can help in minimizing culture intolerances. This also allows the employee to engage further with the country and the culture, making the employee keep an open mind. The negative in this is it could create a gap between the host country and the parent country employees and managers. Geocentric staffing refers to as “the best people are sought for key jobs throughout the organization, regardless of nationality” (Hill, C. W., 2013). This can help bring a strong employee presence to the culture and help keep it unified. The
Professor
September 24, 2014
AstraZeneca is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Their headquarters are in London, England and staffs over 65,000 employees. European culture being one of the largest staffed at 51 percent, America is 32 percent and 17 percent is dispersed among Asia, Africa and Australia. AstraZeneca focuses on building a global workforce of talent and it’s led by managers with global perspective. They are comfortable moving around the world and interacting with different cultures when doing business. The company will move managers from country to country to help broaden their experiences in different countries and help create a great strength within those managers.
Firms need to ensure there is a fit between their human resource practices and strategies (Hill, C. W., 2013). The role of human resources and the strategic role of international business construct of people, processes, structure, culture, and incentives and controls. The human resource area is responsible for culture and incentives and controls. AstraZeneca believes in utilizing the polycentric and geocentric staffing approaches to create their “high potential” employees. Polycentric staffing refers to as “host country nationals are recruited to manage subsidiaries in their own country, while parent country nationals occupy key positions at corporate headquarters” (Hill, C. W., 2013). That can help in minimizing culture intolerances. This also allows the employee to engage further with the country and the culture, making the employee keep an open mind. The negative in this is it could create a gap between the host country and the parent country employees and managers. Geocentric staffing refers to as “the best people are sought for key jobs throughout the organization, regardless of nationality” (Hill, C. W., 2013). This can help bring a strong employee presence to the culture and help keep it unified. The