Question

Explain ethnocentric and polycentric orientation and show the differences between them support your answer with examples Giving examples

Answer 1

1. Ethnocentric orientation is a disposition of human resource managers of corporations with global operations. When deciding upon the recruitment of key management personnel for foreign operations, some organizations and managers believe that a candidate from the home country would best serve the interests of the company.

This disposition to select home country candidate for key positions for foreign operations of the company is known as ethnocentric orientation. This relies on the assumption that home country managers would best connect to the headquarters beacuse of a high level of familiarity and best serve headquarters interest due to affinity. For example, ford motors may consider posting US citizens to all key post for its operations in Europe and South Asia.

2. The polycentric orientation, on the other hand assumes that host country personnel should fill the key posts in foreign offices of a company. The rationale behind this orientation is that host country personnel are likely to be better acquainted with the political, legal and sociocultural factors and forces and hence better able to respond to such factors and forces rather than home country candidates. For example, McDonald's may consider posting Indian's to all the key posts for their Indian subsidiary as they are well aware of the cultural factors and food habits of Indian consumers.

Therefore, the key difference between the two is that ethnocentric orientation seeks to position home country candidate as key personnel for foreign operations; whereas, polycentric orientation seeks to position host country personnel on the key positions under the assumption that host country candidate would know the local conditions best.