Development of a Multinational Personnel Selection System

The owner of a company with production plants in various regions in the world wants to standardize the methods of personnel selection for the Asian-Pacific region (APAC). A new system of personnel selection has to be developed for middle management positions in APAC. The owner delegates this task to a cross-functional, multinational project team that operates in Hong Kong headed by a human resources (HR) executive and expatriate from Germany. In terms of the new personnel selection system, he has two opposing goals in mind: the new personnel selection system should be highly specific for a particular country and simultaneously valid for different countries. A series of issues must be resolved in order for the project to be successful. Some of these issues are related to the personnel selection system; the job requirements to be assessed, the modules it must include, the stages and methods of each module, and the implementation of the system across countries in APAC. Other issues are interpersonal, such as the cultural differences and the heterogeneous perspectives that exist among the team members, and a conflict between the HR executive and the owner.