Deck 14: Establishing Hrm Practices in Foreign Countries

Question 1

Knowledge of culture allows you to predict how others should behave in a variety of situations.

Answer 1

True
Knowledge of culture allows you to predict exactly how individuals will behave in a variety of situations.

Question 2

Courts have generally supported the idea that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act affords EEO protection to expatriates.

Answer 2

True
Courts have generally supported the idea that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act affords EEO protection to expatriates.

Question 3

An expatriate manager is normally a managerial employee that moves from one country to, and for employment in, another country.

Answer 3

True
An expatriate manager is normally a managerial employee that moves from one country to, and for employment in, another country.

Question 4

When selecting employees for overseas assignments, companies should choose employees with a low stress tolerance.

Question 5

The international competitive environment for U.S. firms has remained virtually unchanged since World War II.

Question 6

More and more firms are finding that managers can more easily learn the international aspects of their business in a classroom.

Question 7

A country's artifacts are the most visible signs of its culture.

Question 8

American employers do an excellent job preparing their employees for overseas assignments.

Question 9

Culture is a society's set of assumptions, values, and rules about social interaction.

Question 10

An employee's track record has been found to be the most reliable predictor of success in overseas assignments.

Question 11

Expatriate managers tend to perform as efficiently overseas as they do in their home countries.

Question 12

Firms use overseas assignments to internationalize future top managers.

Question 13

In order to be successful in an overseas assignment, it is critical that the expatriate employee becomes fluent in the host country's language.

Question 14

Expatriates can facilitate the adjustment process of their overseas assignment by being willing to communicate in the host country's language.

Question 15

As U.S. organizations set up subsidiaries overseas, it is easy to superimpose American HR practices on the subsidiary.

Question 16

Conversational currency involves the expatriates' willingness to communicate in the host country's language.

Question 17

Japanese managers like to settle conflict in public while American managers prefer to solve problems behind closed doors.

Question 18

The 1991 amendments to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act extended protection to expatriates allowing them to sue their American employers, just as they do in the United States.

Question 19

Artifacts are the rules of societal propriety and impropriety that are shared by people within a culture.

Question 20

Conducting effective performance appraisals is even more challenging in the international human resource management area.

Question 21

Which of the following are the most visible signs of a particular culture?

A) Beliefs
B) Values
C) Artifacts
D) Assumptions

Question 22

____ are tangible aspects of a country's culture, like music and clothing fashions.

A) Artifacts
B) Values
C) Assumptions
D) Beliefs

Question 23

In recent years, American firms looking to expand internationally, while strong with respect to design and manufacturing, often lack:

A) financial experience.
B) marketing experience.
C) economic experience.
D) accounting experience.

Question 24

Returning expatriates are called repatriates.

Question 25

When appraising expatriate managers' performance, companies should use multiple raters and make sure that some of those raters have lived and worked in the country in which the expatriate is working.

Question 26

Japanese business norms are very formal and well-defined.

Question 27

The "trick" in designing a compensation system for international environments is to understand the country's currency system.

Question 28

With respect to performance appraisal of expatriate employees, companies can simply use their standard appraisal criteria overseas and expect valid results.

Question 29

When U.S. firms cross borders and set up subsidiaries overseas, they easily lose competitive advantage if:

A) they fail to retain sole ownership of the venture.
B) they do not try to superimpose American HR practices on the subsidiary.
C) they try to superimpose American HR practices on the subsidiary.
D) they properly develop employees to work in cross culture environments.

Question 30

American-Japanese joint ventures that fail generally suffer from:

A) poor planning.
B) financial problems.
C) production/design problems.
D) inability to work together effectively.

Question 31

What is the percentage increase recorded per year in the overseas sales of U.S. companies in the last decade?

A) 5 percent
B) 10 percent
C) 15 percent
D) 20 percent

Question 32

U.S. exports have ____ in the last two decades.

A) doubled
B) tripled
C) increased more than five times
D) increased more than 10 times

Question 33

Most Mexican firms have a decentralized management structure with power vested at the lower levels.

Question 34

To be successful in overseas assignments, managers must be able to adapt their management behavior to the culture of the host country.

Question 35

When it comes to assessing expatriate managers' job performance, the key question is, "How soon after the assignment begins should the appraisal be conducted?"

Question 36

____ are overseas operations that firms own.

A) Wholly owned subsidiaries
B) Foreign partners
C) Multinational operations
D) Joint ventures

Question 37

Which of the following models will be best suited for an American firm intending to set up operations in a foreign country where it lacks marketing experience?

A) Joint ventures
B) Offshore production
C) Wholly owned subsidiaries
D) Outsourced business operations

Question 38

Compensation packages for expatriates can hinder the consistency of the company's pay system, causing morale problems.

Question 39

Helping expatriate managers understand how to work with and for people from different cultures is clearly not an HRM department problem.

Question 40

Increasing ____ has forced many American firms to seek overseas markets in order to stay competitive.

A) domestic competition
B) foreign competition
C) cost of raw materials
D) cost of benefits

Question 41

What are cognitive skills that influence adjustment to a new culture called?

A) Social skills
B) Acquired skills
C) Perceptual skills
D) Adjustment skills

Question 42

Perceptual skills that can facilitate an expatriate's ability to adjust to a new culture include all but which of the following?

A) Flexibility of one's belief system
B) Ability to make flexible attributions about why host-nationals behave the way they do
C) Ability to avoid being judgmental
D) Low tolerance for uncertainty

Question 43

____ evolve from society members' assumptions about life.

A) Ideas
B) Beliefs
C) Values
D) Attitudes

Question 44

The degree of condemnation resulting from the violation of cultural rules depend on all but which of the following factors?

A) The extent to which the rule is deeply held.
B) The extent to which the rule has been violated.
C) The extent to which the rule is viewed as being important or sacred.
D) The extent to which the broken rule is widely shared among a cultural group's members.

Question 45

Anthropologists believe that the ____ held by a society evolve from that society's attempts to adjust to the world around it.

A) ideas
B) beliefs
C) values
D) assumptions

Question 46

Which of the following is a society's set of assumptions, values, and rules about social interaction?

A) Artifacts
B) Values
C) Culture
D) Religion

Question 47

American expatriates may sue their American employers, just as they do in the United States, for all but which of the following?

A) Age discrimination
B) Sex discrimination
C) Sexual preference discrimination
D) Race discrimination

Question 48

What percentage of U.S. firms offer pre-departure cross-cultural or language training for their expatriate managers according to research?

A) 10 percent
B) 35 percent
C) 50 percent
D) 65 percent

Question 49

____ is a skill that involves collecting social tidbits and then strategically inserting them into conversations with host-nationals.

A) Conversational currency
B) Reinforcement substitution
C) Relationship substitution
D) Adaptability

Question 50

Firms utilize overseas assignments to ____ future top managers.

A) nationalize
B) colonize
C) internationalize
D) foreignize

Question 51

Knowledge of ____ allows us to predict fairly accurately how others should behave in a variety of situations.

A) culture
B) language
C) currency
D) geography

Question 52

_____ dictates which behaviors are appropriate and which are not in a particular culture.

A) Beliefs
B) Values
C) Artifacts
D) Assumptions

Question 53

____ is the ability of an expatriate to find other pleasurable pursuits that can serve as substitutes.

A) Relationship substitution
B) Adaptability
C) Reinforcement substitution
D) Substitution tendency

Question 54

Personality traits that a successful expatriate should possess include all but which of the following?

A) Ability to handle stress
B) Ability to master a foreign language
C) Reinforcement substitution
D) Ability to develop relationships

Question 55

The ability of expatriates to develop relationships with host-nationals is facilitated if the expatriate:

A) is willing to become fluent in the host country's language.
B) supports and attends cultural events in the host country.
C) uses interpreters and shops at stores that employ English-speaking clerks.
D) demonstrates a willingness to communicate in the host country's language.

Question 56

A(n) ____ is an employee moved from one country to, and for employment in, another country.

A) naturalized citizen
B) expatriate
C) inpatriate
D) foreigner

Question 57

Expatriate managers can usually communicate information about important business functions overseas more effectively than host-national managers because:

A) they have better sources for information.
B) they have better communication channels.
C) they have a better understanding of the informational needs.
D) they have a better understanding of the firm's corporate culture.

Question 58

Increasingly, many companies find that helping managers learn needed international-related skills involves:

A) real-world overseas experience.
B) classroom training.
C) individualized e-learning opportunities.
D) reading.

Question 59

Expatriates are generally sent overseas to do all but which of the following?

A) Open new markets.
B) Facilitate a merger or acquisition.
C) Set up new technologies.
D) To promote someone to someplace where they cannot hurt the main office.

Question 60

What is defined as the degree of mental involvement and effort that must be expended by the trainer and the trainee in order for the trainee to learn the required concepts?

A) Training rigor
B) Training effort
C) Training contribution
D) Training effectiveness

Question 61

____ determine(s) what people consider appropriate remuneration for their labor.

A) The type of work
B) The amount of work
C) Cultural values and norms
D) Corporate values and norms

Question 62

Which of the following activities is not the responsibility of official mentors assigned to expatriates?

A) Keep track of the expatriate's performance.
B) Keep expatriates updated regularly about what is going on in the parent company.
C) Assist the repatriate in readjusting to their native culture when they return home.
D) Assist the repatriate in finding a job in the parent company that would make use of his/her international expertise.

Question 63

The ineffectiveness of U.S. educational techniques in an Asian environment can be attributed to which of the following factors?

A) Lack of formality and increased student participation
B) Lack of formality and reduced student participation
C) Increased formality and reduced student participation
D) Increased formality and increased student participation

Question 64

What is the allowance given to expatriates as a reward for being willing to move one's family to a new country called?

A) Home leave allowance
B) Relocation allowance
C) Cost-of-living allowance
D) Foreign service premium

Question 65

Which allowance is given to expatriates to make up for any mistakes made in any of the other allowances for unforeseen complications?

A) Utility allowance
B) Hardship allowance
C) Relocation allowance
D) Foreign service premium

Question 66

Superimposing American ____ systems onto a foreign subsidiary oftentimes will not only fail to work, but may actually damage the productivity of the workers in that subsidiary.

A) HR planning
B) grievance handling
C) performance appraisal
D) compensation and reward

Question 67

Understanding how culture views the ____ is essential for HR professionals setting up training programs in a foreign subsidiary.

A) appraisal process
B) educational process
C) HR planning process
D) HR management process

Question 68

The "trick" in developing an effective compensation system in international environments is to understand:

A) exchange rates.
B) tax rates.
C) what motivates employees.
D) the banking system.

Question 69

Companies can overcome misunderstandings associated with expatriate performance appraisals by:

A) superimposing American performance standards.
B) using host country nationals to perform the evaluation.
C) using multiple raters including some who have experience in the host country.
D) using only American evaluators.

Question 70

When it comes to assessing expatriate managers' job performance, the key question is:

A) "Who should conduct the appraisal?"
B) "When should the appraisal be done?"
C) "Where should the appraisal be done?"
D) "Why should the appraisal be done?"

Question 71

The HR department's role in facilitating the firm's international operations includes all but which of the following?

A) Deciding who should be sent overseas.
B) Determining what country should be selected.
C) Determining training needs.
D) Determining how to do performance appraisals.

Question 72

U.S. firms have difficulty conducting performance appraisals on their expatriate employees because:

A) they use criteria applied to the host country's culture.
B) they use criteria applied to the host country's laws.
C) they use criteria applicable in the U.S. that may not be applicable to the host country.
D) they use criteria applicable to the economic environment.

Question 73

Which of the following criteria would be most appropriate for appraising expatriate managers?

A) Cash flows
B) Profit levels
C) Negotiation skills
D) Input-output ratios

Question 74

Returning expatriates are called:

A) veterans of foreign experience.
B) repatriates.
C) overseas returnees.
D) international vets.

Question 75

To effectively carry out his/her expatriate assignment, a line manager must:

A) be able to adapt his/her management behavior to the culture of the host country.
B) become fluent in the host country's language.
C) convince his/her family to accompany him/her.
D) leave his family at home.

Question 76

Companies need to integrate overseas assignments into their ____ systems to deal with problems related to the deployment of expatriates.

A) HR planning
B) strategic planning
C) succession planning
D) career development

Question 77

Who is responsible for helping expatriate managers understand how to work with, and for, people from different cultures?

A) Repatriates
B) HR professionals
C) Host-national managers
D) Home office superiors

Question 78

All but which of the following create problems during repatriation?

A) Repatriates not being told what their job assignments will be prior to returning home.
B) Repatriates returning to jobs that require much more autonomy and authority than the jobs they held overseas.
C) Repatriates having difficulty readjusting to their native culture when returning home.
D) Expatriates becoming used to a higher quality of life in their host country.

Question 79

The performance appraisal process for expatriates is compounded by a misinterpretation of each other's behavior which can lead to:

A) adaptability.
B) rater bias.
C) halo effect.
D) recent behavior bias.

Question 80

Which allowances are given to expatriates when living in a host country where expenses are greater than that in the United States?

A) Hardship allowances
B) Relocation allowances
C) Cost-of-living allowances
D) Foreign service premiums