The Pros and Cons of Geocentric Staffing by Perlmutter (1969)

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,3, University of Applied Sciences Hamburg, language: English, abstract: The basic idea of every business enterprise on the globe is to strive for profit maximization. To realize this particular objective corporations have to operate across international borders. In doing so, it is assumed that there is a company-network consisting of the mother company that is always located in the home-country, whereas the subsidiaries are situated in the host-countries. Moreover it is important to recognize that there are different approaches how to fill the senior executive positions within the whole company group. One of the very first scientists, who dealt with this issue, was Howard Perlmutter in 1969. He firstly found out that there is a clear distinction of three orientations how Multinational Corporations would be differentiated: The ethnocentric perspective, also defined as the home-country-perspective. The polycentric orientation, called as the host-country-perspective. The geocentric approach, the world-wide-perspective, which is the most specialized orientation, gained particular recognition. The aim of this research paper is to allow an insight into the specifics of Multinational Corporations, with special focus on the geocentric staffing approach.