___________________________Quality compliance at the Hawthorne Arms
___________________________

Prepared by,
Parth v. Purohit (19)
(Ahmedabad Mgnt. Association) * Summary of the case: * This case is presented to highlight the complex and dynamic relationship between an international assignment and the selection of a qualified expatriate manager for that assignment. * The changing nature of the job – from a Plant Manager of a wholly owned subsidiary to a Quality Compliance Officer in a ten year joint venture – combines with a cast of three interesting and yet very different potential assignees to show how potentially complex such global selection decisions can be. * The importance of personal and the ambiguity and unexpected timing of these critical HR decisions are also dealt with in this case. * One of the issues in the case is the tradeoff between the specifics of a focal job description and the availability of candidates for the assignment.

* QUESTION-1: * Things to Consider: * Write (think up) a job description for the “Quality Compliance Officer” and then look at how that job description relates to each of the three candidates. * A more sophisticated approach might be to step back and consider the best of the three candidates overall and then revise the job description to that candidate’s strengths and provide outside help from other managers on site in Hungary or in the region in order to insure that critical activities outside of the selected candidate’s background.

* Important Factors: * The three candidates represent a balance of strengths and weaknesses. * Marie represents organizational and technical process abilities. * Janos represents local cultural understanding and some local product knowledge. * Sinead represents global product knowledge and organizational