Module 1 – Case
CULTURE AND HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Assignment Overview
Case Assignment Instructions
Arik Air is one Nigeria’s largest airline and one of the
largest airlines in all of Africa. Their employment situation is a bit unique
in that close to 10 percent of their employees are expatriates. Recruiting and
retaining expatriates to work as pilots or other positions in Nigeria can
require higher salaries than are typically paid to local workers. However,
disparities in wages between expatriates and local employees can lead to
resentment. Overall, the human resource situation for a company that operates
globally and hires globally such as Arik Air can be quite complicated.
Do some research on Arik Air and the human resource
situation in Nigeria. Below are a few articles to get you started:
Arik Air customer base soars (Jan. 31, 2014). AllAfrica.com.
Washington, DC. [Proquest]
Nigeria loses N500 billion annually to expatriate pilots.
(Jan. 24, 2014). AllAfrica.com. Washington, DC. [Proquest]
Fajana, S., Owoyemi, O., Elegbede, T., &
Gbajumo-Sheriff, M. (2011). Human resource management practices in Nigeria.
Journal of Management and Strategy, 2(2), 57. [Proquest]
Now suppose that Arik Airlines has been purchased by an
American company, which now has to develop a plan to address the issue of
hiring and maintaining a well qualified pilot staff and making all of Arik’s
employees feel welcome under the new American parent company. Also, suppose
that you have been tasked with coming up with a solid human resource plan for
the new American owners of Arik Air. You
need to make major decisions such as how much to rely on local staff, how much
to rely on employees from the U.S. or other countries, and how to deal with the
sensitive issue of how an American company manages local employees who may be
resentful of their new owner. In order to do this, you will need to use what
you’ve learned in the background materials in this module as well as what
you’ve learned in the previous modules about assessing the local environment of
a country.
In a 4- to 5-page paper, present a strategic human resource
plan considering the following issues:
Go to Hofstede’s webpage
http://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html and look up the cultural values for
both Nigeria and the U.S. Look up the scores of individualism, power distance,
and uncertainty avoidance. What major differences do you see between the two
cultures? What kind of implications will this have for how the American airline
company manages their Nigerian employees?
Overall what kind of human resource strategy do you think
the American company should take to manage Arik Airlines? A geocentric
approach, polycentric, or ethnocentric approach? Explain your reasoning, and
cite Steers and Nardon (2005) or Rao (2010) as part of your answer.
What kind of mix between Nigerian employees (host-country
nationals), American employees (home country nationals), or third country
nationals do you think should be hired? What challenges do you see for hiring
each type of employee? Explain your reasoning, and cite Steers and Nardon
(2005) or Rao (2010) as part of your answer.
Remember that your paper should reflect an integration of
both what you learned in the background materials about the key general aspects
of international human resource management, and what you’ve specifically
learned about the unique issues involved in managing human resources in an
airline in Nigeria. Your task it to apply the background materials to the
specific issues that would be faced by an American company if they were to
purchase Arik Air.
Assignment Expectations
Answer the assignment questions directly.
Stay focused on the precise assignment questions; don’t go
off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing background materials.
Use reliable and credible sources as your references.
Articles published in established newspapers or business journals/magazines are
preferred. If you find articles on the Internet, make sure they are from a
credible source.
Reference your sources of information with both a
bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a
High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13 and 14 on in-text citations.
Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide,” which is found under “My
Resources” in the TLC Portal.
