it was very difficult for U.S. managers to trust that
their Norwegian employees would get the job done
in a crisis and thus had trouble seeing them as
potential global managers. Duplicative staffing
was sometimes the result.
A final component of this challenge was motivating
employees to want to spend time overseas.
Most of the executives considered overseas experience
a sine qua non for promotion to top jobs in
their organizations. But, for a variety of reasons,
many talented employees do not want to move
overseas. One executive noted that, "talent marries
other talent," and that spousal careers are
increasingly an obstacle to overseas assignments.6
Another point, made by both Merck and
Amoco, was that the expected growth in their industries
was in locations that were not viewed as
desirable by employees from developed countries.
An Amoco executive noted that in some West African
countries where Amoco had operations, 30 to
35 percent of the population was thought to be HIV
positive, dramatically undermining the appeal of
those countries to potential expatriates.
Four Strategies for Managing the Global