Introduction
Along with the globalization of tradeoff and production, and the impact of global economy was driven, the transactional movement of labor will become more widespread and frequent. As a result of that there are increasingly Multinational Corporations were established in Macau. According to the Statistic and Census Service, nowadays, Macau’s population is about 576,700 people. A total of 344,000 people are in the employment labor force. The participation rate of labor force is 72.2%. In which the number of foreign workers is 109,038 people. In which the participation rate of male and female is 78.6%, 66.3% respectively in this year. ( Table 1 ) Table 1:
(Resource: http://www.dsec.gov.mo/default.aspx)
There are some MNCs in different industries in Macau. By gaming industry, there are Sheraton, Wynn, MGM, etc. By diet industry, there are McDonald’s, Pizza hut, etc. As well as by fashion industry, there are Esprit, Giordano, Bossini and so on. According to Statistic by industry, there are 26.4%-employed persons engaged in gaming and other services, 15.8% for the hotel and diet industry. By occupation, 27.2% is clerks who include casino dealers, betting service operators, etc. And 20.5% for service and sales staff, accounted for 17.3% of non-skilled workers. Table 2: (Distribution of employed population)
2009 2010 2011
(Resource: http://www.dsec.gov.mo/default.aspx)
Above the table show that, the percentage of gaming industry is constantly increasing during last few years. Table 3:(annually expatriates) 2009 2010 2011 (Resource: http://www.dsec.gov.mo/default.aspx)
Table 4:
Many MNCs would employ local workers and foreigners in operation. Above the table, during the last few years, Macau MNCs require that imported the foreign workers or expatriates who come from Mainland China, Philippian, and Indonesia, Vietnam, etc. Because the labor imports not only alleviate the pressure of wage inflation, but also strengthen the Macau’s competitiveness. On the other hand, importation of foreign labor to suppress the rising in wage costs is considered to be cheap labor resources.
Literature review — Glass-ceiling for local employees in MNCs * Comparison of expatriate and local employment in MNCs
Along with the globalization of business markets, more organizations are turning to multinational corporations (MNCs). Extant literature has explored the relative advantages and disadvantages of each type of manager with the thinking being that each MNC has to determine its own optimal mix of candidates for conducting operations in specific host countries. Latest surveys confirm the continuing usage of long-term as well as short-term expatriate assignments and expect an increasing use of expatriates particularly in North America, Europe and China (Brookfield Global Relocation Services, 2009; PriceWaterhouseCoopers, 2005). * Major motives for expatriate assignments
1) Firstly, expatriates can be a powerful means to transfer technical expertise and management know-how to foreign ventures. Empirical evidence indicates that much knowledge transferred between units of companies is not explicit but tacit (Bonache and Brewster, 2001), meaning that it is not explicitly articulated. Tacit knowledge is deeply rooted in an individual’s experience, and can only be shared with others through its application or by being made explicit. Given that tacit knowledge cannot be codified in manuals or through policies, international assignments may form a suitable means for the diffusion of such knowledge to the foreign operations. 2) Secondly, expatriates represent the interests of headquarters and may improve communication between headquarters and subsidiaries and assist headquarters’ staff to understand the local business environment (Boyacigiller, 1990; Nohria and Ghoshal, 1994). Effective control and coordination across the companies’ international operations has often been mentioned as the principal purpose for expatriate assignments (Beamish and Inkpen, 1998; Black and Gregersen, 1992; Harvey et al., 2001; Harzing, 1999). 3) Thirdly, there is a growing recognition that employees with international expertise do make a difference in contributing to achievement of competitive advantage in the international business environment (Stroh and Caligiuri, 1998; Taylor et al., 1996). Thus, many MNCs are busily developing pools of employees who are capable of working in international business. Organizational competencies are enhanced if employees are given the opportunity to work beyond the home country’s borders. Living and working in a foreign environment exposes international assignees to arigorous learning process in which they are confronted with new aspects of international business and cross-cultural management (Webb and Wright, 1996). * Deficiencies of expatriate assignments
Although many MNCs continue to rely heavily on expatriates for staffing international positions, the success of expatriates in actually achieving the above-mentioned functions has yet to be rigorously tested (Collings et al., 2007; Fenwick et al., 1999). It is increasingly recognized that expatriates experience a significant rate of failure on international assignments relating to difficulties in adjusting to, and managing in, foreign settings. Though Harzing (2002) has questioned reports within the literature of high rates of premature return from international assignments, there is still debate over how best to define failed assignments. Failure implies considerable direct and indirect costs, such as damaged customer relationships, downtime costs, recruitment and training of a successor, as well as relocation of the failed expatriate (Harvey et al., 1999a). 1) Firstly, a non-financial cost, frequently overlooked, is the psychological strain to the expatriate when failing on an international assignment. Adjusting to a foreign work and living environment is especially difficult in a country such as China which has a high economic, legal, and cultural distance from Western countries (Selmer, 1999). 2) Moreover, as a foreign assignment frequently means that an expatriate’s partner has to leave his/her job and interrupt his/her career in order to follow the partner to another country it has become increasingly difficult for organizations to find employees willing to accept an international assignment. 3) Finally, many companies realize that a high percentage of former expatriates resign from their jobs after returning from their expatriate assignment. When repatriates leave shortly after returning home companies sustain a loss of company-specific knowledge, international skills, business contacts and border crossing social networks, as well as acquired cross-cultural competencies. Nevertheless, research suggests that a majority of MNCs fail to systematically address problems of repatriation and retention (Scullion and Collings, 2006a).
For another example, Saudi Arabia depended foreigners on working in MNC. The labor market in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has depended heavily on foreign workers. The Expatriate labor constitutes two-thirds of the total workforce in Saudi Arabia (Pakkiasamym, 2004). In the private sector the expatriates found to represent more than 88 % of the workforce according to recent report by the Saudi Arabia Monetary Agency (SAMA) in 2008. * Advantages of local Chinese manager employment:
Localization, defined as replacing expatriate managers with managers recruited from the local labor market, has become a major issue for Western MNCs in China (Wong and Law, 1999), though it is acknowledged that training of local hires can be quite costly (Worm et al., 2001). In addition, cross-cultural difficulties can ensue when local hires are trained in the MNCs’ headquarters as in patriates (Chen and Wilson, 2003; Harvey and Mejias (2002). Several arguments have been offered as justification of the preference for local Chinese managers instead of expatriates: 1) Firstly, Local managers are embedded in a network of social relationships or “guanxi” which makes it easier for them than expatriates to build reliable and trustful business connections (Hutchings, 2005). 2) Secondly, it has been suggested that Chinese employees prefer interactions with Chinese managers, a shared language, and a common cultural background. Thus, to either employ local managers initially or move towards localizing management positions can contribute to better worker morale and effectiveness (Hailey, 1996). 3) Thirdly, the technical and managerial skills of Chinese employees have improved substantially over recent years. The Chinese government has made great investments into increasing the output of China’s institutions of higher education, has encouraged the foundation of national or foreign-funded business schools (Selmer, 2003b) and has sent young people to study at universities in the USA, Europe, Canada, and Australia. Thus, highly skilled and experienced local employees are no longer in short supply within the local Chinese labor market. 4) Fourthly, localization may raise work satisfaction and organizational commitment of Chinese managers. Moreover, Chinese citizens who have studied abroad are also more likely to be mobile employees, thus the necessity for high quality employment to be offered within China. * Disadvantages of local Chinese managers employment
In spite of the advantages of employing local Chinese managers, there remain some disadvantages to moving towards employment of local managers in China. 1) Firstly, although local managers are familiar with the Chinese culture and business environment, they may not be conversant with Western MNCs’ values and norms, which originate in their respective home countries. Hence, frictions in the relationship between the subsidiary and the headquarters are to be expected. 2) Secondly, another barrier to localization in China is the high turnover rate among local Chinese managers (Groenewald, 2008; Wang and Chan, 2006). Many quit their jobs shortly after gaining employment and join another company offering more attractive remuneration or better opportunities for advancement. Shortages in qualified management personnel have created a “job hopping” culture (Braun and Warner, 2002).
* Impact
Many MNCs hire local people in the operating country. These local employees, who typically work under expatriates sent from their headquarter, often encounter different cultures at the workplace. Although researchers have paid significant attention to the cross-cultural adjustment of expatriates or suggested effective management practices with local employees, few studies were conducted from a local employees’ perspective, and the adaptation process of local employees to an MNC has largely been overlooked. In addition, past studies identified the cultural differences in communication and feedback styles, yet little is known about how these differences influence employee adaptation to an MNC. The work opportunity of local workers and expatriates is treated differently in MNC. 1) Local employees are sometimes overqualified for the positions they are given – the expatriate and headquarter office staff are given the jobs that require high technical expertise, while local workers are employed for simpler jobs, thereby leaving the local talent feeling unfulfilled and lacking motivation to stay.
2) Inequalities in the workplace. The local employee is not given the same opportunities as expatriate or headquarter office staff (including foreign-born nationals). Those from the culture where the head office is located are the first choice for executive positions and for international assignments. Local workers find themselves hitting a glass ceiling for upward movement as expatriates are being brought in to fulfill positions, rather than promoting the local employee. 3) Cultural incompatibility in the workplace. Local staff can be offended by the behavior, attitude, and overall cultural insensitivity of the expatriates. Foreign-born nationals may be equally offensive to local employees, as they frequently adopt cultural habits from abroad, which may not be acceptable to locals. 4) Insufficient strategic, cultural training resources. Many, but not all, expatriates receive cultural and/or language training for their international assignments. Local workers on the other hand, do not usually receive any, even though they are also working with a foreign culture. They often struggle and may eventually leave because they have not been properly equipped to work in an international environment. The productivity of foreigners is higher than locals; they are more driven and take work more seriously.
* Current practices by MNCs:
To capitalize on the relative advantages of both expatriate and local Chinese managers, some MNCs have begun to hire foreign managers who already live in China. The replacement of expatriate managers with Chinese or local-hired foreign managers does, however, put at risk the effectiveness of personal control mechanisms in the MNCs’ Chinese operations. The high turnover rate of Chinese managers affects organizational stability. Non-expatriates lack familiarity with the headquarters’ corporate culture and lack social networks in the parent company. And, perhaps most importantly, the parent company and its subsidiary have asymmetrical knowledge about the commitment of the local managers or local-hired foreign managers to the parent company’s goals (Harvey et al., 2001; O’Donnell, 2000). A majority of participating MNCs aspires to localize staff in their China-based subsidiaries. These findings contradict earlier evidence suggesting that expatriation levels in Western MNCs are increasing (Harris et al., 2005; PriceWaterhouseCoopers, 2005) or remaining stable (Fenwick, 2004). Rather, the strong inclination towards localization in the companies participating in our study concurs with the call by practitioners for a reduction of expatriate assign ents (Hewitt Associates, 2007; Peterson et al., 2000; Selmer, 2003a). Yet, it is also worth noting that for a substantial percentage of respondents a minimum presence of expatriate staff seems to be needed to exercise sufficient control and coordination over the China-based operations and guard against self-interested decisions by local subsidiary management (Boisot and Child, 1999; Roth and O’Donnell, 1996).
There was little substantive difference between the responses of Australian and German companies in respect to perceived weaknesses of expatriate, local Chinese, and local-hired foreign staff. Australian as well as German senior managers indicate similar problems encountered by local Chinese and local-hired foreign managers when filling a position in a Western subsidiary. Nevertheless, their strategies to handle staffing difficulties are different. Contrary to our proposition about the German preference for maintaining personal control of headquarter-subsidiary relationships via expatriate assignments, more German than Australian companies plan to replace all expatriates within the next five years. The intention of German MNCs to accelerate localization or completely localize may be attributable to the low inclination of German managers to accept an assignment to a position in China (Brookfield Global Relocation Services, 2009). Many German respondents also argued that the high costs of expatriate assignments would force them to localize rapidly (Peterson et al., 2000). Consequently, German companies provide more off-the-job-training in local institutions of higher education and on-the-job-training at headquarters outside China than do Australian companies. The observation of comprehensive and costly education activities undertaken by German companies is in accordance with another exploratory study of seven German and Scandinavian MNCs operating in China (Worm et al., 2001). As expatriate assignments become less feasible and affordable in guaranteeing maximum control of the foreign operations, the desire to reduce uncertainties and risks may manifest itself in more thorough training and development of local managers who need to be transformed into qualified and loyal expatriate substitutes. From the German perspective, an ideal local manager should be a German national with Chinese ethnicity and cultural knowledge. It has been previously suggested that sending local managers to the parent organization or offering them formal management education does not only improve their management capabilities, but also creates high commitment towards the sponsoring company (Worm et al., 2001).
Localization is effective only if local employees have the required skills, qualifications and experience to fill the positions originally held by expatriates. We asked interviewees to describe their companies’ development programs for newly hired Chinese managers and local-hired foreign managers in order to ascertain what training is in place to ensure that these managers will be equipped to replace expatriate managers. The Australian respondents most commonly reported on-the-job-training and coaching at the workplace as the instruments for local Chinese managers to learn new skills. In comparison, 90 percent of the German interviewees indicated sending their newly hired Chinese managers to the German headquarters for several months of intensive training. A further exploration of the answers reveals that these sojourns were designed not only to teach technical and managerial skills, but also to socialize local employees into the corporate culture. In addition, the local employees were expected to build a social network with the German colleagues during their stay in Germany. Another common development technique utilized by German companies is posting local employees to training institutions in China, where they participate in formal education programs. Literature has stressed the importance of local employees receiving comprehensive socializing into the corporate culture at home, learning about the MNC’s wider global pattern of products, markets, and strategies, and building social networks with the headquarters’ staff (Harvey et al., 2001; Wormet al., 2001; Wong and Law, 1999). These development processes can take place through seminars, on-the-job-training, multinational project groups or counseling by expatriates. However, the highest impact can be expected from assignments to the headquarters of the MNC. * Summary
There are certain advantages for MNCs to send expatriates to host countries like: Transfer technical expertise and management know-how to foreign ventures, improve communication between headquarters and subsidiaries and assist headquarters’ staff to understand the local business environment, and also enhance organizational competencies through developing employees who are capable of working in international business environment. On the contrary, the disadvantages of sending expatriate assignments are: Firstly, adjusting to new environment in host countries, which has high culture distance, compared to home country will be difficult for expatriates. Moreover, Its hard to find employees who willing to accept international assignment because their partner will also have to leave their job and follow expatriate to new country. At last, most MNCs failed to systematically address the problem on repatriation and retention. So that company lost company-specific knowledge, international skills, business contacts and border crossing social networks, as well as acquired cross-cultural competencies. The advantages of localization in host countries consists of following factors: Its more easier for local managers to build up reliable and trustful business relations because they have local “guanxi” network. Moreover, employees prefer interactions with local managers because they share same language and common culture background. This will lead to management efficiency and better organization harmony. Furthermore, Chinese local employees’ technical skills and experience has been improved through government’s increasing investment on education and schools. The local market is no longer short of skilled and experienced employees. Finally, Localization may also raise work satisfaction and organization commitment of Chinese managers. In contrast, the disadvantages of localization in host countries are: Although local managers are familiar with the Chinese culture and business environment, they may not be familiar with Western MNCs’ values and norms, Hence, frictions in the relationship between the subsidiary and the headquarters are to be expected. Other than that high turnover rate in China is still a problem to overcome and that created” job hoping” culture which should be careful considered by MNCs. In conclusion, MNCs should evaluate these advantages and disadvantages of sending expatriates or hiring local employees carefully. Then, conduct best HR practices to utilize company’s local and international human resources capital, to realize management efficiency and quality in order to gain worldwide competencies.
Research
* Hypothesis
Our topic is “Glass-ceiling” for the local employees working in MNCs, so we assumed that the “Glass-ceiling” is not obvious for the Macau local employees working in MNCs. Therefore, in the research, we defined independent variables as: common language, common culture background, and special skills, working experience. The dependent variable as: promotion opportunities. And the intermediate variable as: gender, nationality. * If employee has common language with upper level manager, there are higher possibilities to be promoted. * If employee has common culture background with upper lever manager, there are higher possibilities to be promoted. * If employees have better special skills, there are higher possibilities to be promoted. * If employee owns longer working experience, there is higher possibilities to be promoted. Gender and nationality will affect the relationship between IV and DV slightly. * Methodology
In our research, we used questionnaires distribution and face-to-face interview to collect the data and information. A. Interview In addition to do the surveys, we have face-to-face interviews with two managers from different companies in Macau: Venetian Macau and Wynn Macau. Face- to-face interviews helped us to ensure that both the question and answered are properly understood, we can raise any question depend on the situation in order to know more detail of their organization’s structure, and have a better understanding on their companies, so that our project topic can be analyzed more accurate according to the data collect from interviews. * Findings of the first interview
We did the first interview with that is the manager of VIP club in Venetian, according to the interview, we found out some key points that are related to our research. 1) Promotion standards: the manager mentioned standards of promotion is mainly focus on personal skills and work experiences, if employees have capability; they can be promotion no matter of gender, local and foreign employees. However, the local employees can be promoted easily compare with foreign employees, as the manager is a foreign manager, she mentioned that Macau ID is a big advantages for the local employees, since government set the policy to protect the job opportunity of local employees, foreigner work in Macau must require special skills or work experiences in
that higher level managerial position. 2) Ratio of managerial position: there is 10% of manager position for local employee in her company, for the figure of right hand side; expatriates who come from the parent company only will be in higher level of managerial position, just like above the position of Director. 3) The reason of turnover for the manager: the manager said that some managers leave their company because they are already to find a job, maybe that job provide better benefit to them, or they are not satisfied with their boss. There is another reason is that local employees are easily to find a job since Macau provides a lot of job opportunities.
* Findings of the second interview
We also conduct another interview with the director of learning and advancement in Wynn Macau. We also come up some key points of the interview: 1) The ratio of foreign and local employees: the director mentions that there is 80% of local employee and 20% of foreign employees in his company; he said that they prefer to hire local employees. 2) Certain managerial position require special skills and international work experience: the director mentioned that some job really requires very high level skills, for example, certain casino operation skills do not exist in Macau, since there was no experience of international casino operation in Macau. Their vice president of main floor gaming who is Australian. The person has 35 years international experience of high quality level and high-level customer services. Although in certain position, they can hire local people have high level of knowledge skill in language, like finance, they can hire finance people, this all local, like hundred percent of local except it is very top level position, some of the directors are foreigner because they understand the casino finance, they need to be here as the casino finance it not the same as BNC finance, CTM finance, that is the special rule, special games, it’s a lot of technology is different. As those certain skills was not available locally, so that they are difficult to hire the local employees who has special skills.
3) Willingness to promote the local employees: the director said that they really want to hire and promote local employees; unfortunately, the local employees don’t fulfill requirements of high-level skills. The director mentioned it is not their preference to hire foreign workers; it is expensive for them to flight to Singapore. Malaysia to hire foreign workers, advertising in the local newspapers is costly, and they need to pay local agents to do the prescreening, for the senior staff, executive or higher level of position, they use headhunter to look at the world, to find out the best person who has high level skills with huge work experiences, it is very expensive for them. So that they are willingness to promote the local employees if they achieve that kind of specific skills. On the other hand, the director mentioned that they are try to promote the local staff, however the local staff got so many choices in Macau, the number one choice always be the government, when the government job is full, then try to find another industry, he said that their industry is not a attractive industry. * Discussion
After finishing these two interviews, we could find both companies have same training program for the promotion; however, the local employees will be promoted priority when the local and foreign employees want to be promoted at the same time. Moreover, if the local employees want to be promoted higher managerial position, they need to achieve a higher level of special skills and have a long time work experiences, unfortunately, the local employees are lack of these specific skills, they may only involve in lower managerial position, so that the company need to recruit talent people from foreign into the higher level position. Furthermore, the local employees change the job easily; it may difficult to accumulate the experiences for themselves. Base on these two companies, there is evidence that glass ceiling seems is not existing in the company side. Since they provide the opportunity to local employees, but their skills and experience are lacked, so that cannot achieve to higher-level position. B. Survey
For the questionnaires distribution, firstly we tried to find our target audients (who work in MNCs) help us to do the survey on street, however we discovered that it is less response, and timeless, so that we also created online questionnaires with Google Docs and obtained data from Google Spreadsheet through use of the FACEBOOK Platform. As FACEBOOK had become the most popular and the highest download rate among all the online communicational tools these years. It indicated that publishing the questionnaire via FACEBOOK would be the most effective and efficient way for our project to acquire the information. As a result, Internet survey was faster, more convenient for us to collect data since respondent can finish questionnaire whenever they are free and wherever they like. As well as paper questionnaires, we gathered all the responses on the form will be added to Google spreadsheet automatically that data can be collected easily and quickly. Finally, we got twenty replied questionnaires. * Findings
According to these twenty replied questionnaires, we found that 70% are female (appendix3: figure 1.1), and 85% are local residents (appendix3: figure 1.2). In terms of working department, 20% are from HR Department, 5% are from Finance Department, 5% are from Marketing Department, and 5% are from Accounting Department, the rest 65% are from others (appendix3: figure 1.3). Among these 20 participants’ supervisors, 80% are local residents, 20% are non-local residents (appendix3: figure 1.4). Only two participants think that they are easily to be promoted (appendix3: figure 1.5). About the factors that facilitate to be promoted, working experience and special skills are the top two factors, which occupied 67% and 33% (appendix3: figure 1.6). On the other hand, which factor to restraint to be promoted? Based on the received replies, 67% think lack of capacity is the one of the key factors, and 39% think corporate climate is the second one of the key factors (appendix3: figure 1.7). 70% of participants think nowadays Macau has a lot of job opportunities to the local residents (appendix3: figure 1.8). Finally, 60% participants change the job above one year, and 25% participants change the job about six months (appendix3: figure 1.9). * Discussion
According to the findings of interview and survey, we could find that both mentioned that working experience and special skills are the key factors of promotion. One special thing in the survey is that there are two female local employees think they are easily to be promoted because of common language and common culture background. Meanwhile, lack of capacity is the number one key barriers to be promoted. In the interview part, the two managers also mentioned the special skills is one of requirements to be promoted. From managers’ aspect, they think they provide equal opportunity to local employees to be promoted. However, 90% participants from survey do not think they are easily to be promoted because of lack of capacity, corporate climate, culture barriers, etc. One manager said the promotion opportunities for female employees are equal to male employees. From the result of survey, we also cannot find female employees feel they are not easily to be promoted because of gender.
* Summary
In literature view, we found that in Mainland China, the MNCs would like to recruit local-hired foreign managers who have lived in China for a long time instead of recruiting foreign worker especially in managerial positions. This is may be a restraint for local employees to be promoted. First of all, those local-hired foreign managers have the language advantage and may be the overseas working experience. Besides of these two points, they also have a certain degree of Chinese culture background. They are familiar with the western culture and know about the Chinese culture. Therefore, the training cost would be conducted for the MNCs by recruiting these kinds of local-hired foreign managers. However, this situation does not exist in Macau. In Macau, gaming industry is the main industry, and within industry, many of them are MNCs. The current local human resource cannot fulfill the development of these MNCs. So they have to recruit talents outside of Macau. But this kind of recruitment is costly, especially for high-level positions. Most of time, local employees are lack of special skills or working experience. So it is hard to promote them to high-level positions. In other words, if the skills or working experience of local employees are qualified, the MNCs are willing to promote them instead of recruiting outside of Macau. So compare with the literature view of the situation in Mainland China, the in Macau the Glass-ceiling for the local employees working in MNCs is not obvious.
Conclusion
Through our literature review and research project, it is important to look into the organizational factors that would help the local employees reach to the top management.
In this research project, we through take advantage with two methods to collect the available information and data. The analysis of data resulting from our survey and interview, we found that the the glass ceiling is not obvious in Macau MNCsglass ceiling is not obvious in Macau MNCs. We can acquire data from the survey method. It shows that, the local staffs felt that they are not enough on work experiences and special skills in performing the job, so that they cannot be promoted by organization. On the other hand, it can be seen from the interview method. If the local people in their personal skills and work experiences can be improved well, from the company’s point of view, they are more willing to consider for promoting the local staffs. The labor cost will be better higher because of the company would employ the foreign workers. Such as the headhunter cost. As a result of they must take many human resources, time consuming and capitals through headhunter to look for the potential employees outside the organization. Even though the ratio of local employees are more than foreign workers, but the local employees are always confronted the situation of glass ceiling. Since the aspect of promotion, most of Macau MNCs still always consider to promote the foreign staffs first. So as a result of the local employees have barriers to prevent from going into the top management.
Recommendations
It is clear that the glass ceiling is affecting and stopping the local employees from reaching to the top management positions in Macau MNCs. In order to reduce the situation of glass ceiling, in our point of view, there are some suggestions for the local employees who have opportunities to be promoted for top management positions in MNCs. * Local employees should be self-improvement their own special skills * Continued to accumulated a long period of work experiences * Enhance organizational culture awareness
* Learning foreign language and technical skills for top managerial positions * Improvement of the work performance
* Strengthen the adaptability and sensitivity for the environment * Improvement of their interpersonal and social communication skills * Training personal dormant effective leadership skills
Limitations
Our research consists mainly three kinds of limitations.
First, the survey of our research mainly focuses on MNCs in gaming and hospitality industries. Since there are also other industries in Macau and China, our result may not be applied to the situations in those industries in local market. Second, the sample size of the survey is relatively not big enough because of lacking enough survey response in limited time. This limitation will affect the accuracy of our analysis. Hence, the cover range of target is not broad enough to reflect general situations. Furthermore, the managers we interviewed are recruited from Mainland China. They are recruited by Macau subsidy of foreign MNCs like most Macau employees, but their point of view might not be very objective to reflect all local employees’ opinion.
References
1. http://www.dsec.gov.mo/default.aspx
2. Expatriate assignments vs localization of management in China: Staffing choices of Australian and German companies” http://search.proquest.com/abicomplete/docview/219294662/139F788DE7233FBFAD1/15?accountid=12206 3. “WORKFORCE LOCALIZATION POLICIES IN SAUDI ARABIA:
THE DETERMINANTS OF SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION IN MULTI-NATIONAL ENTERPRISES” http://www.issbs.si/press/ISBN/978-961-6813-10-5/papers/ML12_201.pdf 4. “WORKFORCE LOCALIZATION POLICIES IN SAUDI ARABIA:
THE DETERMINANTS OF SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION IN MULTI-NATIONAL ENTERPRISES” http://www.issbs.si/press/ISBN/978-961-6813-10-5/papers/ML12_201.pdf 5. “The Battle for Talent By Brad Steiner China’s top talent is in demand, and their preferences are changing rapidly”
http://enterprisechina.net/features/battle-talent
6. The Effect of Cultural Differences in Communication and Feedback Styles on Employee Adaptation to a Multinational Corporation (MNC), Kumi Ishii Western Kentucky University 7. The Problem of Local Talent Retention, By Amanda Martinez, Global Excellence Ltd 2008
8. Foreigners are frenemies Rachel Chang and Cheryl Ong, The Straits Times, 2 June 2012 http://www.spp.nus.edu.sg/ips/docs/media/yr2012/ST_Foreigners%20are%20frenemies_020612.pdf
Appendix
Appendix 1: Interview questions for manager
1. Do you have any foreign employees?
2. What is the ratio between local & foreign employees in managerial position in your company? 3. Any differences among local employees, imported employees and expatriates in terms of training program? 4. Any differences among them in terms of promotion?
5. It seems that many local employees are involved in front-line positions, so how can they to be promoted? 6. If the employees want to be promoted to a higher managerial level, what standards such as degrees, or working experience do they need? 6. Do you think there are any barriers for women to be promoted? 7. Are there differences about salary, benefit and compensation package among local and non-local employees? 8. Do you think what are the reasons of turnover of employees?
Appendix 2: Questionnaire for employees
Glass Ceiling for local employees in MNCs
您好！我們是澳門大學大四的學生，現在我們正在 做一份關於本地員工在跨國企業「天花板效應」的調查。調查的結果將以小組報告的形式在課上呈現。 「天花板效應」是指，女性或是少數族群沒辦法晉升到企業或組織高層並非是因為他們的能力或經驗不夠，或是不想要其職位，而是一些針對女性和少數族群在升遷 方面，組織似乎設下一層障礙，這層障礙甚至有時候看不到其存在。 感謝您抽出寶貴的時間做這份問卷！ Hi! We are year four students from University of Macau. Now we are doing the research, which is related to Glass ceiling for local employees in Muti National Corporations. Results of the research will be presented during the class. Glass Ceiling is “the unseen, yet unbreachable barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements.” Thank you for your cooperation！ *必填窗体顶端
1. 性別 * Gender
* 男 Male
* 女 Female
2. 國籍 * Nationality
* 本地居民 Local resident
* 非本地居民 Non-local resident
3. 您現在所在的部門？ * Which department you work in? * 財務部 Finance Department
* 市場部 Marketing Department
* 人力資源部 Human Resource Department
* 會計部 Accounting Department
* 其他 Others
4. 您現職的上司是？ * What is the nationality of your current supervisor? * 本地居民 Local
* 非本地居民 Non-local
* 由總公司派來的人員 Expatriate
5. 您認為您升職容易嗎？ * Do you think you are easily to be promoted? * 容易 Yes （請往下一題 Please go to next question） * 不容易 No （請跳至第七題 Please go to question No. 7） 6. 您認為什麼因素導致您升職容易？(可多選) Do you think which factors facilitate to be promoted easily? （ Can choose more than one answer） * 共同語言Common language
* 共同的文化背景 Common culture background
* 特殊才能 Special skills
* 工作經驗 Working experience
* 其他 (Others) : _________________
7. 您認為什麼因素阻礙您升職？(可多選) Do you think which barriers to be promoted? （ Can choose more than one answer） * 文化的差異 Culture barriers
* 企業環境 Corporate climate
* 政府的阻礙 Government barriers
* 性別刻版印象 Sex stereotype
* 能力不足 Lack of capacity
* 其他 (others) : ___________________
8. 您認為澳門現在提供給本地居民的工作機會多嗎？ * Do you think there are a lot of working opportunities for local residents? * 是 Yes
* 否 No
9. 您多長時間換一份工作？ * How long do you change the job? * 少於三個月 Below three months
* 三個月 Three months
* 半年 Six months
* 一年 One year
* 一年以上 Above one year
Appendix 3
Figure 1.1
Figure 1.2
Figure 1.3
Figure 1.4
Figure 1.5
Figure 1.6
Figure 1.7
Figure 1.8
Figure 1.9
