In international business, an approach that a multinational company undertakes to satisfy employment (staffing) needs.
The country where the company is based is the home country, and the country were staffing needs to be is the host country. Given these two variables, there are really only three approaches:
- ethnocentric - Staff are hired in the home country and relocated to the host country.
- polycentric - Staff are hired in the host country.
- geocentric - The best-person-for-the-job is hired, regardless of where they are, and relocated to the host country if necessary.
Generally, an ethnocentric policy is used to hire top-level people in order to assure that home business culture and control is retained abroad. The polycentric policy is used at any level where knowledge of host culture and/or business climate outweighs the need for home culture and business climate (sales, marketing, and manufacturing). A geocentric policy is used when the company has need of a specific skill set, and is typically used for hiring
top-level managers or other highly-skilled workers (such as
engineers).