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potential local managers and third country nationals (TCNs) (Scullion and
Starkey, 2000). In particular, the practice of impatriation, i.e. developing host
country nationals (HCNs) and TCNs through developmental transfers to cor-
porate HQ (Harvey et al., 1999a) was increasingly important in global firms,
reflecting the growing importance placed on the identification and develop-
ment of high potential staff worldwide (Stroh and Caligiuri, 1998). Scullion
and Starkey (2000) argue that in the global firms the greater degree of central
support for international management development reflected an increasingly
strategic role for the corporate HR function.

Decentralized HR Companies

The second group comprised 16 companies including 5 service MNCs and 11
manufacturing MNCs. These companies tended to have a smaller number of
corporate HR executives (often only one or two) who undertook a more lim-
ited range of activities than their counterparts in the first group. However, a
key finding of the research was that two-thirds of the decentralized companies
reported an increasedinfluence of corporate HR over the management of top
management and senior expatriates in the previous five years. However, the
co-ordination of international transfers of managers in the highly decentralized
businesses was more problematic due to greater tensions between the short
term needs of the operating companies and the long term strategic manage-
ment development needs of the business. Scullion and Starkey (2000) highlight
the increasing use of informal and subtle management processes by corporate
HR to introduce a degree of corporate integration into the decentralized firm.
Similarly, central control over expatriates had been established relatively
recently in a number of the firms, reflecting a shift away from the highly
decentralized approach which was common in the late 1980s (Storey et al.,
1997) and highlighting the need for co-ordination and integration associated
with globalization.

Transition HR companies

The final group comprised four well established, highly international compa-
nies, all of which had a relatively small group of corporate HR executives.
Management development and the management of the careers and mobility of
expatriates and senior managers were under stronger centralized control than
in the decentralized companies. The centre could use subtle and informal
methods, which achieved a higher degree of central control than that sug-
gested by the formal structures without compromising the internal consistency
of their decentralized control system. The findings of recent research which
suggests that re-centralization may be a new trend (Arkin, 1999) is supported
by the empirical work of Scullion and Starkey (2000), who suggest that the

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