According to the case study, Alpha encourages employees to ‘think like CEOs’ and accordingly they are expected to run their ‘business’ as any CEO would do to achieve a reasonable return on investment in time, effort and money. As a policy, Alpha strives to staff locally at least 20% of all positions in all of its overseas operations, 50% of entry level positions and 90% in its non-English speaking geographies, such as China, where possible. With regards to lateral recruitment who experienced people, Alpha prefers local managers for their knowledge of the local market and environment. Therefore, it shows that Alpha is applying a polycentric approach by recruiting local people to run the company as Alpha knows that it can help to run the company more smoothly.
In my opinion, Alpha should apply a Geocentric approach in the host company by recruiting the most suitable person for the available position irrespective of their nationalities. It can develop an informal management network by having casual conversations with each other under any circumstances whenever applying this approach. It also mentions that the geocentric approach is typically appropriate for firms unitizing a global or transnational strategy which can help to build a strong culture.