Tesco: Human Resource Management Strategy Tesco finally came up with a novel solution that was consistent with Tescos philosophy of building on its internal resources. Aware that declining growth is often a signal of complacency that can go unnoticed by people close to the situation, it decided to bring together a team of Asian managers who would visit and examine Tescos operations in the UK. As Tesco in-siders, they would be familiar with the companys mission, values, processes, and procedures and thus would be able to feel at home in the store context; as outsiders in the UK, they could see things differently from the British managers, thereby bringing valuable home-country insights and sharing best practices that had evolved in their local markets. The project, The Essence of Tesco, had a two-pronged strategic purpose: (1) to determine what was and wasnt working by conducting a health-check of Tesco UKs current corporate state; and (2) to compare and contrast that state with what had evolved in Tescos Asian subsidiaries so as to learn from and leverage them globally. Tesco chose nine managers from six of its Asian subsidiaries: two each from Thailand, South Korea, and Chinaits largest Asian marketsand one each from Malaysia, Japan, and India. It brought this Asian project team to the UK; trained its members in skills needed to observe and make sense of organizational behavior, values, and assumptions (a kind of corporate ethnography); and deployed them for a three-month period to observe and work in 52 stores across the UK and Ireland. The task of helping Tesco reinvigorate home operations was not easy; nor was it easy to find nine managers who could leave their jobs for an extended three- month period. In the end, the main criteria stipulated that team members had to have worked for Tesco for at least three years, have a working knowledge of English, and be store-level employees rather than country-level managers. The team was also assessed on various cultural adaptability skills needed to get by in a foreign environment, such as flexibility and openness, emotional resilience, and personal autonomy. Three of the project team members were completely bilingual, having lived extensively in English-speaking environments; in fact, one had actually studied in England and thus had a deep cultural knowledge of the UK. These three proved helpful to the team, especially with such practical things as opening bank accounts, navigating the public transportation system, setting up mobile phone contacts, shopping, and the like. The others had varying degrees of cross-cultural exposure and competencies in the English language. All were from collectivist, high-context cultures, a fact that allowed teamwork to emerge quite naturally and ensured that the team would pay attention to unarticulated detailsfactors that proved invaluable for seeing things in the stores that others from low-context countries might not notice. Team members natural perceptual ability helped ensure that they would be able to act as organizational bridges between their home subsidiaries and Tesco UK. This journey of nine Asian Tesco managers across the United Kingdom took place at a time when many British cities were shaken by riots and store looting. Still, the team compiled many pages of observations to use in creating their analysis. Their exposure to British culture was intense on many levels. Two of them were locked in a Liverpool store during a riot and, though frightened, were impressed by the store managers calm manner to handle the situation. The day-to-day experiences, though less exciting, were also very informative and gave rise to many comparisons and contrasts in implementing such core company values as customer focus in the UK and the home countries.

Question: In the case Tescos Human Resource Strategy was mentioned. Based on the four predictors of a managers ability to succeed as an expatriate as discussed in the course, discuss the relevance of each of these predictors based on what was addressed in the case as part of Tescos Human Resource Strategy.