MNEs have traditionally employed various combinations of international exchange to deploy their staff expertise to where it is needed. Such ‘portfolios of mobility’ need to be adapted to diverse market and project requirements, the operation of numerous production and market locations, and the training of international staff. This paper builds on a recent cross-sector comparison of these strategies among UK-based MNEs by focusing on one sector, business consultancy. Expert staff deployment to serve international clients is a core function for these firms. Its management, however, also reflects other corporate priorities. These include supporting the internationalisation policies of parent companies; responding to new regional markets and client relations; effective project management; and exploiting modern communications developments. International business consultancies appear to be leading the move towards shorter term, but higher quality international staff mobility, more virtual exchange of expertise, and significant recruitment localisation, often involving mergers and joint ventures.
Increasing attention has been paid in recent years to the global staffing regimes of multinational enterprise (MNE) (Scullion and Brewster, 2001, Scullion et al., 2007, De Cieri et al., 2007 and Collings et al., 2009). This reflects both the rapidly changing global business environment and the increasing ease with which firms may move expert human resources internationally, combining residential assignments with various forms of short-term, including commuting, business travel and virtual, exchange1 (Collings et al., 2007). Companies develop and use these different forms of mobility, combining them into more or less formal ‘portfolios’ according to their business needs. Over time, these must incorporate the training of internationally mobile staff, the use of new communications systems, and often eventually the progressive transfer of technical and business expertise to ‘host country’ personnel. They reflect different sector characteristics and also the mobility needs that may be most appropriate for particular purposes, in particular places and at certain times (Millar and Salt, 2008).
Such portfolios of mobility largely define the changing ‘global business space’ within which MNEs operate (Taylor and Spicer, 2007 and Jones, 2009). There have been numerous studies of the management of individual modes of exchange, including expatriate assignments and business travel, but there is also a growing awareness of the need for their uses to be more closely integrated in serving international markets. There is little evidence, however, of MNEs actually adopting such a strategic approach to international expertise exchange (Roberts et al., 1998, McNulty et al., 2009 and Collings et al., 2009; Welch et al., 2009, Meyskens et al., 2009, Brookfield Global Relocation Services, 2010 and Faulconbridge and Beaverstock, 2008).
The returns gained from these international movements of expertise have also contributed an increasing share of trade in recent decades and their liberalisation has become the subject of negotiations under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). GATS Mode 4 covers such temporary staff mobility for periods from weeks to a maximum of 5 years.2 In practice, however, there has been comparatively little difficulty in agreeing to allow the free movement of highly skilled personnel, about half of whom are intra-company transferees within corporate portfolios of mobility (Lavenex, 2004 and International Organisation for Migration, 2011).
This paper focuses on one service sector, business consultancy. It builds on an earlier comparison of how various options for expertise exchange are combined by British-based MNEs in eight sectors: aerospace/defence, primary extraction (oil/gas), pharmaceuticals, electronics and telecommunications, software and IT-related services, and business consultancy (Millar and Salt, 2008 and Salt and Wood, 2011).3 These enquiries sought to relate international intra-company personnel transfer policies to wider production and market developments, including the growth of virtual exchange as a substitute for ‘embodied’ mobility (Collins, 1997 and Williams, 2007). This work concluded that more detailed examination of individual sectors was required to gain further insights into the relationships between mobility portfolios and business development.
In this paper, we have addressed, firstly, the effect on UK-based international consultancy mobility practices of the corporate priorities of parent multinationals. These are clearly a growing influence over the sample companies. UK affiliates retain autonomy in managing UK activities, including supporting the overseas activities of UK-based clients. In each case, however, they were also becoming subject to common frameworks of international practice, established largely to support MNE clients in new markets. These have affected, for example, the management of international talent; new product development; and support for new regional offices to coordinate knowledge flows from national affiliates. UK inputs were therefore influencing international protocols and infrastructure developments, but these tended to be dominated by inputs from the USA and increasingly from other global affiliates.
The effects of new international markets on UK staff mobility depended on how far the parent consultancy MNE had established its presence there. For this, experienced staff were drawn from the US, UK and Europe to establish office, communications and human resource infrastructure. These may depend initially on expatriate assignments, but the aim is to promote and develop local capabilities within a few years. The speed and scale of this transition depends on the economic context. The rush to Eastern Europe in the 1990s, for example, slowed significantly in the next decade, with economic retrenchment and as local capabilities expanded. Most consultancy mobility from the UK is directed to individual clients and often requires collaboration with local firms or other agencies, as well as other company affiliates. Project success may nevertheless stimulate the need for further investment and expatriate input, for example in local human resource development and marketing.
