A Qualitative Study of Selection Systems for Managers in France and Britain:the attitudes of recruiters in multinationals

Abstract

Following Shackleton and Newell’s (1991) quantitative study of recruitment and selection practices in France and in Britain, this project focuses on the attitudes of personnel managers towards selection techniques in both countries. The aim is to answer the following general question: “why have the differences observed by Shackleton and Newell evolved?”. The hypothesis is that the choice of selection techniques depends on national, cultural, historical and legal inheritance (country’s factors) as well as corporate culture. Economic, technological, political and social pressures are now boosting the evolution towards scientific recruitment techniques, which would reduce risk (and the cost of failure) as well as enabling companies to focus on the future potential for development of the candidates. This project is based on interviews with professionals in the Personnel functions of major European companies operating in France and Britain and on a comparative study of the context surrounding recruitment and selection operations (education and legal systems, professional associations, etc.) in both countries. After an introduction and outline in Chapter One, Chapter Two gives an account of the on-going debate in Europe in the field of psychological assessment and selection, as well as the situation in both countries. Chapter Three discusses culture, which is an essential concept when conducting comparative research in European countries; Chapter Four highlights the making of managers in both countries. In Chapter Five the research strategy and the data collection techniques are described. Chapter Six and Seven provides an account and a discussion of the findings of the present piece of work; this thesis shows that the major differences observed by Shackleton and Newell (1991) are based on differences in cultural values, as well as historical factors such as differences in the connections between researchers in the field of HRM and psychology and practitioners: these countries are characterised by different philosophies and priorities.