The purpose of this study is to explore, describe and understand different strategies used by Multinational Enterprises in highly qualified professions – when recruiting permanent labor and hiring consultants with specific competences. Two research questions were formulated to fulfil this purpose. 1) What integration challenges are Multinational Enterprises faced with when working with standard direct employees (inhouse) and hiring consultants? 2) How do companies balance different hiring strategies to maintain a value of their human resources and what strategies are implemented?
Through an interpretivist inductive qualitative research method where semi-structured interviews were performed the study found that Multinational Enterprises do experience integration challenges to some extent. The most commonly perceived challenge is that of subcultures being created when large groups of consultants are brought into the business. Multinational Enterprises use gap analysis to find strategies to maintain a value of their human resources. The clarity of strategies somewhat varies. A final conclusion is that the need for cut edge competence or economical aspects affect the strategies for competence