Abstract

The concept of ethnicity sheds new light on the practices in human resources in multinational firms operating in Africa. Data from fieldwork conducted on human resource management in three Cameroonian subsidiaries of French multinationals show that local cultural factors strongly affect the actual application of the human resource policies decided in corporate headquarters. The findings draw attention to the need to make room for the ethnic dimension in the everyday practices of human resource management. Room should also be made for ethnicity in debates about the multicultural dimension of this management at the international level; it should be seen as a source of competitive advantage — not as a costly, but as a necessary, compromise.