In this paper we address a key issue that dominates internal ional HRM research, namely the global-local question. The question concerns how multinationals can or should balance the pressures to develop globally standardized policies with the pressures to be responsive lo the peculiarities of the local context In our view, three important conceptual weaknesses have restricted research progress in this held; the inadequate conceptualization of national effects, which results in culture being used as an unsatisfactory 'catch all' for national differences; the lack of attention to the influence of internal organizational polities; and the absence of focus on the internal division of labour within MNCs. We discuss the ways in which these weaknesses can be addressed and the implications of these alternative concepts.