Choosing an employer of record: infrastructure models, liability chains, and a provider selection framework for cross-border hiring

A previous paper (Schuchmann, 2026, doi:10.5281/zenodo.18861073) proposed a taxonomy distinguishing four global employment intermediary models: EOR, PEO, Global Payroll, and Contractor of Record. That taxonomy answers the between-category question of which model applies to a given hiring scenario. This paper addresses the within-category question that follows: once EOR is the appropriate model, how should a company choose between providers whose legal structures, and therefore risk profiles, differ in ways their marketing does not reveal? The paper formalises three EOR infrastructure models (owned-entity, partner-network, and hybrid), introduces the liability chain as the analytical device that reveals what the infrastructure question actually determines, and argues that the owned-versus-partner debate is a proxy: the operative question is who the legal employer is in each specific country and how many contractual steps separate that entity from the client. A six-dimension selection framework and a sequenced practitioner decision protocol are offered. This is a conceptual paper; it evaluates structures, not vendors, and makes no empirical claims about the comparative performance of either infrastructure model.