Watercooler - Research Paper Example

Watercooler One similarity between the article, ‘The global company’s challenge,’ and the readings is their concept of diversified human resource and human resource management practices across different regions. The article identifies human resource and its management as one of the major challenges in the global market because of the nature of human beings and their behavior that depends on their cultural set ups. Consequently, personnel in one region or country have different motivational needs and respond differently to their environments as compared to those from other regions.

Managements must therefore learn of the diversified characteristics of different pools of human resource and strategies to interacting with them. Managements also face the challenge of transferring human resource from one cultural set up and integrating it in another set up, and incorporating learnt knowledge from one culture into another, observations that complicates human resource management in the globalized corporate environment (Dewhurst, Harris and Heywood, 2012). Hofstede who reports on diversity of the globalized environment’s human resource similarly identifies this challenge.

The author notes that while domestic environments such as within the United States exhibits homogeneity in human resource characteristics, the international set up such as the wider Europe has diversifies cultures that affect human resource behaviors. Human resource theories also apply selectively across different pools of human resource as applicable theories in the United States may not apply in other countries (Hofstede, 1993). The two articles therefore identify diversity in human resource as a challenge in the global set up.

The two readings however demonstrate different approaches to managing diversity in the global environments and associated uncertainties to the diversities. Dewhurst et al. identifies a probabilistic approach to embracing involved risks. They identify a culture in which managers and leaders are not selected because of their understanding of the local environment. Their selection is instead based on the assumption that a manager can operate, universally, in the global set up (2012). This is contrary to Hofstede’s opinion that effective management is attained through incorporation of locals in managing a foreign culture (Hofstede, 1993).

ReferenceDewhurst, M., Harris, J., Heywood, S., & Aquila, K. (2012). The global companys challenge. Mckinsey Quarterly, (3): 76-80.Hofstede, G. (1993). Cultural constraints in management theories. Academy ofManagement Executive, 7(1), 81- 94.