What Is the Relationship of National Culture to Human Resource Management - Assignment Example

INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT By Location BOX A: 3: What is the relationship of national culture tohuman resource management? For the past few years, there have been numerous studies by social scientists and managerial experts who questioned the extent to which national cultures tend to influence human resource practices. The studies were triggered by the fact that the Western management theories were being applied at international levels. A classic example is the Hofstede’s framework for national culture that investigated ‘‘the impacts of national culture on human resource practice’’ (Milikic, 2009). The study found out that most American management models reflected the cultural environments under which they existed. All other studies have also confirmed that human management practices are accurate reflections of national cultures of the management teams. Culture and human resource management has become a big issue in the modern organisational contexts and some managers admit that they been unable to come up with a universal approach to human resource management (Buller, & McEvoy, 2012). In fact, human resource practices depend on the evolution of the particular culture that in turn provides the society with the insight of managing their human resources and organisations (Rugman, Verbeke, & Nguyen, P2011). The implication is that every national culture has developed its unique art of organizing and managing the human resource. Therefore, it is imperative to discuss the extent to which national culture influence human resource management practices owing to the increasing popularity of International Human Resource Management. Impact of National Culture on Human Resource Practices Though human resource management seems to be a universal practice, there are raging debates on the extent to which this statement is true. The failure of universal human resource policies to be effective in certain countries is the basis for concluding that national cultures also play important roles in defining the human resource practices. The implication is that a set of human resource policies applied in one country may not be applicable in another country. For instance, pay for performance schemes, as a popular human resource practices in the UK and the USA may not be successful in other countries (Stahl, Björkman, & Morris, 2012). Another example is the quality circle program, a widely practiced human resource management approach in Japan but has failed in most of the organizations in the United States of America. The examples suggest that HRM functions of the prevailing cultures within the national contexts. They also show that international human resource management can only succeed if the practices aligned with the national cultures of the target countries. Leadership styles and strategic decision-making are some of the aspects of human resource management that entirely depend on the prevailing national culture (Dickson, Castaño, Magomaeva, & Den Hartog, 2012). In some countries, decision-making process assumes the top-bottom approach where the executive team has the mandate to make strategic decisions and later communicate to employees. Such cultures discourage inclusion of the staff and other subordinates in the crucial decision-making processes and workers do not also complain of having no voice on important matters (Milikic, 2009). However, some cultures are more sensitive to decision-making, and they demand expressing their views on critical issues. In such scenarios, the human resource manager must develop policies that provide for the contribution of employees in all decision-making processes (Pettigrew, 2014). In most cases, human resource management functions adopt the bottom-up approach where views of those at the lower levels of the organization are as important as the contribution of the executive management. A study in Germany, for instance, confirmed that the countrys national culture encouraged a more centralized decision-making approach as opposed to a European nation like the United Kingdom (Milikic, 2009). The study also confirmed that human resource management practices in the UK tends to focus more on employee promotion with appropriate policies for implementing the provision in almost all companies. Therefore, human resource management practices in the UK tend to focus on allocating a lot of resources in improving the well-being of the employees besides culture promoting the development of workers through middle management training programs (Stahl, Björkman, & Morris, 2012). The incompatibility of human resource practices is also evident in the developing countries because their attempts to implement western HR policies have always failed (Stahl, Björkman, & Morris, 2012). Most of the companies in the developing world are trying to replicate the western human resource management practices, but they have not been successful in doing so. The failure of western origin human resource management policies in the developing countries is a clear indication that the implementation of human resource practice must reflect the local’s cultural context. A classic example is the failure of planning of activities in countries that have low uncertainty avoidance especially African countries and Indonesia (Budhwar, & Debrah, 2013). One of the functions of human resource management is to provide leadership but the leadership styles reflect the culture of the particular country (Stahl, Björkman, & Morris, 2012). The question of leadership style brings attention to the concept of global leadership. If at all national culture affects the leadership style, then there should be no such thing as a global leader. On the contrary, it is possible to breed global leaders who incorporate all aspects of intercultural leadership in managing human resources. For example, cultures that ‘‘promote high power distance’’ tend to encourage obedience and loyalty to the leader or the superior (Ferner, Edwards, & Tempel, 2012). In such cases, the human resource management practice of appraising or rewarding employees depends entirely on the behavioral criteria and not results criteria in settling for the rewards. Therefore, most human resource practices have specific characteristics unique to the particular countries especially on crucial issues like leadership styles and the prevailing organizational culture. A perfect example is the lifetime employment policy that has been popular in Japan but is very uncommon with the USA’s multinational companies (Stahl, Björkman, & Morris, 2012). Another good example is that the Japanese organizational culture promotes engagement in social activities where they investment in social amenities and recreational facilities and the practice is also not common with the organizations in the USA. National culture also influences human resource practices in that the organizational culture and the external environmental factors determine the way in which organizations manage their workforce and this shows the direct relationship between the HRM practices and the organisational culture (Vaara, Sarala, Stahl, & Björkman, 2012) Therefore, when an employee or the manager understands the prevailing culture of the organization, he or she must adjust and choose strategies as well as behaviors that match their personality and norms of the organization. In fact, failure to adjust to the organizational culture means that the particular employee will not be successful in adapting to the new work environment (Milikic, 2009). Theoretical frameworks Schwartz is among the theorists who tried to explain the concept of national culture and the prevalent organisational culture. He carried out research in 54 countries using 44, 000 respondents in a bid to measure their cultural values (Rugman, Verbeke, & Nguyen, 2011). According to the research, autonomous cultures view people as bounded entities where they have the autonomy to build and express preferences, ideas, feelings, and abilities (Milikic, 2009). The researcher also explained the two types of autonomy namely intellectual and affective autonomy. Intellectual autonomy offers people with the opportunities of pursuing their ideas, as well as intellectual directions on an independent basis, while affective autonomy encourages the pursuance of affective positive influence independently. Schwartz compared autonomy and embeddedness where the latter tries to focus on how individuals attach meaning to life through social relations (Rugman, Verbeke, & Nguyen, 2011). In such contexts, an individual must identify with the new group by sharing their new of life and strive to achieve their set goals. Schwartz also explained how harmony cultures focus more on fitting into the entire world as it is without any attempts to change the situation. Therefore, the theory supports that human resource management practices are based on the prevailing national cultures. After studying different cultures in the world, Hofstede came up with the four categories of cultural dimension namely Individualism vs. Collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity vs. Femininity (Milikic, 2009). The theorists postulated that cultures that promote individualism tend to have loose individual relationships where everybody is concerned with his or her interests without considering others. On the contrary, collectivism promotes in-group relationships where people look at one another and offer to help them with problems (Rugman, Verbeke, & Nguyen, 2011). Therefore, some human resource management practices may be based on individualistic cultures while others on collectivism and any new employee or a manager must adjust to the particular work environment. Hofstede also used power distance as a cultural dimension where his focus was to find out how societies accept or reject unequal distribution of power. In this case, the theory suggested that societies that tolerate unequal distribution of power create an environment where people psychologically accept the dependency of being without power (Milikic, 2009). Hofstede described uncertainty avoidance as the way societies deal with risks and their perception of time. He argued that some societies believe in life as it is and accepts taking risks each and every day thus they will not work hard. However, other nations are forecast are will always work hard to beat the future. Masculinity and feminism is a serious issue among the societies around the world where some believe in equality of sexes while others perceive other genders are inferior (Milikic, 2009). The four cultural dimensions influence the behaviours of employees that in turn affect their performance, but all are dependent on national cultures. BOX B: 1: How does national culture affect the selection process? Human resource management performs different functions and selection of the human resource is one of the responsibilities of the human resource managers. By definition, selection as a HRM function entails choosing qualified persons for specific roles based on the belief that they can deliver desirable outcomes because of their competence (Farr, & Tippins, 2013). The term selection encompasses many aspects of organisational processes and is evident in other functions like hiring, recruitment, and acculturation. However, selection usually refers to the choosing workers to undertake various tasks. Management experts have also found out that selection is not an easy task since it involves allocating an individual a role that he or she must fulfil effectively. Therefore, selection does not entirely depend on the technical expertise of the individual but also on other factors like cultural fitment, personality traits, and educational background. Of all the factors that human resource managers look for when selecting their employees, cultural competence has become significant owing to the diversity of word populations in terms of political affiliation, religion, ethnicity, race among other socio-cultural aspects (Milikic, 2009). Globalisation has changed the face of business competition in the modern business environment, and organisations have been responding by expanding their operations to international levels where they operate in several countries. However, despite their size and scope of activity, the prevailing cultures of the particular countries influence the business operations. Cultural systems have some values that explain the behaviour and attitudes as well as choices that people make. Therefore, cultures of the host countries have tremendous effects on the subsidiary operations of the multinational corporations. National culture and selection process In the late 1980S, there was a fierce competition between the USA and Japan and all was as a result of the role that cultural factor plays in international business success (Varma, & Budhwar, 2013). In those eras, most articles expressed loathing and fear of Japan, and there were numerous attempts to try to understand how the country was growing tremendously and its implication to global economic competition (Debroux, 2013). Despite the competition, more American managers still engaged in business negotiations with the Japanese and continued to market their products in the East Asian territory. Besides, the Americans were still able to manage the business operations in the foreign country. However, the successful business operations and organisational management was attributed to growing number of books explaining how to do business in Japan. Therefore, the Americans understood that their operations could not have been successful without prior knowledge of the Japanese business culture (Debroux, 2013). The need for guidebooks while conducting business operations at the international level is a testimony that managers increasingly recognise that lack of competence and knowledge management in cross-cultural managerial activities has implications for business success negatively. The implication is that organisations now understand that even their important human resource management functions like selection of employees is based on their cultural competence in the particular foreign economic market or environment. Human resource managers should bear in mind that they need to assess the national cultural values before considering cross-boundary business operations. In this case, they managers should ensure that the assessment provides them with an opportunity to select employees who have the appropriate values that fit the organisational culture or structure as well as the job design (Boon, Den Hartog, Boselie, & Paauwe, 2011). Besides, it is important to assess employees in their competencies to cope with national cultures because plays a critcal role in the management of expatriates because the selected individuals must align their cultural values with those of the societies where they have been assigned the job tasks. Another principle underpinning the influence of national culture on employee selection is that effective managerial practices at cross-border or international levels must best fit the dominant national culture at the workplace (Farr, & Tippins, 2013). The implication is that employees and their managers in different cultural contexts bring their codes of norms and behaviours at the workplace that originate from their cultures. On the other hand, cultural values and norms shape organisational processes as well as managerial practices like selection and recruitment of the employees. In this context, the selected employee for the given task must show the signs of cultural tolerance and adoption because there are various tools that can help with the cultural assessment of the particular staff. For example, the individualistic cultures like the USA base selection of their new employees by referring to their profile documentation or personal records (Kehoe, & Wright, 2013). However, collective cultures like the situation in Mexico depends on the recommendations by next of kin who worked for the company in a particular period and the selection processes can also be successful if the human resource manager follows the same criterion (Presbitero, & Langford, 2013). Selection of employees also involves choosing the right candidates promote to the next levels. In the USA, for instance, organisations promote their employees to higher levels of management by referring to their personal achievements and the information is documented in the performance appraisal records (Kehoe, & Wright, 2013). However, hierarchical and collective cultures like Japan use seniority when arriving at important decisions like promotion (Debroux, 2013). The bottom line is that the managerial activities that are not in line with the prevailing national cultures will not succeed and this also translates to the selection process that must at, all costs, ensure that the chosen few are capable of adapting to the new cultures. Saudi Arabia has made a mark in the international business though its culture influences all managerial practices in the country (Varma, & Budhwar, 2013). The culture, too, believes on connectedness in selection of the employees to top administrative positions. Nonetheless, managerial practices also carry with them some cultural implications (Farr, & Tippins, 2013). When selecting candidates for top managerial positions, they should understand what business cues that organisations use in managing their workforce. For instance, the American culture perceives eye contact as show of confidence while the Asian cultures perceive it as a show of being optimistic. The issues like time management are also important in cross-boundary business operations. Americans and the European attach a lot of meaning to time consciousness while Middle East, African, and Asian cultures are more relaxed towards the concept of time management (Kehoe, & Wright, 2013). Therefore, all the above factors must be considered before selecting employees because different cultures attach different meanings to these concepts. Theoretical frameworks The role that national cultures play in the human resource management has drive academicians to develop models for illustrating how national cultures dictate the HRM functions (Stone, & Stone-Romero, 2012). Therefore, academicians have come up with a new concept known as cross-cultural human resource management that falls under the international human resource management (Marler, 2012). Therefore, cross-cultural human resource management focuses on how culture impacts HRM. The model identifies some of the key areas of human resource management practices that are affected by national culture including performance appraisal, recruitment and selection, training and development, job analysis, planning, reward and compensation management (Marler, 2012). On the other hand, the model identifies the cultural forces that bring about the differences in human resource practices. Hofstede model of cultural dimension of masculinity Vs femininity also explains how national culture a significant role in the selection of employees (Milikic, 2009). The cultural dimension concerns division of roles as well as values within a society where some roles are meant for particular genders. For instance, the USA and Canada as well as European countries have much respect to gender equality. In such cultures, women have the same opportunities for being selected to handle tasks that other cultures presume to be technical and meant for the male workers (Kehoe, & Wright, 2013). On the other hand, issues like leadership depend on the prevailing culture because cultures like in India and Middle East do not view women as able leaders (Warner, 2014). Therefore, selection of women for higher positions may attract resistance from the entire organisation and even the society, in general. In summary, national culture influence the strategic international human resource functions especially important practices like selection of the employees to handle different tasks. The implication is that the human resource managers look for employees who have cultural competence skills that allow them to operate effectively in cross-cultural organisational contexts. Bibliography Boon, C., Den Hartog, D. N, Boselie, P., & Paauwe, J. (2011), The relationship between perceptions of HR practices and employee outcomes: examining the role of person organisation and person–job fit, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 22(01), pp. 138-162. Budhwar, P.S., & Debrah, Y. A. (Eds.). (2013), Human resource management in developing countries, Routledge, London. Buller, P. F., & McEvoy, G. M. (2012), Strategy, human resource management and performance: Sharpening line of sight, Human Resource Management Review, 22(1), pp. 43-56. Debroux, P. (2013), Human Resource Management in Japan, Managing Human Resources in Asia-Pacific, 2(20), p. 64. Dickson, M. W., Castaño, N., Magomaeva, A., & Den Hartog, D. N. (2012), Conceptualizing leadership across cultures, Journal of World Business, 47(4), pp. 483-492. Farr, J. L., & Tippins, N. T. (Eds.). (2013), Handbook of employee selection, Routledge, London. Ferner, A., Edwards, T., & Tempel, A. (2012), Power, institutions and the cross-national transfer of employment practices in multinationals, Human Relations, 65(2), pp. 163-187. Kehoe, R. R., & Wright, P. M. (2013), The impact of high-performance human resource practices on employees’ attitudes and behaviors, Journal of Management, 39(2), pp. 366-391. Marler, J. H. (2012), Strategic human resource management in context: A historical and global perspective, The Academy of Management Perspectives, 26(2), pp. 6-11. Milikic, B.B. (2009), The influence of culture on human resource management processes and practices Economic Annals, 54(181), pp.1-23 Nielsen, B.B., & Nielsen, S. (2011), The role of top management team international orientation in international strategic decision-making: The choice of foreign entry mode, Journal of World Business, 46(2), pp. 185-193. Pettigrew, A. M. (2014), The politics of organizational decision-making, Routledge, London. Presbitero, A., & Langford, P. H. (2013), The relationship between collectivism and climate: A review of the literature, Copyright 2013 International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology ISBN: 978-0-9845627-3-2, p. 140. Rugman, A. M., Verbeke, A., & Nguyen, P. C. Q. T. (2011), Fifty years of international business theory and beyond, Management International Review, 51(6), pp. 755-786. Sciascia, S., Mazzola, P., Astrachan, J. H., & Pieper, T. M. (2012), The role of family ownership in international entrepreneurship: Exploring nonlinear effects, Small Business Economics, 38(1), pp. 15-31. Stahl, G. K., Björkman, I., & Morris, S. (Eds.). (2012), Handbook of research in international human resource management, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham. Stone, D., & Stone-Romero, E. (Eds.). (2012), The influence of culture on human resource management processes and practices, Psychology Press, New York. Vaara, E., Sarala, R., Stahl, G. K., & Björkman, I. (2012), The impact of organizational and national cultural differences on social conflict and knowledge transfer in international acquisitions, Journal of Management Studies, 49(1), pp. 1-27. Varma, A., & Budhwar, P. S. (Eds.). (2013), Managing Human Resources in Asia-Pacific, 2E (Vol. 20), Routledge, London. Warner, M. (Ed.). (2014), Culture and management in Asia, Routledge, London. Read More