Fundamentals of Human Resources Management - Essay Example

Running head: International Human Resource Management 28th April Introduction We the importanceof human resources in an organization, it is imperative managers to ensure that the cultural values of the local communities is kept in consideration. For example, during the hiring process, communities should be considered to avoid as a way of making them to feel as part and parcel of the organizations. National culture refers to the norms and customs that exist in a sovereign state. Some of the notable cultural theories covered in the paper include Schwart’z theory and Hofstede theory of culture. Their impact of the culture on the human resource management is also discussed in the paper. Another part that is covered in the paper is the effects of national culture on selection process. Box A part 3 Relationship of national culture to human resource management National culture plays an important role in the effectiveness and development of human resources management strategies. Similarly, the different policies are adopted in various locations due to the difference in culture that exist within countries. One of the major challenges faced by human resources professionals of the multinational companies that aim at penetrating foreign markets is understanding the national culture of such countries. This is based on the fact that human resources department has to come up with strategies while keeping in mind the national culture of the focused country in order to achieve its goals and objectives. Various theories have been established to indicate the relationship between national culture and HR management. Schwart’z Theory of Cultural Value Orientations According to Schwart’z Theory, in an autonomy cultures, individuals are viewed as autonomous bounded entities. This implies that people are encouraged to express and cultivate their own preferences, ideas, abilities and feelings. In this way, they are in a position to make their own uniqueness. While firms are focused at going global, human resources managers are faced with two types of autonomy. First is the intellectual autonomy which encourages individuals to pursue their own ideas and direction. This implies that managers can come up with their own employment policies that are of course in line with the law of the country (Hodgetts and Luthans, 2003). Secondly is the affective autonomy. This kind of autonomy encourages individuals to pursue their own intellectual experience. According to Schwartz, life must be a social relationship that one can identify with other groups, one can still share the way of life and make sure that the goals set are attained. The hierarchy set in the organizations gives the human resource and management the responsibilities of making sure that he or she can relate well with the entire community. Favorable working conditions can only be achieved when the HRM and other management corporate to increase the relationship of the entire culture and the general staffs. National culture and human resource management have a close relationship due to the integral role that exists between development and effectiveness of the HRM. Strategies and policies that are set by the HRM have to involve the cultural practice on where the business is operating. For the attainment of the objective and goals of the business, then there is need to consider the culture of the specific individuals (Martin, 2009). Failure to consider the relationship of culture and HRM implies that challenges on what to offer to the customers will emerge. The role of HR in the organization is to recruit and select staffs. Human resource manager must consider culture when recruiting and selecting so that he or she can know the particular individuals who are fit for the organization (Tracey, 2012). It implies that culture has an influence to the HR since a human resource manager cannot recruit and select without considering the cultural background and what the organization is offering to the entire society. Culture is an important aspect when it comes to managing employees, and this is the reason cultural difference requires different management practices. Some of the authors argue that management practices are vulnerable to the cultural practices. The cultural practices of individuals have implication to the organization depending on what it offers to the society. Human resource department has the responsibility of ensuring that culture does not affect the growth and output of the organization (Bach, 2013). It is emphasized by making sure win-win scenario to the society is portrayed. For example, the human resource management may opt to recruit 100 employees in the organization, but 50 of the employees will be selected from the nearby area where the organization is located. The aim is to create good relationship between the organization and the surrounding culture to ensure that good reputation exists for the organization. When a good relationship is created between human resource and culture, it implies that motivation is encouraged and thus individuals will work for extra hours to ensure that the relationship last for a longer time. Recruitment is the practice carried out by the human resources; the primary purpose is to obtain potential employees. Culture has an influence to the recruitment process. This is based on the fact that recruitment method used fits with the culture and thus being effective. Human resource department has to gather the necessary information that should be considered when hiring individuals based on the culture (Rothwell and Kazanas, 2003). The criterion that is going to be used to conclude the hiring and selection practice depends on the cultural background the company is operating in. For the human resources management to know the type of the staff employed are hardworking or if they embrace change in the society, cultural research must be carried and it is wise if such a research is done before hiring of the employees. Culture has an implication on human management practices that are applied in every country. It is imperative that the degree of cultural dimensions has an impact to the human resource management according to the beliefs and customs of various countries. It is obvious that some practices are going to be more cultural bound than other practices. For example, in Muslim and Christianity communities, there are days that are for resting. The human resource has to stick to the communities’ culture and make sure employees are free on such days (Sims, 2002). In UK and China, industries have a difference in relation to culture and human resource management. For example, in performance appraisal, when selecting staffs, rewarding among others are considered to be softer and planning is being not considered. In contrast, other human resources practices are assumed hard, for example, training, planning, and staffing closely relate to human resource management and they are culture-bound than other career development. Hofstede theory of culture Performance Evaluation Systems (PES) which is used by the human resource management is concerned with individualistic culture and collective culture according to the Hofstede cultural dimensions model. If the human resource manager has to consider individualistic culture on performance evaluation of the employees, it implies that he or she has to focus on individual performance (Arthur, 2004). It is imperative that human resource management has to develop the strategies and techniques that are going to measure the performance. On the other hand, human resource management on collective culture has to concentrate on group performance rather than individual performance. Strategies and techniques that can evaluate the performance of collective culture have to be operational and human resource management concentrate on the same (Trompenaars and Turner, 2000). Culture has shown correlation on performance evaluation where it is noted that collectivism has an effect to performance evaluation system. Due to the effect it is obvious that uncertainty with high degree occurs, high power distance and still femininity has an effect to the performance evaluation system. On the other hand individualism culture has an effect of lower power distance, and muscularity. This implies that it is the role of human resources management to identify culture before designing performance evaluation system. Satisfaction of job, commitment of the employee and the motivation of the employees are crucial dimensions that measure the organization performance. It is challenging for the human resource management to make sure that such characters are going to be built among the employees since they have diverse cultural background (Schein, 2004). For example, in the national culture looking at in individualism dimension the human resource management has consider the intrinsic rewards. The reason behind this is based on the fact that human being considers materialistic things and thus reward the individuals based on the performance. On the other hand, collectivism dimension is based on group reward where holidays are given, compulsory leave provided incase an individual member of the group dies as a sign of the human resource management to satisfy the group. Cultural diversity plays a significant role on how to formulate and implement the strategies that are concerned with human resources. For example, as a common culture that want to be innovative and creative in the organization (Alon, 2003). The human resource managers have to relate the objective and diverse culture so that human resource management can establish the strategies and techniques that are going to be involved to achieve the goal. The stakeholders and the people who belong to the organization play a crucial role of ensuring that good relationship exists between the human resources and individuals. In conclusion, it is the role of the human resource management to make sure that good relationship exists between human resource and national culture. This is due to the fact that favorable working conditions between the human resource and national culture results to employee’s motivation, job productivity, satisfaction and commitment. Due to good relationship between the human resource management and national culture objectives and goals are likely to be attained. Box B part 1 Effects of national culture on selection process National culture refers to the norms, beliefs and customs that exist within a given population or a sovereign state. In order to ensure that global companies are successful in other countries, they must develop management strategies based on the practices and national culture of the areas they operate in (Ailon, 2008). During the hiring and selection processes, companies are under obligation to follow the national culture or face some repercussions such as low demand of their products and lack of support from the local communities. In an organization, selection and recruitment is the major function of the human resource management. Before this process is started, human resources managers must take time to analyze the national culture on the market. For example, if the culture that exists in a given country is individualism, it implies that the human resources management must make selection strategies according to that culture (Patterson, et al 1998). Good examples of countries with individualistic culture are United States, New Zealand, Great Britain, Netherlands and Canada. In individualism dimension, individuals only care about themselves and their immediate family (Triandis, 2001). This implies that individuals in such a society can do whatever is possible to be hired and do not care whether a firms favors gender equality. Once selected, individuals can be transferred to any part of the country or to other countries. Another notable issue that human resources professionals must note is that in an individualism culture, team work may not be successful. This means that during the hiring process, the performance of the potential employees must be evaluated as an individual and not as a group. In this way, it will be possible to notice the fitness of the employee on the available job opportunity. Being a low power distance culture, individualistic cultures have low context communication style (Triandis and Gelfand, 1998). This implies that human resources managers must adopt effective methods of communication in order to get the needed information. For example, the managers must favor the use of written questionnaire instead of using face to face communication. In a country with collectivism culture, the human resource managers must develop strategies based on this culture since people are family conscious. This type of culture values group work. This implies that during selection process, recruiters must be aware that the employees will effectively work in groups. According to the collectivist cultures, different groups have diversified values and it is the role of the human resource professionals to ensure that the groups are protected in exchange of their compliance and loyalty (Purcell, 1999). A good example of the impact of culture on the selection process can be indicated by a Taiwan firm that focuses on entering British market. In this case, Taiwan multinational company must understand British culture. Taiwan culture is different from that of Britain, since the former is noted as having high power distance, moderate in avoiding uncertainties, high in long term, and low in individualism (Geert, 2009). During their selection process, the Taiwan firm targets their friends and relatives. The British companies on the other hand use application forms, interviewing panels and aptitude tests. This implies that the British multinational company must also develop selection and recruitment strategies based on the Taiwan national culture for it to penetrate the market. Selection processes Selection refers to the process of choosing from a group of applicants a person who is best suited for a given job. One of the important aspects of the selection process is that it must be reliable and provide valid information about the applicant in order to endure that their qualifications are in line with the job requirements. The section below discusses three major selection process and the countries that use them. General Mental Ability (GMA) Being the most effective selection process, GMA is used as a way of predicting future performance of jobs. This process can be done by use of simple tests using pencils or computer tests that are done online. One of the advantages of these tests is that they are quick and affordable (Eysenck, 1995). Additionally, there is no special training required to administer the tests. This makes it the best method for the new companies that are focusing at developing their activities at a faster rate. Since GMA can have adverse implications on selection process, it is vital to track demographics, hiring decisions as well as scores. Notable aspect of GMA is that it can be offered in form of longer or shorter tests. Longer tests is used to measure dimensions that includes general knowledge, vocabulary, social intelligence, arithmetic, detail orientation, spatial reasoning, verbal concepts and coding among others. On the other hand, shorter tests are done by various instruments but the most common method that is used by firms is the 12 minutes Wonderlic Personal Test. This involves aspects like deductive reasoning, conceptual comparisons, sentence meanings, detail matching and sequential reasoning. An example of a country that uses General Mental Ability is Britain. This is based on the fact that the country has large number of middle sized companies and large firms that requiring high number of employees. This selection method makes such firms to hire employees at a faster rate and undertake prediction of their performance in future. Structured interviews Another method that firms can use during selection is structured interview. During this process, questions are prepared beforehand and forwarded to the interviewee. During the structured interview, the interviewees are provided with the same questions in order to make a reliable comparison of their level of competency. One advantage of structured interview is that it is reliable and easy to quantify given that the closed and similar questions are used. Secondly, structured interviews can be conducted in a quick manner thus making the interview to take shorter time. In this way, firms do not delay to select the most suitable person for a given position. However, this selection method has some limitation. For example the interviews are not flexible. This implies that new questions cannot be introduced during the interview. As a result, the results may not indicate the true personality or competence of the interviewee since he or she is not given a chance to explain a point further. Being used in hiring process as noted earlier, the structured interviews are also used in qualitative research methodology. The interviews are best suited for engaging in focus groups and respondent. This is based on the fact that the process is beneficial since it allows comparison and contrasting of the responses achieved from the respondents (Purcell, 1999). One of the most important points to note for the researchers using this process is that they should develop an interview schedule which indicates the sequence of the questions and the wording. The research schedules also assist the researcher to increase the reliability of the data obtained. A good example of a country that use structured interviews is United States. US companies for example the United States Postal Service use the interviews during their hiring and selection process. In turn, the companies are in a position to get some of the most experienced and skilled managers and employees in the world. Based on time required to prepare for the interview and the cost of hiring the selectors, this process may not be used by small companies in developing countries. Situational judgment tests Situational judgment tests refers to the psychological test which provides an individual doing the test with hypothetical cases that allows him or her to identify the most appropriate response. Similarly, during the test, test-taker can be asked to rank the responses in order they feel it is the best (Flynn, 2011). Notable aspect of this selection process is that it can be presented through various techniques including booklets, audio recording and films among others. As a selection method, Situational judgment test has some merits. First, they are more accurate in predicting future performance among the managerial level positions. Secondly, since it can use only a paper or a computer, it is easy to administer. This implies that even smaller firms in low income countries can afford this process. Thirdly, Situational judgment test provides responses that indicate a good idea of how applicants respond to variety of situations. Fourthly, its results can indicate to the selector areas that require development and growth. However, there are two requirements for the use of Situational judgment tests. First, they must be designed in-house through job analysis, an aspect that can be expensive for smaller and big companies. Secondly, the tests cannot be used universally. This is based on the fact that they are specific to a single job. A good example of a country that uses Situational judgment tests is China. Based on the stiff competition that China firms face from US and Britain companies, most of them use the tests to come with viable responses from the managers and potential employees. Additionally, the firma are able to select skilled and experienced manpower. Conclusion Based on the above discussion, it is clear that national culture cannot be overlooked if organizations aim at benefiting from the support of the local communities. Additionally, while making selection, cultural issues of the country must be looked at to avoid conflict between local residents and local or foreign companies who have entered the local market. References Ailon, G. 2008. Mirror, mirror on the wall: Cultures Consequences in a value test of its own design. The Academy of Management Review, October 2008, 33(4):85–94. Alon, I. 2003. culture, organizational behavior, and international business management. Westport, Conn.: Praeger. Arthur, D. 2004. Fundamentals of human resources management. 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