International Human Resource Management - Example

International Human Resource Management Name: Course: College: Tutor: Date: Introduction Human resource management (HRM) refers to the supervision of the labor forces of an organization, and involves the selection, preparation, appraisal and gratifying of the members of staff. Human resource management operates in line with the organizational leadership culture and ensures that employees comply with the labor and employment laws that exist within a given jurisdiction, or those that apply universally in the case of international organizations. Human resource is also charged with the responsibility of liaising between disgruntled employees and their representatives, for example labor unions (Storey 2007, p. 15). Human resource has its origin in the human relations movement, which was at play in the 20th century. At this time, researchers were interested in documenting ways in which businesses could create value to their operations, through strategically managing their workforce. Human resource was previously dominated with the issues of payrolls and benefits, but with time and due to the effects of globalization, technological advancement, company consolidation and merging and developments in research, the sector of human resource broadened (Scholz &Muller 2010, p. 34) It started being concerned with strategic development issues such as succession planning, labor relations, mergers and acquisitions, talent management, diversity and inclusion. HRM as a Worldwide Best Practice Model As researchers continue to delve into the issue of how best human resource can be applied to create the highest value possible in organizations, it has become apparent that human resource is increasingly raising the debate of convergence versus divergence. This paper sets out to test the extent to which convergence of human resource management practices apply worldwide, and test the existence of global best practice model. To fully examine the issue, the paper focuses on two major countries as case studies of human resource management convergence; German and Japanese Multinational corporations. Studies show that these two subsidiaries have embraced the United States human resource management model, which seems consistent with the current ongoing studies on the convergence of HRM best practices (McCourt & Eldridge 2003, p. 17). Scholars in support of the convergence approach believe that in management ‘best practices’ are universally applicable and relevant, irrespective of general organizational culture or institutional framework. Efficiency necessity and an increasingly comparable universal competitive environment are apparently the forces behind companies’ adoption of such best practices. This is usually in an effort to increase their competitiveness. This gives way to a cross-national convergence of human resource management practices. Owing to the supremacy of American commerce schools in the growth and propagation of new administration knowledge for example, the control of American professionals in spreading this knowledge in management, has been likened with successful human resource management practices, employed by the top most successful Multinational Corporations. Most importantly, the potency of the American financial system and American Multinational Corporations best practices in management are regularly, unambiguously or unreservedly, likened with management performances employed by successful American MNCs (Dowling, Festing, & Engle 2008, p. 110). Convergence theory explicate international assimilation of human resource management best practices by providing that ordinary business sense or management judgment, arising from the observable fact of industrialism, surpasses variations in the business perspectives of different markets . Industrialized nations converged around a blueprint of management structure, in spite of political and cultural factors at hand, providing for technical proficiency, specialization, informed decision-making, and spread out management (Björkman & Stahl 2006, p. 64). This human resource management support system works for various business traditions. Furthermore, the greater interface among business entities due to advanced communication and alliance also tends to cut down on the differences in management best practices. The Convergence theory touches on a number of human resource sub sectors like performance appraisal. In this area, the theory implies the dynamic partaking of the employees in developing the standard for evaluation in the process of assessing performance. In addition, the driving force of the performance appraisal would be one’s area of specialty or the extent that the worker has built up in-depth knowledge and ability over his quarter of work leading to improved output and achievement (Rowley & Benson 2008, p. 83). This human resource management best practice is approved in many countries as human resource management rules for application. The convergence theory presents the argument that this works for worldwide business enterprises, since the practice of human resource management, which is founded on the coherent management platform of industrialism, has found common recognition in different countries, worldwide (Schmidtmann, 2008, p.11). According to research, USA, Japan and Germany are mostly known as the role models, as they provide ‘best practice’ standards from which other business cultures can borrow and gain knowledge. As profitable performance and development paths diverge over time, however, the function of a central economy also revolves among countries. The period between the years 1950 and 1970 were marked with a dominant American management style with a universal anticipation that it would spread around the world, gaining relevance in many overseas countries. Towards the end of 1970s and going to the beginning of 1990s this proposition was increasingly practical to Japan and to a lesser degree and mostly restricted to the European environment, to Germany more specifically (Dowling, Festing, & Engle 2008, p. 40). Since the explosion of the Japanese market, the paralysis of the German economy and with the dawn of globalization, the conformist astuteness over the last fifteen years has been that the American supervision structure is particularly apt to provide the necessary plasticity to deal with the speedily growing economic and technological circumstances and accordingly, the USA became the central role model. In the recent past, economic growth in Germany and Japan has been on the raise. On a micro category this might probably be partly attributed to learning from the prevailing human resource management model. One major driving force in diffusing human resource management best practices internationally are Multinational Corporations as they are regarded as predominantly successful in transferring knowledge transversely through national boundaries. The actual result of the reassignment process also depends on the comparative openness or receptivity of the receiving country to the best practices. How global principles from a principal model will be put into operation can therefore only be established ex post, and not a priori. Institutional theory can help us clarify how control effects develop. Subordinate of multinational corporations can be seen as part of the same populace facing the same set of environmental situations (Schmidtmann 2008, p. 47). Uncertainty in the surroundings might give way to mimetic isomorphism where organizations implement seemingly booming best practices. Companies do the accepted thing to increase their authenticity as a effectively run organization, to make an impression on shareholders and thus to boost their survival chances. HR directors in turn feel a need to support the prevailing model of HRM practices for example to draw top talent internationally and to strike superiors and peers. On the other hand, researchers subsumed under the different opinion of non-convergence school of thought lay a lot of emphasis on national management methods in their literary and organizational perspective and are therefore more skeptical about the possibility of cross-national learning from universal best practices or human resource management. The knowledge in this area can be derived from two schools of thought: the culturalist and the institutionalist point of reference. The culturalist belief leans heavily on the work of Geert Hofstede, and in particular the indicators of general cultural scope he developed (Domsch & Lidokhover 2010, p. 117). Scholars with a similar point of view include Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner. The institutionalist school of thought sees the organizational environment as the major catalyst behind organizational characteristics. In the field of international relative supervision, the institutionalist approach is epitomized by the ‘business systems’ perspective, the societal effect view and, more recently, the scrutiny of ‘varieties of capitalism.’ Both the cultural and the assorted manifestations of the institutional approaches have very little room for adoption of the convergence of management practices approach (Marshall, Ramsay& Mitchell 2008, p. 138). In view of these contrasting arguments, Sparrow raises that the debate is not holistic, in that there are theorists who are purely for the convergence theory, while others purely believe that divergence is the driving force. Sparrow says that this is a great assumption that does not take into consideration that while some parts of the world may be converging in HRM practices making worldwide HRM best practices a reality, other parts of the world might be diverging (2008, p. 7). His view clearly shows that international HRM best practices can be realized, but there are competing dynamics that must be put into consideration for this to be practical. Some of the factors that need to be considered in determining how practical international HRM standards are include influences on institutional employment relationships, operation and structure of labor markets, function and competence of the HRM organ, nature of international business structures, and the role and function of organization culture and value orientation and the impact this has on employees. The argument hence is, if these factors can be harmonized throughout nations, then standardization of the HRM function can easily be achieved (Sparrow, 2008, p. 8). The strategic forces that influence national business models to be receptive to change and growth can be used to pave way for change in HRM practices. These is because, these forces are a guideline into the complex patterns of business sustainability and changes that influence continuity, after change has been adopted. This is especially so where foreign direct investment has a direct impact on the way organizations are run. This raises the questions of the impact that international Human Resource Management has on national organization effectiveness, and the keys to attaining success in international human resource management. Conclusion Worldwide human resource management conceptualizes a well thought-out framework for budding and supervising people who are at ease with the planned and set paradoxes rooted in global or worldwide organizations and who are competent in managing cultural variety. With cultural diversities and matters of convergence and divergence, it is not practical to build up a truly global approach to international human resource management. This implies that institutional structures, supervision styles, organization traditions and amendment management programs have to be tailored to suit the governing cultural features of the host nation just as a careful harmonizing act is sought between adoption of global human resource management practices and maintaining the local management practices (Schmidtmann, 2008, p. 3). With the escalation of international rivalry and the increased international incorporation of trade and industry, the importance of the notion of learning from human resource management best practices defined by dominant countries has increased (Brewster 2010, p. 103). Accordingly, globalization can be seen as a factor that has played a role in promoting standardization around dominant nations. As ‘best practices’ recurrently develop under the explicit cultural and institutional context of the country from which they originate, implementation of those practices will be a particularly thorny issue for nations that operate under very diverse socio-cultural settings (Rothwell 2012, p. 71). However, this search clearly shows that global human resource management best practice do exist and with more input, increased research and improved technological application, the concept might as well become a reality sometime in the future.   Bibliography Björkman, I., & Stahl, G. K. (2006), Handbook of research in international human resource management, Cheltenham: E. Elgar. Brewster, C. (2010), Handbook of research on comparative human resource management, Northampton: Elgar. Domsch, M. and Lidokhover, T. (2010), Human Resource Management in Russia, Ashgate Publishing: New York Dowling, P., Festing, M., & Engle, A. D. (2008), International human resource management: managing people in a multinational context. South Melbourne, Vic, Thomson. Marshall, S., Ramsay, I. M., & Mitchell, R. (2008), Varieties of capitalism, corporate governance and employees. Carlton, Vic, Melbourne University Press. McCourt, W., & Eldridge, D. (2003), Global human resource management: Managing people in developing and transitional countries, Cheltenham, U.K: Edward Elgar. Rothwell, W. (2012), Encyclopedia of Human Resource Management, critical and emerging Issues in Human Resources, John Wiley & Sons: New York. Rowley, C. and Benson, J. (2008), Convergence and Divergence in Asian Human Resource Management, Association Francophone de Gestaion des Ressources Humaines, 16-17. Schmidtmann, L. (2008), Global Marketing and Global Human Resources Management - Internationale Unternehmensführung. München, GRIN Verlag GmbH. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:101:1-201008283836. Scholz, C. and Muller, S. (2010), Human resource management in Europe: Looking again at the issue of convergence. Journal of Organization, Personal and Information Management, 98, 1-22. Sparrow, P. (2008). Gobalizing Human Resource Management. Routledge: London. Storey, J. (2007), Human resource management: a critical text. London, Thomson Learning. Read More