Managing Human Resource

MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCE : BEYOND COUNTRY BOUNDARIES

Introduction

The reality of modern business strategy increasingly blurs the nationality of multinational enterprises , their products and services and even their work force . Cross-investments , joint ventures , mergers acquisitions and a vast array of inter-corporate alliances have mixed and matched business organizations and operations across continents . As such , focus on how different organizations manage their people across national bs is properly in place . It addresses the added complexity created by managing people (the most nationally specific resource across a diversity of national contexts of operation

and the inclusion of different national categories of workers . When businesses internationalize , human resource concerns , such as staffing (finding the best and lowest-cost employees anywhere in the world , executive development (ensuring the management group has the knowledge and ability to operate effectively in the international arena , compensation (being globally competitive , and labor relations (which can vary dramatically from country to country ) require globally savvy human resource management (HRM ) professionals to facilitate international business success

Explaining differences in HRM practice is first of all a matter of levels . There is a sense in which all organizations in the world have to recruit , pay and manage people yet there are significant differences between , for example , Japan , the USA and Europe in the way that they do this . There are also differences between countries within Europe and between regions within countries . There is a somewhat sterile debate about the importance of this or that level . The image of a telescope encapsulates the reality (Brawley 21 : as the focus is pulled , so some things that were in sharp focus become blurred , but other differences become more noticeable . is more or less true a view than any other - but some are more useful for some purposes than others

Managing Human Resources Differently

Cultural Aspect . Value systems , and underlying beliefs , vary significantly between cultural groupings - which often , particularly in the longer established countries - overlap with nationalities . These explain why some societies may be more hierarchical collectivist more comfortable with uncertainty and so on . An awareness of national cultural poses a challenge to management theory in many areas particularly those where people are concerned , and most directly : in the HRM arena . Culture is a complex concept , open to a variety of definitions and difficult to pin down precisely . Terpstra and David (qtd . in Johnson and Turner 200 ) refer to 'a learned , shared compelling , interrelated set of symbols whose meanings provide a set of orientations for members of a society

Variations on values which occur between nations are going to have a substantial effect on such issues as motivation , appraisal , reward systems and careers : the influence of values related to hierarchy collectivism and achievement , for example , are bound to be strong factors here . These variations also influence selection methods and criteria , training and development and employee relations . For just one example of importance to HRM , when staffing foreign operations , local culture and environment can have a major effect on the definition of jobs and job candidates...