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INTRODUCTION
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practice. The paper defines human resource management, the theoretical
basis of the discipline, business practice and global or international human
resource management. Thereafter, the paper concentrates on global
perspective or issues in international human resource management practice.
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THEORY
The theoretical discipline is based primarily on the assumption that
employees are individuals with varying goals and needs, and as such should
not be thought of as basic business resources, such as trucks and filing
cabinets. It takes a positive view of workers, assuming that virtually all wish
to contribute to the enterprise productively and that the main obstacles to
their endeavours are lack of knowledge, insufficient training, and failure of
process. It is an innovative view of the workplace management, which,
asserts that human techniques when properly practiced, are expressive of the
goals and operating practices of the enterprise overall.
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• Workforce planning
• Recruitment (sometimes separated into attraction and selection)
• Induction and orientation
• Skills management
• Training and development
• Personnel administration
• Compensation in wage or salaries
• Time management
• Travel management (sometimes assigned to accounting)
• Payroll (sometimes assigned to accounting)
• Employees benefits administration
• Personnel cost planning
• Performance appraisal.
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and business styles. Human resource managers of such organizations cannot
afford to ignore the international influences on their work.
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scope is given to local management to adopt practices that recognize
local market conditions.
3. Centralized hub in which the focus is on the global market rather
than on local markets. Such organizations are truly global rather than
multinational.
4. Transnational in which the corporation develops multi-dimensional
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CULTURAL DIVERSITY
Culture and environment diversity is a key issue in international human
resource management (HRM). In a study that become a classic in the study
of cultural differences, Hofstede (1980) investigated value differences
between over 11,000 employees in some 40 countries employed by
International Business Machine (IBM). His study focused on the influence
of national culture on the sub-cultures of the worldwide organization.
4 key dimensions were identified.
1. Individualism versus Collectivism – i.e. where individualism is a
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Comparing the results obtained from the 40 different countries against the
criteria of the framework, produced 8 ‘culture clusters’, labeled according to
geographical areas (Asian, Near Eastern and Nordic) or language (Latin,
Germanic and Anglo) and economic development (Less developed or
More developed).
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High uncertainty avoidance High uncertainty avoidance
Low individualism Medium individualism
Medium masculinity High masculinity
7. Anglo 8. Nordic
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Career paths are non-specialised Generally specialised career paths
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different weights between countries and are carried out differently. In
addition, the cultural differences mentioned above have produced the slogan
in international human resource management “Think GLOBALLY and act
LOCALLY”. This means that an international balancing act is required,
which leads to the fundamental assumption made by Bartlett and Ghoshal
that: ‘balancing the needs of co-ordination, control and autonomy and
maintaining the appropriate balance are critical to the success of the
multinational company’.
To achieve this balancing act, there are six capabilities that enable firms to
integrate and concentrate international activities and also separate and adopt
local activities:
• Being able to determine core activities and non-core activities;
• Achieving consistency while allowing flexibility;
• Building global brand equity while honouring local customs and laws;
• Obtaining leverage (bigger is better) while achieving focus (smaller is
better);
• Sharing learning and creating new knowledge;
• Engendering a global perspective while ensuring local accountability.
CONCLUSION
Global human resource management provides an organized framework for
developing and managing people who are comfortable with the strategic and
operational paradoxes embedded in global or international organizations and
who are capable of managing cultural diversity. Because of cultural
diversities and issues of convergence and divergence, it is impractical to
develop a truly international approach to global human resource
management. This means that organization structures, management styles,
organization cultures and change management programmes have to be
adapted to the dominant cultural attributes of the host nation just as a careful
balancing act is sought between being global and local needs.
REFERENCES
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Bartlett, C.A. and Ghoshal, S. (1991), Managing Across Borders; The
Transnational solution, London Business School, London.
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