International Human Resource Management

For many years, human resource management was seen as the "poor relation" of the business functions. Limited to a low-key administrative role, concerned with employee welfare and payroll administration, or at best a trouble-shooting role concerned with resolving labour-management conflicts, human resource professionals were rarely seen as having any significant role to play in determining the organisation's overall strategy. In the words of Peter Drucker, personnel was the "trash can".

How things have changed. Increasingly, managers are now realising that the key resource determining the effectiveness of an organisation is its human resources: its people. As long ago as the late 1970s and early 1980s, North American and European managers were beginning to realise that what made Japanese businesses so different, so superbly competitive, was their approach to managing people.

The American management consultants, Peters and Waterman, searching for examples of business excellence in the US, decided that the key lay in the distinctive cultures of their "excellent" businesses.

Current debates in strategic management focus on the conditions for the creation of sustainable competitive advantage. It is becoming clear that many of the traditional marketing and product development bases of competitive strategy can be imitated by competitors relatively easily - the advantage gained through such strategies is often simply not sustainable.

This is less the case with human resource management. The way an organisation treats its staff, an organisation's culture and its approach to teamwork and innovation are all potentially distinctive and value-creating characteristics that have the potential to create competitive advantage.

Furthermore, the very idiosyncrasy and social complexity of such characteristics means that once created any advantage is likely to be sustainable simply because competitors will find it difficult to imitate.

Unit 1: Approaches to International Human Resource Management

Introduction

Objectives

What is human resource management?

What is international HRM?

References

Unit 2: Context of International HRM

Introduction

Objectives

The organisational context

The cultural context

References

Unit 3: Staffing the Organisation

Introduction

Objectives

Human resource planning

Approaches to international staffing

Expatriate staffing

Integration without parent-country expatriates

Selecting expatriates

Selecting host- and third-country nationals

International differences in selection practices

Summary

References

Unit 4: Managing Performance in an International Context

Introduction

Objectives

What is performance management?

Appraising individual performance

Expatriate performance management

Appraising host-country nationals

Summary

References

Unit 5: Training and Developing the International Workforce

Introduction

Objectives

Training and career development for expatriates

Training and development of host-country nationals

Training and culture in the local environment

Developing a global perspective

Summary

References

Unit 6: Reward Management for International HRM

Introduction

Objectives

Aims of international reward management

Components of international remuneration

Approaches to international reward management

Taxation

Pay and motivation in an international context

Summary

References

Unit 7: Repatriation Policies and Practices

Introduction

Objectives

The repatriation process

Career development issues

Easing the repatriation process

Summary

References

Unit 8: Employee Relations and the International Firm

Introduction

Objectives

Trade union recognition

Country of origin and employee relations

Response from labour

Regional integration and employee relations

Summary

References

Unit 9: Issues and Challenges in International HRM

Introduction

Objectives

Country case studies: China and India

Social responsibility in an international context

Strategic IHRM

Summary

References

Appendix

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• All study materials
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