Managing People in International

Context

Presented by:-
Amit Rathore
Rahul Hirvey
 Managing People in
International Context
‘Hard’ and 'Soft’ approaches taken within Western
Organizations both reflect an inherent cultural
concept that perceives human being in
Organizations as a means to end
Hard Perspective- reflecting utilitarian instrumentalism
which sees people as a resource to achieving the ends
of the organization
Soft Perspective –which sees people as a valued assets
capable of development, providing inputs
through participation & informed choice
 Locus of Human Value
Locus of value or the worth attributed to persons
in a work organization is oriented towards those
persons in themselves rather than towards
organizational objectives as appropriate ends
Eg-Chinese business organization where familial
relations are important both internationally and
personal connections or networking in business
dealings(payment by seniority)
 Implications for Human
Resource Management
Formal
Business System
objectives of
Staffing

HRM
System Career
Planning
Management
Development

built
Appraisal
Skills system Eg:_Korean
Training with worker
MBO

Eg:- Japanese firms show a higher

commitment to people & community welfare
by retaining employee through economic
downturn
 Towards a Conceptual
Approach to Managing people
Internationally
• Give rise to a contractual
Instrumental relationship with employee
Cultural who provides his time in
exchange for wages
Perspective

• Give rise to an obligatory

Humanistic relationship of commitment
Cultural among members of the
corporation
Perspective
Eg- High failure rate of joint venture in China due to lack of organizational learning,
lack of developing appropriately flexible organizational forms & work practices
 Swedish Cultural & People
Management
 Low in Power distance which means that
organizations tend not be hierarchical
 High in Individualism (by Hofstede), low in
uncertainty avoidance
 According to Gannon & Associates(1994)
Swedes are unemotionally practical, believing
that problems can be solved rationally through
the application of reason
 The Multicultural Model
It is built to understand cultural differences, rather
than trying to smooth them override them
Eg:- IBM –strong corporate culture & wide culture
variation across nations
Hofstede (1980) focuses on ‘value system’ of
national cultures represented by 4 dimension:-
Power distance- inequalities among people
Uncertainty avoidance- preference for structured v/s unstructured
situation
Individualism- acting as individuals or part of cohesive groups
Masculinity- Distinguishes ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ value
 Adapting the Organization
Culture
Gannon & Associates (1994) outline 3 main
facets of Swedish culture
Love of nature:- develop as an industrial nation
,emphasis on engineering such as
Volvo,Saab,Ericson
Individualism through self-development - Quality
of life is important, 5 weeks holiday & 27 sick
days/year > 5(US average)
Equality – same service to every body
like Health services, pensions
 Spanish Culture & Work
values
 Medium power distance but higher than
Sweden, less individualistic than Sweden
 Very high on uncertainty avoidance(work in
same organization for many years)
 High rate of FDI
 IKEA entered in Spain & instilling its character &
culture
 Right people is regarded is one of the key of
preserving IKEA culture
 Awareness is created through introductory
programmes for new workers through IKEA seminars
 Adapting the Organizational
Culture
Approaches to adapting the local needs 1st way to
recruit a Spanish HR manager and others are:-
 Running ‘Cultural Seminars’ to discuss
everyone their experience opinion
 Development programme to ensure the
retention of talent within the company
 Annual training plans include no. of off-the job
training
 Flexible salary structure to attract & retain
competent employee
 French Culture & People
Management
French is a Catholic country, which explains the
distrust of the business world, and the attachment
to the rural community, particularly in the south
Roussillon & Bournis(1997) outline the main
feature of French management :-
• Excessive importance of the elitist education systems (guarantee top posts
for young graduates)
• Highly responsible posts given straight away to young graduates from
prestigious schools
• An emphasis on the theoretical, with young executives in consultancy
position with conceptualizing responsibility rather than in an operational
capacity
 American Model of People
Management
 American culture celebrates the high-achieving and denigrates
failure
 75% of American being extrovert and Technology play a key
role in competitive specialization
 Nationalism is highly celebrated & belief that anything can be
achieved by individual
 Innovative work systems designed to increase productivity,
reduce costs & improve quality
 New human resources practices implemented in work process
design
 Individuals can also be trained in these competences
where they have a deficiency
 Japanese People
Management
(a)Lifetime employment
(b)Seniority- based pay and promotion
(c)In- house trade unions
 British Model
 Learning Organization is a concept of action learning developed
in Britain.
 The main features of British management culture can be
summarized as follows
• A value of personal psychological privacy;
• Friendliness and sincerity
• Orderliness, patience and seeing a task through;
• Well defined status and roles;
• Love of humor, often as a device to lighten the occasion;
• Social control based on persuasion and appeal to sense of
guilt in transgressing social norms
 European Model of People
Management
o European organizations operate with restricted
autonomy: constrained at the European union level
and at the national level by culture and legislation, at
the organizational level by patterns of ownership
o Culture and Legislation:
 Regulation of recruitment, dismissal and employment
contracts generally;
 Legislative requirements on pay;
 Formalization of educational certification;
 Public funding of labor market programmes;
 More state intervention in the economy
• Patterns of ownership: Public ownership in still
generally more prevalent in European
countries than the US, and patterns of private
ownership are different, including major
companies in southern Europe
• Trade union involvement and consultative
arrangement: American HRM has been
regarded as anti-union, yet in most European
countries union membership is high.
• Employment involvement: This is common
place in European countries, with workers
councils required by the law in some countries.
International International context
Context
Including European
Union
HRM strategy
Integration
National context Development to line
Including: Culture Employment policies
Political Environmental policies
/legislative Reward policies
Economical, Work systems etc.
social

HRM context
National HRM context Selection
Education/training Performance
Labor markets Appraisal
Trade unions Reward
Industrial relations etc. Development
Industrial relations
Communication etc
Brewster European Model of HRM
 Chinese Model of People
Management
In 1978, Chinese government announced an open-door
policy and began economic reforms aimed at moving the
country from a centrally planned economy to a market
economy.
 Performance Appraisal
 Performance appraisal for blue collar worker was used
less frequently. It was informal and subjective process.
Emphasized on behavior and attitudes subject to leadership
evaluation
 Chinese work values
o Hofstede in 1980 draws on data from Hong
Kong and Taiwan to describe Chinese
characteristics.
o Its likely that such value dimensions as
 Collectivism – Individualism
 Power – Distance
 Uncertainty avoidance
 Masculinity femininity and long term-short term
 Indian People Management
 The present day mixed economy of India had
evolved through a series of policy
formulations and legislation aimed at
restrictive practices and protectionist
measures & finally to the new economic
policy announced in July 1991
 Culture & Indian Managers
 Despite the value difference among managers in the
five countries Australia, Japan, Korea, India and USA
and value diversity within each country, there is
common pattern of translation of values into
behaviors across the countries. The implications of
values of Indian managers are:
• Indian managers are more responsive to the human &
bureaucratic consequences of their actions;
• They are more influenced by positions and approaches
which utilize philosophical and moral justifications;
• They are more responsive to internal reward & controls
THANK YOU