International Human Resource

Introduction

This written article highlights all the aspects covering the international human resource management functions including the practices, problems, challenges, and decision making strategies and so on. The assessment here is divided into four parts each part covers the detail about the international human resource management and its dimensions. The impact of the cross-cultural consequences on the decision making procedures in context with the international human resource management are described here. Further there is a brief discuss on managing people as an integral part of the human resources in international organisational strategies. Also including to this the importance of various types of international business resource management practices in organisational context are detailed in this assessment. Adding to the above content, there is also highlighted few of the key issues and problems that arise in the management of the human resources in context with the globalisation of companies or multinational organisations.

LO1: Appraising the impact of culture on managerial decision making in international human resource management.

In recent times there are numerous companies who run their operations internationally also as multinational companies. These companies in order to be most effective and recognisable organisations have to consider their local cultural impacts, practices and cultural boundaries as an important factor in context with international human resource management. This is one of the main reason that affects the decision making procedures and strategies of an internationalised organisations.

Effects of cultural differences and conflicts on decision making process

When the multinational companies decides to enter in another foreign country where there everything is new with unfamiliar working environments, risks, benefits, disputes and other issues, they have to be fully prepared first all the needed strategical skills and competences (Renshaw et al. 2020). Every organisation, with rapid globalisation, the managers at every level have to become critically thinking personnel for developing a well-equipped knowledge and understanding regarding the decision making process, cross-cultural communication practices and inter-cultural negotiable strategies to solve and handle the disputes and conflicts in a foreign working environment. The managers should be fully capable to intervene in between these inevitable disputes and conflicts when different cultures clash with each other in an organisational environment. Robinson (2018) suggested that there are human resource management practices to cope with the impacts of cross-culture while taking any decision regarding the international human resource management.

Various aspects of international human resource management decisive strategies which are impactful due to the cultural factors of the host country having open boundaries, harmonisation of organisational rules & regulations, strategic management, economic integration and the changing global market (sciencedirect.com, 2020). The culture along with then cultural differences of both the national and international business environment plays valuable and signifying role to the decision making process of an organisation who are operating internationally. Shah and Barker (2020) advised that the competitiveness and efficiency of an international operating company have some set standards of ideas that are responsible for structuring the relationship between the employees of the organisation in modern corporate ways and techniques. When there is the need to address problems and tasks assigned to the working people in a company speciality in case of a place where multicultural identities work together, the most important issues arise are related with the transmission of ideas, communication gaps and issues at every level. According to Shortland (2020), these can be solved with the application of appropriate strategies or practices implied by the managers who are responsible for regulating the primary conflicts.

The impacts of cultural difference not only can be brought up as n issue in international human resource management context but from the positive side it can be fully exploited o utilised into profitable aspects differently (sciencedirect.com, 2018). The efficiency pressure of the company along with the competitive advantages of the global level scale often leads towards the proper utilisation of the workers in the host countries are purely fit for the profitability of the organisation.

The difference in the cultural scenario is the single facet that fabricates the conflicts in internationalisation context. There are various strategies like joint ventures or acquisitions which arise the clashes of the international corporate human resource management in the organisational cultures (tandfonline.com, 2018). Due to this reason the organisational conflicts becomes hard to resolve in the organisational settings. The fundamental decision making practices regarding the international human resource management pops up when the company employees disagree with the organisational values and decisions.

LO2: Evaluating the management of people as a business resource integral to international organisational strategies.

The essence of the international business strategies are a huge amount of contribution if they were aligned in appropriate manner and it can also enable the organisation to gain a lot of well-constructed successful organisational strategies and will create a great and strong financial base to the company. The international human resource strategies, if wants to stand holding a strong position in the business strategic activities, have to make it be able to improve the administration foundation as a strong factor (Renshawet al. 2020). The management of the people are considered as an integral part of the business resources in case of the international business strategies of the strategic approaches of that business organisation are fully compatible and aligned with the human resource strategic decisions so that they can be ensured to improve the business organisation’s abilities, employee competences and skills to achieve the business objectives. As per Plaskoff (2017), the management of employees must be counted as an integral business resource strategic activity because it plays a huge significant role in obtaining a successful business performance. The international business strategies affect both the organisational and individual performance considering them as valuable resources of the company. Pasamar and Gallurt (2019) noted that for an international organisation both the success of public and private sectors, requires effective management of people with appropriate human resource strategies because human resource management is an inevitable and integral part of organisational business strategic activities.

Recently there have been emerged new perspectives about the adoption implementation of new and improved international human resource strategies that are all set to align fully to the business organisations turning to be a human asset for the companies. The enhancements or improvements in context with the human capitals, there should be more focus on the internationalisation of the human resources in international human resource management. In order to make the management of the human resources as integral part of international business strategies, the process starts from the hiring, selection, compensation, training and performance reviews (ocerintjournals.org, 2019). There is a huge requirement of proper aligning the international human resource management with the organisational strategies for making a successful international business organisation (Liu et al. 2021). Considering the people playing the role of a major factor is very critical to evaluate since different people comes up being differently valued assets for the organisation in their internationalisation process. This is the reason why it is very important to match the personnel hiring and selection criteria with the work profile considering it as an integral human resource part to get a desired business strategy in international organisational strategy making process. No organisation can succeed in their international strategies if there is no presence of developed and well-qualified people management practices at every level of functioning in a business organisation in all dimensions of activities (Hameed et al. 2020). The long term successful competitiveness can only be acquired if there proper management of the valued human resource can be managed and applied for international organisation strategies.

LO3: Analysing the importance of international human resource management practices.

In context with the international human resource management, there exists few of the practices which are the dimensions depending upon which the success of the internationalisation of expatriates. The importance of these few practices of the international human resource management practices can be stated like –

Expatriates staffing practices

The companies who operate their functions in the international business markets are benefitted by a huge variety of institutional and cultural variations which makes the managerial decisions complex to manage the internationalisation of expatriates in the context of multinational corporations. According to Adam (2020), the managers handling these practices have to be well understandable with the importance of the global staffing system and choose accordingly. These practices are important because the failure or success of a company thinking or initiating internationalisation in their company depends on these practice dimensions. As stated by Analoui (2017), this practice coordinates and controls the spatially dispersed operations in global context.

Expatriates selection practices

The selection of a candidate for internationalisation is a huge critical decisive function in multinational companies since these functions requires a fixed criterion setting based on which the individuals will be chosen, screened and selected. Bastida (2018) opined that working in an international host country environment needs huge abilities and capabilities which includes technical competences, personal stability, managerial quality, cross-culture adaptability, family support and stability, marital status and language skills. When candidates are selected all these aspects were matched and then decisions were taken (Ayentimi et al. 2018). This practice is important because this practice helps in choosing only those individuals who will be compatible to face all the challenges of the host country and be able to cope with them.

Expatriates training practices

Training is the most valuable and knowledgeable part of all the international human resource practices because this phase prepares an individual and makes them fully informed, equipped and ready to work in a whole new environment. Becker and Bish (2021) discussed that training provides the individuals information about the basic cultural orientation, host country working environmental briefing and handling traits, cultural awareness, vocabulary skills, flexibility, cultural assimilation and the host country local working norms. These are the factors which make the training practices and important and integral part of international human resource management.

Expatriates compensation practices

Different researches have undertaken expatriates compensation practices from different viewpoints. The expatriate employees of a company are the organisation’s substantial investments in the foreign subsidiaries including the cost of failure also to reach the exorbitant level (Edwards et al. 2019). So setting up the compensation in internationalisation is a crucial activity depending on which it will be decided that if the individuals will be supportive enough to help in the company’s internationalisation process or not. In today’s competitive market attractive compensation is must to create interest in individuals which makes this practice immensely important in case of international human resource management.

Expatriate cross-culture practices

The cross-cultural training sessions aims to make the employees comfortable in their living and working environments of a host country. Brewster (2017) suggested that the enhancement of the cross-cultural adjustments strengthens s the candidate’s abilities to understand, accept, respect and appreciate various kinds of multiple cultural perspectives. Generally the practices of cross-cultural trainings is conceptualised as the degree of psychological comfort of an employee in a host country fulfilling the organisational commitments (emerald.com , 2020). This practice is also important in the internationalisation of the employees to make them ready to settle in a whole new working environment and if any issue arises then the expatriate can handle it on their own by utilising their trainings knowledge.

LO4: Identifying the key issues in the management of human resources within a global context.

Issues are inevitable part of every work whether in business organisations or in any other field. The rise of problems is must for any work to be perfect and successful. Without issues no work can be perfect in its nature. In case of international human resource management practices also problems and issues are must to come out which are discussed here. The primary key issues in the international human resource management that arise with the methods and process in the global context can be said as –

Code of Conduct in international business organisations

The first issue can be considered as the Code of Conduct whose another name is also the Principles of Business Conduct 1994. This set of business rules mainly focuses on the ethics and ethical codes that are applied in the business practices of both home country and host country (emerald.com , 2020). This set of rules sometimes restricts the practices or formulated decisions of the business activities in global as well as national context. This Code of Conduct looks that whether the working and living statue, value and protects the dignity of the employees by providing cultural and environmental; integrity and also prevents the corruption and bribery that context. These parameters are always present to protect the employees’ interests and on the other hand they create obstacles in the human resource managing in global context (Renshaw et al. 220).

Bribery

In context of transfer of employees from their home country to any other foreign country often rise the problems of bribery but not in all countries except few. These issues somehow are bad for the business organisations and the expatriates too. There are so many countries where the employees are sent by the method of bribing neglecting the laws and rules of both the places from where o where the employees are traded. While, there are some cases also, where the employees get traded illegally by bribing the organisation. These things raise major issue slater on when caught and impacts negatively on both the sides. There are some basic rules and regulations which the organisations of both the countries have to follow in order to get the permission of international human resource managing process (sciencedirect.com, 2018). These rules were set to protect the interest of the participants if this expatriation.

Ethics and the corporate social responsibilities

The corporate and social responsibilities along with the ethics in the international human resource management environment have always been problematic and debatable in every aspect. The multinational companies have always been for being problematic and indifferent with the host countries because they are much more concerned relating to the profitability and market share of their respective business organisations (tandfonline.com, 2018). In order to maintain the balance in the ethical values and moral values of both host and the home countries, the multinational corporations have to play the role of a mediator for keeping the balance in position. There are three main concepts which the ethical values and corporate social responsibilities follow to maintain the balance named as: ethical relativist who believes that there is no right or wrong exists (ocerintjournals.org, 2019). One thing, if it is right in a specific situation can be wrong for another one ad works on this theory. The ethical absolutist is strongly influenced by the policies and practices of the home country and works with those thoughts. The last one is the ethical universalist, according to whom, the fundamental rules are there to tell us and decide what is right or what is wrong so it must be followed.

Conclusion

The essence of the international business strategies are a huge amount of contribution if they were aligned in appropriate manner and it can also enable the organisation to gain a lot of well-constructed successful organisational strategies and will create a great and strong financial base to the company. Different researches have undertaken expatriates compensation practices from different viewpoints. The expatriate employees of a company are the organisation’s substantial investments in the foreign subsidiaries including the cost of failure also to reach the exorbitant level. The cross-cultural training sessions aims to make the employees comfortable in their living and working environments of a host country. This assessment can be finished by concluding that various aspects of international human resource management decisive strategies which are impactful due to the cultural factors of the host country having open boundaries, harmonisation of organisational rules & regulations, strategic management, economic integration and the changing global market.

Continue your journey with our comprehensive guide to Implications for Human Resource Management.

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