Description
What are some HRM challenges that arise when a U.S. company expands from domestic markets by exporting? When it changes from simply exporting to operating as an international company? When an international company becomes a global company? (25 points, 1 pages, double space) 2. Besides cultural differences, what other factors affect human resource management in an organization with international operations? (25 points, 1 page, double space) 3. Why do multinational organizations hire host-country nationals to fill most of their foreign positions, rather than sending expatriates for most jobs? (25 points, 1 page, double space) Use the readings and resources provided in our online lecture, book, at the library and reputable sources found on the Internet to support your viewpoints. Be sure to use your own voice in your answers. Simple copy and pastes will not be accepted. Be sure to site all sources referenced by using APA guidelines
MGS3030_Unit 8 Lecture-Chapters 9 & 16
To have a high-performance work system, organization needs to combine its resources
including people, technology, and organizational structure in a right way to take fully advantage
of opportunities in achieving its goals. The major components of a high-performance work
system includes factors such as incentive system, IT, structure, job design, and people.
With A high-performance work system companies can achieve their goals, typically including
growth, productivity, and high profits. Besides these overall goals, the high-performance work
system helps organization meet such intermediate goals as increased creativity, customer
satisfaction and job satisfaction and reduced absenteeism and turnover.
High-performance work systems can be achieved by improving employees’ skills and
knowledge, providing incentives and autonomy, and increasing employee satisfaction.
Teamwork and empowerment can make work more satisfying and provide a means for
employees to improve quality and productivity. Learning organizations can help employees
improve performance by encouraging employees to constantly learn and share knowledge.
Therefore employees can continually advance their capacity to achieve the performances they
desire
Jobs need to be designed to foster teamwork and empower employees. When organization
recruit and select employees, it should focus on employee’s qualities required for teamwork,
empowerment, and knowledge sharing. When the organization selects for teamwork and
decision-making skills, it may have to provide training in specific job tasks. Organization should
connect the performance management system to its goals and objectives, meeting customers’
needs. The organization should link compensation to the performance, and employees should
be able to participate in decision making about their compensation. Research suggests that it is
more effective to improve HRM practices as a whole than to focus on one or two isolated
practices.
The benefits from using Technology include the efficiency of the human resource management
functions and the facilitation of knowledge sharing. The IT applications for HRM include
transaction processing, decision support systems, and expert systems. These applications often
are components of a HRM information system using relational databases, which can improve
the efficiency of routine tasks and the quality of decisions. An e-HRM application enables
organization’s employees to access to the HR information they need whenever they need it.
According to a customer-oriented approach, HRM can improve quality by identifying the
internal customers’ needs and finding whether it is meeting the needs. An HRM audit, a formal
review of the outcomes of HRM functions, enables the organization to do this. The audit
examines any measure related to successful HRM. Audit information may come from many
different sources such as the organization’s documents and surveys of customer satisfaction.
The analysis of specific programs or activities is another way to measure HRM effectiveness. HR
analytics can evaluate the HRM performances in terms of whether a program met its goals and
whether it created economic values such as productivity improvements.
As more companies expand into foreign markets by exporting and operating foreign facilities,
they need employees who understand foreign customers and suppliers. They should have a
good knowledge of local laws and customs and be able to adjust their plans to local business
environments. Companies may hire employees from parent-country, host-country, and thirdcountry.
They may operate on the scale of an exporter or an international, global, or
multinational organization. A global organization needs a transnational HRM system, which
makes decisions from a global perspective, includes managers from many countries, and is
based on ideas contributed by people representing a variety of cultures.
Culture is by far the most important influence. Each market’s culture is its set of shared
assumptions about how the world works and what ideals are worth striving for. A culture has
the dimensions of individualism/collectivism, high or low power distance, high or low
uncertainty avoidance, masculinity/femininity, and long-term or short-term orientation.
Education is a second influence. Countries differ in the degree to which their labor markets
include people with education and skills of value to employers. Another influence is the foreign
country’s political-legal system—its government, laws, and regulations. A final influence is a
country’s economic system. The system may be capitalist or socialist. The government’s
involvement in the country’s economy, such as through taxes and price controls, is a strong
factor determining HRM practices.
As organizations consider decisions about their level of international activity, HR professionals
should provide information about the relevant human resource issues. When organizations
decide to operate internationally or globally, HR planning involves decisions about where and
how many employees are needed for each international facility. Some countries limit
employers’ ability to lay off workers, so organizations would be less likely to staff for peak
periods. Other countries allow employers more flexibility in meeting human resource needs.
HRM professionals need to be conversant with such differences.
Many organizations with foreign operations fill most positions with host-country nationals.
These employees can more easily understand the values and customs of the local workforce,
and hiring locally tends to be less expensive than moving employees to new locations.
Organizations also fill foreign positions with parent-country and third-country nationals who
have human relations skills associated with success in foreign assignments. When sending
employees on foreign assignments, organizations prepare the employees (and often their
families) through cross-cultural training. Before the assignment, the training provides
instruction in the foreign country’s language and culture. During the assignment, there is
communication with the home country and mentoring. For the return home, the employer
provides further training and development to aid retention.
Pay structures can differ substantially among countries in terms of pay level and the relative
worth of jobs. Organizations must decide whether to set pay levels and differences in terms of
what workers are used to in their own countries or in terms of what employees’ colleagues earn
at headquarters. Typically, companies have resolved this dilemma by linking pay and benefits
more closely to those of the employee’s country, but this practice may be weakening so that it
depends more on the nature and length of the foreign assignment. These decisions affect the
organization’s costs and ability to compete, so organizations consider local labor costs in their
location decisions. Along with the basic pay structure, organizations must make decisions
regarding incentive pay, such as bonuses and stock options. Laws may dictate differences in
benefit packages, and the value of benefits will differ if a country requires them or makes them
a government service.
When an organization has selected a manager for an overseas assignment, it must prepare the
person for the experience. In cross-cultural training, the soon-to-be expatriate learns about the
foreign culture he or she is heading to, and studies her or his own home-country culture as well
for insight. The trainee is given a detailed briefing on how to behave in business settings in the
new country. Along with cross-cultural training, preparation of the expatriate should include
career development activities to help the individual acquire valuable career skills during the
foreign assignment and at the end of the assignment to handle repatriation successfully.
Communication of changes at home and validation of a job well done abroad help the
expatriate through the repatriation process.