Answer:
There are a large number of factors that are usually responsible for influencing g the HRM practices and policies of different countries at different regions. These factors are that of social, economic, cultural and political factors as well. Due to the large scale globalization, there is flexibility among the human resource management across countries, but the cultural norms however tend to limit them. It is said that the industrial relations and policies often tend to change within the context of a particular country (Jackson et al 2013). There are mainly three important perspectives that arise out of the cultural cognitive pillar; they are the convergence, divergence and the crossvergence. Religion is one of the major differences that influence the HR managers in taking decisions who have to manage people from a widely diverse cultural background. The term cultural polarization opposes the concept of cultural homogenization which says that the western countries like Australia, Canada, USA
show a strong similarity in the HRM practices due to their strong anglo cultural roots. Cross vergence must be inculcated in each and every work organization as it defines fair organizational practice and helps in avoiding nepotism. The differences are only present in the minds of people, their values and their principles. As far as Germany is concerned, there were differences in the organization of certain manufacturing units that were applicable for a certain society only. Hostile takeovers are however common in France but it remains absent in Germany. This is because of the fact that there are the cross share holding and regulatory regimes present in Germany. The HRM policies that might work out well in one country may not be very much useful in the other. For instance the pay for performance of the employees is very much effective in the united kingdom but is not very significant in other country. Similarly the quality circle program is prominent in Japan, whereas it is not very prevalent in any other country. Different countries have different cultural and social set up and those influences and forms different HRM policies. Like, Japanese companies usually spend huge money on the social activities. This is relevant from the fact that Japan has the policy of life time employment that is totally absent in USA. Another distinct feature see in the HRM policy of France is that of Adoption leave policy (Xing et al 2016). This policy gives the French workers a leave from work for adopting children of up to 18years of age. Apart from this, the HRM policy also provides a working hour of 35hours per week which is different from rest of Europe because of the fact that the French people are very much specific in nature (Jackson et al 2013). They also enjoy five weeks of holiday per year which forms a very important part of the French HRM policy. Another very recent trend that France has brought in its HRM policy is providing equal opportunities to all the employees irrespective of their disabilities as well (Do et al 2016). The HRM policies of France are made keeping in mind strict attachment with the culture and environment of France.
As per the theory of Hofstede there are almost six dimensions of culture that can in influence the International human resources management policy in all the places. They are power distance index, individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, uncertainty avoidance index, pragmatic versus normative, indulgence versus restraint. There is the influence of national culture seen in the process of recruitment of the employees. If the recruiters are from places where the collectivist values are prominent, then they will naturally stick to the relationship oriented recruitment sources like personal referral, networking at job fairs. However if the recruiters are from places where the individualistic values are of more importance then the recruiters will not pay much attention to the personal contacts (Li et al 2015). Apart from this, the HRM policies often are influenced by the kind of jobs that the applicants wish to apply for. Selection process used by the recruiters also depends on the cultural influences a great deal. The high performance oriented organizations often look set very high criteria for the selection whereas the low performance oriented organizations will always select bit easier and soft recruitment criteria. A good example is that of USA has individualistic culture as a result of it, the organizations look for employees who are very much active and can perform in the high competitive environment. On the other hand, the collectivist country organizations will always look for applicants who are capable of performing in a team.
Recommendations
In the light of your newly acquired cross-cultural awareness, can you make some recommendations, in the form of action points, to any manager in charge of managing HRM across borders? Be HRM specific; e.g. "when selecting/appraising/disciplining/dismissing etc... employees in country X, please be aware of.../avoid.../implement..."
Reference
Xing, Y., Liu, Y., Tarba, S.Y. and Cooper, C.L., 2016. Intercultural influences on managing African employees of Chinese firms in Africa: Chinese managers’ HRM practices. International Business Review, 25(1), pp.28-41.
Li, Y., Zhang, G., Yang, X. and Li, J., 2015. The influence of collectivist human resource management practices on team-level identification. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 26(14), pp.1791-1806.
Do, B.R., Do, B.R., Yeh, P.W., Yeh, P.W., Madsen, J. and Madsen, J., 2016. Exploring the relationship among human resource flexibility, organizational innovation and adaptability culture. Chinese Management Studies, 10(4), pp.657-674.
Jackson, T., Louw, L. and Zhao, S., 2013. China in sub-Saharan Africa: implications for HRM policy and practice at organizational level. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(13), pp.2512-2533.
