Case Study For International Personnel And Development: A Cultural Perspective

Cultural dimension

Discuss about the Case study for International Personnel and Development?

During the last 20 years, organizations within Australia have managed their employees in a competitive and global environment. Australia is a southern hemisphere, settler economy that is dependent on the export of goods.  Human Resource Management in Australia has become an accepted managerial profession with its own professional association evident in education, professional workers and training (Harris and Ogbonna 2015). However, the method of establishing operations within Australia is shared between acquisitions of existing business and established a new operation. Hence, Australia has been chosen to present the human resource management cultural report as it has diverse culture with various people from all over the world involved with either employment or business. Furthermore, this country has been chosen as it contains a multiethnic society and people from different race, color and location. The rationale for choosing Australia is its authentic culture; people from every part of the world live there, its exceptional infrastructure, its high standard of living, authentic food, industries, and entertainment.

The Australian economy has experienced continuous growth and features with low unemployment, contained inflation and stable financial system. It has the fastest growing commercial center and world’s leading commercial center so it will prove to beneficial to take the country for this analysis as it will provide relevant information on how HR currently operates in the country. In Australia, the organizations those are working with shared services undertake HR administrative, provide information through intranets, and call centers to the clients. The HR issues are identified such as recruitment and selection. The organizations are not giving equal opportunity to both men and women (Wright 2014).  Due to equality legislation, there exists discrimination within recruitment and selection process. Secondly, performance appraisal techniques are gendered and against the women. In this process, discrimination is pointed out where women are getting lower ratings.

An important strand of the cultural factors is based on Greet Hofstede’s cultural dimension. Hofstede (1984) postulated four dimensions based on the value patterns across the country, Australia such as power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism as well as masculinity. Those four cultural factors are regarded as potential influence on the managers about how to make decisions and perform their roles within the organization. Greet Hofstede’s cultural dimensions sets a framework for those communities who can assessed based on the following four variables:

Australia scores a dimension of 36. In the Australian organizations, the superiors are always accessible as well as the managers are rely on the individual employees for the expertise. The power in the HR field should not be distributed unequally rather it should be given to the deserving (Vaimanand Brewster 2015). The advantages related to the position are not accepted in the Australian culture. In the Australian organization, when the consultation of the company cannot come to a solution in case of dispute, then they involve a mediator (Carlos et al. 2014). Leaders are encouraged for independent thought to problem solving. In the public sector in state of Queensland, the Queensland government introduces changes at the federal level. The managers are encouraged to seek to make organizational changes towards the model of excellence (Medinget al. 2013).  The leaders are fostering their culture by making new changes with significant changes on teamwork. They are centralizing decision making as well as lending money to relieve the work pressures and allowing training as well as team development.

Hofstede’s Cultural dimension

It scores 90 on its dimension and the people are highly culture. It helps HRM in working, as the culture of Australia is best suited for human resource in various fields (Medinget al. 2013). The HR manages business very well as the people of Australia are very friendly and cooperative. According to the Queensland health staff, they are generally dedicated, committed as well as professional workforce with strong ethos to do best services for the consumers as well as patients. Privacy is considered as the nor as well as attempts at personal ingratiation. 

Figure 1: Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension for Australia

(Source: Dudovskiy 2014)

It scores of 61 and the Australians are proud of the successes as well as achievements in the life. They are offering a basis to hire and promote decisions within the workplace (Thite et al. 2012). At the individual level, all the conflicts are resolved and the goal is to be winning. The HRM is mainly lead by more males in comparison to females in Australia hence it can be said that the gap between male and female is still considered and in highly masculine society, the masculinity and femininity dimension is viewed as a taboo. It is defined as the preference which society gives for heroism, achievement, material reward for success and assertiveness whereas, femininity is defined as the preference to cooperate, cares for the weak, quality of life and modesty (Tenhialaet al. 2014).  In Queensland Health Care organization, the senior staffs should develop their management skills so that the management culture is not damaged. A survey is conducted which monitor feedback on the workplace issues as well as new independent health quality as well as complaints commission are established.

Australia scores an intermediate of 51 on its dimensions. The Foreign companies need to consider all these points for a prosperous growth of their company in any business and should emphasize in the HRM to prosper their business more by considering the cultural dimensions (Martin 2014). The degree of uncertainty avoidance in the HRM is high for a society then it follows stiff code of conduct, good behavior, laws, and guidelines. The benefits of low uncertainty avoidance are low stress, self-control, ease and low anxiety (Thite et al. 2012).  The score of strong uncertainty avoidance is low in subjective health and wellbeing. The uncertainty avoidance is defined as the tolerance, which a society can bear for ambiguity. In it, the people embrace or avert the unknown and the unexpected (Miras et al. 2015). The society believes that there is only a sole truth and everyone knows what it is. In Queensland public sector, the employees are not showing aggression as well as emotions in an ambiguous situations as well as the law of the organization are not precise while the laws and rules are legal in order to keep out those uncertainties.

Impact of Cultural dimensions on HRM practices

In society with high power separation, dedication and acquiescence to superiorr is required. Subsequently, administration generally utilized execution examination in view of the behavioral criteria rather than results criteria.. Workers or subordinates have a negligible risk when they take after the built up technique established rather than make a new breakthrough that may cause failure. Essentially, performance appraisal can be done based on its orientation such as behaviour orientation or results orientation. Wright (2014) opined that the diverse mixes of social measurements can influence the HRM practices in different ways. It has been distinguished that associations and natural society are identified with each other and social measurements impacts on the outline and execution of HRM approaches and practices. Naik and Ramesh (2013) reflected that in high power separation societies employees support orders and incorporated force structure. The employees from low power separation societies incline toward decentralized force structure, level association, and equivalent benefits. Ullah and Zheng (2014) expressed that employees from high instability avoidance societies dislike vulnerability. They like to have requests and principles. In low vulnerability avoidance social orders, employees favor fewer principles.

Meyer et al. (2012) opined that national society has impact on the way of life of an association by surrounding and selecting the specific arrangements of hierarchical, practices, standards and qualities that managers see as reliable with their own specific cultural context. Along these lines, social suppositions can affect the hierarchical choice making process. Vaiman and Brewster (2015) distinguished the relationship between social measurements and HRM practices, which permit social measurements to be, partitioned into those that incapacitate and others that empower HRM practices.

In the HRM, it is a strategic tool designed to understand the market growth or decline, position of the business, the potential and direction needed for operation. It also gives an overview of the environmental factors, which a company should take into consideration. The full form of Pestle is Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Eco-environmental influences.

Figure 2: PESTLE Analysis

Source: (Carlos et al. 2014, pp-375)

In the HRM practice the political stability is very stable hence it gives an overall stability in the political issues. Australian government made an opportunity when there was financial crisis and now it is the best country for trade of export with low risk (Bensoussan and Fleisher 2012). The environmental law is made in such a way that there is very less pollution and green technology is influenced. The HRM is influenced by all these political factors as the labor law there is very appreciable as it is very flexible and is not much complex and tax policy of Australia is good because of its economy and tax laws. Australian organization has a stable political as well as business environment with a growing economy.

Every country has its own political influence but its definition of political influence is how government intervenes in the economy. The extent or areas where political factors are included is labor law, tax policy, trade restrictions, political stability and environmental law (rapidbi.com 2016). The government also keeps a check on education, health and infrastructure. Australia has one of the stable economies in the world. There are restrictions in trade of many things in Australia which makes the import of goods complex.

As Australia is concerned, it is a rich country with a per capita high GDP, a good economy in market and relatively poverty rate is low.  Australia was ranked second in the world for average wealth. The HRM is connected with the Australian organization, as there is a significant increase in the trade industry as increase in exporting commodity is more than the import commodities. However interest rate of a company affects the cost of capital and the growth or expansion of business will depend on it. The economic means how much money a country has or the monetary value of a country by measuring its industries and business. The factors, which influence the economy of a country, are its growth in economy, rates on exchange, rates on interest and the rate on inflation (Naik and Ramesh 2013). These are the factors, which greatly effect on how businesses operate and make decision.

It is the social aspect which is associated with the social reasons of people which include the cultural aspects. The factors of social influences are growth rate of population, attitudes towards career, consciousness of health and safety. The growth rate of population depends on the literacy of people and measures which should be taken to prevent population growth (Yuksel 2012). The health consciousness is the social aspect of taking care of oneself so that no severe health related issue arises.

As Australia is considered, the rate of social influence is very high in comparison to other countries. The HRM is influenced by the social cultural influences as it affects the product demand and operation of a company. The career depends on the younger generation as it is their mindset of what they want to pursue in future.

The technological influence deals with every perspective of the technology world. The factors which influence it are Automation, the rate of technology change, research and development and technology incentives (Gupta 2013). The shift to technology will include quality, cost and eventually lead to innovation.

The Australian technological analysis and business accounted for the highest expenditure in research and development. The HRM is benefitted as information and technology and access to internet have drastically changed in the recent years and there is a rise of technology as it can be seen even in the infrastructure and day to day life. The technological factors can determine barriers to entry influence the outsourcing decisions and determine level of minimum efficient production. The rate of literacy is quite high in Australia in comparison to its counter parts and the quality of education system is world class there. This has made the work of HRM more easy and manageable.

The legal factors are the laws which govern a country or the laws made to sort any discrepancy. The factors which form the law are laws of health and safety, law of employment, law of consumer, law of discrimination and law of antitrust (Zhang et al. 2015).  The health and safety law is to provide proper health and safety to its entire citizen without any problem. The consumer law is made to make sure that a company does not cheat any customer.

According to the survey, Australia’s law is very strict and up to the mark. The HRM is up to the mark with the legal system as it is considered the best in Australia as there is no bias in the judgment. The laws are implemented to check factors like how a company operates; the demands for its products and its costs. The employment law is made to keep a check that no employee is having any trouble and the HRM manages it effectively.

The eco-environmental factors are the ecological and an aspect of environment includes the climate, weather and change in climate (Linder 2013). Hence all these factors affect industries like tourism, insurance and farming and it should be emphasized to check it before starting any business.

According to the analysis, Australia has a very green landscape and it promotes eco-friendly technology. The HRM operation of a company and products offered by them depends on the impact of change in climate and its awareness and it includes new markets creation and old markets diminishing. It should be considered that new technologies are available which promotes green technology in business, makes business sustainable, and helps HRM in smooth working.

Conclusion

It is concluded that the HRM approach was growing but showed slow implementation particularly among Multinational corporations in Australia. However, the social and political view in the workplace is considered HRM can be viewed as an administrative. Hence, it can be concluded that according to the analysis and suggestions, the future of human resource management is very bright and it must be implemented in every business. This study addressed that cultural dimensions affect how HRM practices in Australia. While this state of mind is commendable by the expanding number of applied examination and exact exploration. It is evident that national society has a noteworthy part in shaping HRM practices however, it is not the only element and different components like standards and regulations, financial, business environment, and so forth additionally have impact on HR operations in the nation.

According to a survey, in the last few years Australia has been managing its people in a more competitive way than before. The business practitioners support the development and approach to promote HRM. The uncertainty about future will continue shaping the future of HRM. There is increase in flexible work practice in HRM including location of work, work contract and hours of work. The study exhibited that that unified decision making on pay and advantages, enrollment and determination, preparing and improvement, mechanical relations is one of the qualities of high power distance societies. The relationship in workspace represents different employment exchanges.

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