Academic Master

Human Resource And Management

To what extent is strategic human resource management possible within international firms to overcome problems of coordination and control?

The role of human resource management (HRM) has changed over the last years and especially in the global business. It used to be considered as a support function, HRM is turning to be a strategic partner in assisting an organization to attain its goals. The strategic approach to HRM means that doing more than just payroll processing. According to (), strategic human resource is involved on managers need think about how employees can contribute to the success of the company. The strategic human resource management (SHRM) is not just a responsibility of HRM department, all executives and managers should be included because the responsibilities of people are critically important to a firm competitive advantage (Punnet & Shenkar, 2013). However, the greatest challenge which international firms faced is how to coordinate scattered units around the world, and the need to control every unit so that every issues local issue can effectively be addressed.

In the “Handbook for international management Research” Betty Punnet and Oded Shenkar pointed that achieving the balance of the international firms is difficult because of the diversity which each unit is exposed to (p. 120). The international firms operates under different conditions are exposed to different cultural practices and therefore, they cannot be handled the same way. Therefore, the best way overcome the issue of coordination and control is by making sure that the top executive understands different cultural practices and diversity in the office and around the world. The top executive also provides advice on how different functions are coordinated across the boundaries to make sure that the objectives of the firm are achieved. International Human resource management (IHRM) has a critical role to ensure that the right people are brought in to execute coordination of different functions and control of employees in the overseas are needed for the company across the globe for the company to perform better.

Research has established that the coordination and control can be build through trainings of top executive and any other personal involved so that coordination and control functions can be executed well. The IHRM should make sure that top executives are trained on the organization culture and diversity, and must also understand the cultural practices where the units are located (Kidger, 2015). The training schedules should be developed in such a way that it involves international exposure (McDonnel and Collins, 2011). It will help in improving cultural understanding of executives, managers and other employees and therefore, the level or coordination and control shall improve. It will therefore, help in overcome the problem of coordination and control of units since, top executives will be culturally exposed hence provide supervision role competently and efficiently.

It is also important for a company to development its international HR philosophy which provides description of the corporate values on human resource. As stated by (), this will form a bigger outline of what is acceptable to be practiced by all employees from across the world. However, every unit can fine tuned and decide on specific areas which is best fit to serve their local unit situations. For instance, Tesco should adopt acceptable practices which all employees should adopt from all over the world as corporate culture and then each country branch can fine tuned it to fit the local market (Edwards & Chris., 2011). It is because each country has unique cultural practices and therefore, corporate value must be fine tuned. For instance, the business culture in India is different with London and United States and therefore, what works well in London cannot be implemented well in New Delhi. Every unit must fine tune the corporate value based on the cultural practices of the local. It will help in addressing challenges related to coordination and control. For instance, employee compensation designed must take in consideration the cultural differences of units but still manage to be regarded by all employees as a fair model of compensation anywhere the company has a functional unit(Björkman, Evans and Pacik 2017), .

However, this has proved to be difficult to be implemented since companies operating in different countries have failed to design a corporate compensation plan. For proper coordination of a company functions and, a company should have one compensation plan which is implemented across the board in all units. Many multinational companies have failed to implement this wholesomely, making it difficult to have a proper coordination and control. It is likely for culture to affect international practices which can interfere with coordination and controls of various functions (Oppong, 2014).

Research has also illustrated that coordination and control and also be applied through the use of information system. Fortunately, information system has almost of tools required to coordinate and provide control as well so that an international organization can work efficiently based on the system being delivered to unite company from the headquarters. A company can formulate and deliver human resource information system (HRIS) so that management to use in service delivery and monitoring, coordination and providing control of various services (Farndale, ., Scullion, and Sparrow, 2010). It is therefore, important for a company’s management to ensure that the right systems are in place which can be used remotely to oversee the operations of a unit away in a different country. The IT system allows the company to centralized services and therefore, it is easy and faster to over the overall supervision from any part of the world (Parry & Marler, 2015).

Studies have also shown that successful companies usually have a lot of things in common. They must give employees job security, self managed and engaging in selective of hiring of employees in a manner that is transparent, providing necessary essential tools help in addressing challenges which employees face. The IHRM should pays well employees use people who are self managed team oriented reduce status differences which exist in the organization training employees and sharing information as a way of enhancing coordination of activities or general organization operations (Parry & Marler, 2015). Developing international workforce is very difficult and therefore, it requires proper coordination of various stakeholders to make sure that it is achieved.

In conclusion, coordination and controls require appropriate understanding and working together so that all the differences can be sorted out. It is evident that international human resource management team is exposed to a lot of issues and therefore, it addresses the problem of coordination and control, management must train top executive on different aspect of cultural practices of specific region to improve coordination due to proper understanding of business culture of the company in specific region. It shall also improve information sharing level and this result into increase level of control in the organization. Therefore, the problem of coordination and controls can be avoided by making sure that top executive understands the business culture of the company and of every unit to improve working relationship hence improved performance.

References

Björkman, I., Evans, P., and Pucik, V. (2015). ‘Managing knowledge in multinational firms’, in

A-W. Harzing and A. Pinnington (eds.), International Human Resource Management ( 4th edition). London: Sage, 291-324.

Edwards, T., & Chris., R. (2011). International Human Resource Management: Globalization,

National Systems and Multinational Companies. /. Harlow: Pearson.

Farndale, E., Scullion, H., and Sparrow, P. (2010a). ‘The role of the corporate HR function in

global talent management’. Journal of World Business, 45: 161-68

Kidger, P. J. (2015). Human Resource Management In Multinational Enterprises. 2-34.

McDonnell, A. and Collings, D. (2011). ‘The identification and evaluation of talent in MNEs’, in H. Scullion and D. Collings (eds.), Global Talent Management, Abingdon: Routledge, 56-73.

Oppong, N. Y. (2014). Dilemma Theory and Path to Cross-Cultural HRM Synergy within

Multinational Firms . International Affairs and Global Strategy , 2-34.

Parry, E., & Marler, J. (2015). Human resource management, strategic involvement and e-HRM

technology. Journal The International Journal of Human Resource Management , 2-38.

Punnet, B., & Shenkar, o. (2013). Hnadbook for International Management Rsearch. New Yor

Pearson.

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