International human resource management in multinational companies: Global norm making within strategic action fields (original) (raw)
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Uncovering competitive and institutional drivers of HRM practices in multinational corporations
Human Resource Management Journal, 2007
Current international human resource management (IHRM) literature focusing on multinational corporations (MNCs) presents evidence of both similarities and differences in the HR practices adopted in different global locations. However, the drivers behind this duality require more detailed investigation. This article focuses on exploring why MNCs position themselves within global markets as they do, exploring how extant theory can help explain the drivers behind both global and national HR practices. Based on a worldwide sample of in-depth interview-based case studies of well-known MNCs, we explore the ways in which different firms react to both institutional and competitive pressures in selecting their approach to HRM. The findings uncover a differentiation between external global competitive isomorphic pressures, external national institutional isomorphic pressures, and internal processes of strategic choice and competitive differentiation. It is suggested that MNCs face all three drivers of HRM simultaneously, leading to different patterns of practice adoption, adaptation and innovation.
2005
The HR literature has been abundant in providing typologies of the roles of HR professionals in their organisation. These typologies are largely related to the changing nature of HRM over time, and the context in which empirical work was carried out. In this paper we focus on the context of the increasing internationalisation of firms and how this has an effect upon modern-day typologies of HR roles. We explore these roles by focusing on the way in which HRM practices come about. Especially in a MNC setting of increasing internationalisation of firms the issues of coordination, shared learning and standardisation versus leeway for adapting to the local context (customisation) are prominent. These issues present themselves both at the corporate and regional level and at the national and local (plant) level. On all these levels HR practitioners are active and find themselves amidst the interplay of both (de-)centralisation and standardisation versus customisation processes. This paper thus explores the way in which HR practices come into being and how they are implemented and coordinated. These insights help us understand further the roles of international corporate HR functions that are being identified. Our data is based on 65 interviews, which were held (as part of larger study of HR-function excellence) with HR managers, line managers and senior executives of six multinational companies in eight countries from September to December 2004. This data reveals new classifications of processes by which HR activities are developed, implemented and coordinated, both in terms of who is involved and how these processes are carried out.
Human Resource Management Review, 2019
This article reviews the present state of research on multinational corporations (MNCs) in the international human resource management (IHRM) literature. Drawing on 342 articles from 39 English journals in the business and management field published over the period of 2000-2014, we identify three key strands within this section of the IHRM scholarly field (MNC country of origin/domicile effects; expatriates management; and, intra-organizational knowledge and strategy flows). Building up on our detailed assessment of trends in the literature based on a systematic review, we propose areas where the field could be developed and extended through drawing on insights from, and building synthesis with, cognate fields. We conclude that major developments on the ground-the increasing numbers of unskilled expatriate workers, the rise of MNCs from emerging markets, and the growth of transnational alternative investors-have the potential to transform the field of enquiry, yet are only starting to appear in the IHRM literature. In developing new major areas of enquiry-and in extending existing ones-insights may be drawn from the literature on comparative institutional analysis to take fuller account of trans-national actors.
Journal of International Business Studies, 2016
Drawing on a dataset constructed from a parallel series of nationally representative surveys of multinational companies (MNCs), we compare the performance management (PM) practices of MNCs in the UK, Ireland, Canada, Spain, Denmark and Norway. In each country we analyze data relating to MNCs from that country and of the foreign affiliates of US MNCs. We argue that there is evidence of standardization in the nature of practices across countries, particularly evident in the analysis of US MNCs. Standardization of practices among MNCs is also evident in the rather limited variation in practices between US and indigenous MNCs within each country. Moreover, even where there is evidence of variation across and within countries, this cannot be fully explained by adaptation to local institutional constraints but rather can be seen as the product of how distinct national contexts can promote the take-up of practices.
Towards a new model of globalizing HRM
The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 2005
Thi.s paper addresses the debates about the nature of strategic HRM in intcriiaiiimal companies. It builds on a substantial research programme using questionnaires and detailed case studies to argue that the international HRM field is changing .significantly and rapidly and that there is a need for better understanding of these developments. Five distinct, but linked, organizational drivers of international HRM are identified and discussed: efficiency orientation, global service provision, information exchange, core business processes and localization of decision-making. These factors are creating a new set of pressures on HRM specialists. Three distinct, but linked, enablers of high-performance international HRM arc being developed by multinational enterpd.ses: HR afl'ordability. central HR philosophy and HR excellence and knowledge transfer. A series of ditierent strategic recipes combining these drivers and enablers are identified. These recipes in turn are delivered through a series of important HR processes: talent management and employer branding, global leadership through international assignments, managing an international workforce and evaluation of HR contribution. A tentative model of the relationships belween these drivers, enablers and processes is proposed.
… of Human Resource Management, 2005
In this paper we address a key issue that dominates internal ional HRM research, namely the global-local question. The question concerns how multinationals can or should balance the pressures to develop globally standardized policies with the pressures to be responsive lo the peculiarities of the local context In our view, three important conceptual weaknesses have restricted research progress in this held; the inadequate conceptualization of national effects, which results in culture being used as an unsatisfactory 'catch all' for national differences; the lack of attention to the influence of internal organizational polities; and the absence of focus on the internal division of labour within MNCs. We discuss the ways in which these weaknesses can be addressed and the implications of these alternative concepts.
Journal of International Business Studies, 2024
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The rapid rise of multinational Corporations (MNCs) from emerging economies has led to greater interest and urgency in developing a better understanding of the deployment and diffusion of managerial strategies from their perspective and without assuming the prevailing Western ethnocentric orthodoxy. This paper develops a conceptual framework of global HR strategies and practices in MNCs from emerging economies across their subsidiaries in both developed and developing markets. Using data from a pilot study of an Indian MNC, it provides insights and guidance into the motives, strategic opportunities and constraints in cross national transfer of HR policies and practices in a multi-polar world.