International Human Resource Management

Managing people in a multinational context

Chapter Objectives
Define key IHRM terms
Review expatriate* management evolution
Outline differences between domestic and
international HRM
Discover the increasing complexity and
potential challenges of current IHRM

* = Give up residence in ones homeland and take residence in another country.

Figure
1-1

Inter-relationships between approaches to a field

IHRM = International Human Resource Management

HR = Human Resources
IR = Industrial Relations (Employment Relations)

Defining HRM
An organizations HRM activities include:
1. Human resource planning
2. Staffing (recruitment, selection, placement)
3. Performance management
4. Training and development
5. Compensation (remuneration) and benefits
6. Industrial relations

Figure
1-2

Inter-relationships between approaches to the field

Figure
1-3

International assignments create expatriates

Differences between domestic HRM and IHRM

IHRM complexity can be attributed to six factors:
1. Human resource planning
2. Staffing (recruitment, selection, placement)
3. Performance management
4. Training and development
5. Compensation (remuneration) and benefits
6. Industrial relations

Figure
1-4

Variables that moderate differences between

domestic and international HRM

Steps to truly international HRM

1. Recognize that ones own HRM reflects home culture
assumptions and values.
2. Recognize that ones own peculiar ways are neither universally
better nor worse than others - just different and likely to exhibit
strengths and weaknesses, particularly abroad.
3. Recognize that organizations foreign subsidiaries may prefer other
ways to manage people ways that are neither intrinsically better
nor worse, but possibly more effective locally.
4. Headquarters willingness to acknowledge cultural differences and
steps to make them discussable and therefore usable.
5. Build shared genuine belief that cross-cultural learning will result
in more creative and effective ways of managing people.

Figure
1-5

Strategic HRM in multinational enterprises

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