COLEGIO DE DAGUPAN

Institute of Graduate Studies

Arellano Street, Dagupan City

TERM PAPER

Name: HAROLD N. CARBONEL

Subject: DELM 216 – MANAGEMENT OF HUMAN, FISCAL AND MATERIAL
GLOBAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND FUTURE ISSUES
Professor: DR. JIMMY A. LAROYA

Introduction

Why should we reconsider the international element to the role of HR professionals when
so much current research has reaffirmed that HRM is constructed within strong national
boundaries? The role of international HR professionals is coming to the fore as firms continue to
globalize at a pace. Information and communication technologies are transforming
organizational structures and business processes, breaking down organizational and geographic
boundaries. Businesses, whether large or small, are finding competition increasing at rapid rates
as more and more competitors enter traditional markets through the use of technology that were
once the preserve of national companies/enterprises. Businesses have realized that without
attention to foreign markets and competitors their prosperity and very survival may be at stake.
As we look to the near future, the advent of the Internet and e-commerce is further
increasing the international flow of goods and services and therefore the pace at which
internationalization will impact on the HR role is likely to accelerate. Expansion of the Web is
now beginning to affect organizational structures, business processes and global trade patterns.
Some believe that the impact of e-commerce in the twenty-first century will be as significant as
the introduction of mass production methods in the twentieth century. Certainly, it is already
opening up new opportunities for the delivery of international HR services (Sparrow, 2001,
Harris et al., 2003).
Body of Report

The international HR functions face a number of challenges. In particular, they have to

help their organizations manage:
● the consequences of global business process redesign, the pursuit of a global center of
excellence strategy and the global redistribution and relocation of work that this often entails;
● the absorption of acquired businesses from what might previously have been competitor
businesses, the merging of existing operations on a global scale, the staffing of strategic
integration teams, attempts to develop and harmonise core HR processes within these merged
businesses and the management of growth through the process of acquisition whereby new
country operations are often built around the purchase of a series of national teams;
● the rapid start-up of international operations and the requirement to provide insights into the
organization development needs of these new operations as they mature through different stages
of the business life-cycle;
● the changing capabilities of international operations as many skills become obsolete very
quickly and as changes in the organizational structure and design expose managers to more
complex roles that require a general up-skilling of local operations;
● the need to capitalize on the potential that technology affords the delivery of HR services,
whilst also ensuring that local social and cultural insights are duly considered when it is
imperative to do so and especially when IT is being used to centralize and “transactionalize” HR
processes, or to create shared services, on a global basis;
● the changes being wrought in the HR service supply chain as the need for several intermediary
service providers is being reduced, and as web-based HR provision is leading to greater
individualization of HRM across international operations that often currently have very different
levels of “HR sophistication”;
● the articulation of appropriate pledges about the levels of performance that can be delivered to
the business by the IHR function, and the requirement to meet these pledges often under
conditions of cost control across international operations, or shareholder pressure for the delivery
of rapid financial returns in new international operations;
● learning about how to operate through formal or informal global HR networks, how to act as
knowledge brokers across international operations and how not to automatically pursue a one-
best way HR philosophy;
● offering a compelling value proposition to the employees of the organization, understanding
and then marketing the brand that the organization represents across global labor markets that in
practice have different values and different perceptions;
● the identity issues faced by HR professionals as they experience changes in the level of
decentralization/centralization across constituent international businesses. As knowledge and
ideas about best practice flow from both the center to the operations and vice versa, it is not
uncommon for HR professionals at all levels of the organization to feel that their ideas are being
overridden by those of other nationalities or business systems.

Insight

The analysis of the current strategies being used to cope with these challenges leads us
towards two key conclusions about the role of the HR function in international organizations:
● The added value of the HR function in an international organization lies in its ability to
manage the delicate balance between overall coordinated systems and sensitivity to local needs,
including cultural differences, in a way that aligns with both business needs and senior
management philosophy.
● There is a distinction between international HRM and global HRM. Traditionally, international
HRM has been about managing an international workforce – the expatriates, frequent
commuters, cross-cultural team members and specialists involved international knowledge
transfer. Global HRM is not simply about covering these staff around the world. It concerns
managing international HRM activities through the application of global rule-sets.

Reference:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.462.2060&rep=rep1&type=pdf