Ace Institute of Management Assignment: Human Resouce Management Article:

The challenge of international human resource management: balancing the duality of strategy and practice

Submitted to: Mr. Jayendra Rimal

Submitted by:

Raghbendra Kumar Shah

(EMBA, spring 2013 Batch, Second Semester)

Submission date: 21 Apr 2014

Question-1: What questions is the author trying to address? How important are they? Why?
Most important current issues for IHRM were a strategic focus, research and theoretical issues, employment issues, cross-cultural issues and dual-career couples. In contrast, managers identied the most important current issues for IHRM as remuneration and benets, cost management, recruitment/selection, formal industrial relations policies and taxation issues. It was interesting to note that there is no match here between academicians and practitioners.

At the primary level, complete standardization of policies and practices is not possible. The main challenge for the expatriates is to maintain a balance between standardization and localization. Some international organizations need to standardize as much of their HR policies and practices as possible in their subsidiaries. When an organizations policies and practices have served them well, there are compelling reasons to retain them. However, the executives recognize that standardization of HR policies and practices may not be possible because of socio-cultural and political constraints as well as a deliberate strategy by headquarter to allow the subsidiaries to better serve their stakeholders through localization. Some have proposed that organizations should gravitate towards a set of best practices in HRM. Yet, the decision can still be tricky for an organization that operates in multiple countries, and the following two comments reflect this challenge at the macro or strategic level: Its getting that balance between the global coordination and management and local execution, and you see companies that don`t do it well. It`s very important to make sure that the local companies understand the overall global interest, that`s one of the biggest challenges in our organization. A second challenge for the HR executives that is uncovered during the interviews has to do with foreign industrial relations. Given that various nations have different labor legislations, one executive mentioned that an important task for HR is to keep abreast of the different laws and different labor legislations in different countries. Also, the roles played by unions and the degree of their influence in other countries can affect the attention paid to negotiations with labor unions. Hence, while the organization`s policies might be similar, the execution of those policies might differ. So complete standardization of policies and practices is not possible, and the following two excerpts succinctly capture the difficulty of achieving universal consistency in negotiation with labor unions.

Question-2: What basic assumptions does the author make? What facts does he present? How valid are these assumptions in the light of theoretical development in the thematic field? The article outlines different findings from in-depth interviews conducted with a range of key informants at central, line department and trade union level. Overall, the outcome indicates a general view that limited progress has been made to date in reforming IHRM in the Irish civil service. At the same time, there is a considerable level of continuing commitment for change to the existing system among those interviewed. The recent launch of a civil service wide

performance management and development system is a reflection of such commitment. There are also examples of individual departments, within the existing system, who are developing a more proactive approach to IHRM. Finally, the paper draws conclusions and makes recommendations as to appropriate approaches to delivering on IHRM reform. The successful implementation and overall impact of the HR strategy will depend on the capability and commitment of senior management, personnel sections and line managers. There are lots of critical issues which must be addressed if outcome should be achieved are: Decentralization of appropriate IHRM issues from central departments Developing an integrated approach to HRM Professional academic the approach to HRM Devolution of appropriate functions to line managers;

Question-3: What are the significant empirical contributions of or gaps in the article? The article highlights a range of challenges involved in the process of developing a strategic approach to HRM. Regardless of whether an organization wishes to emphasize a hard (control focused) or soft (commitment focused) approach to HRM, typically what it wishes to achieve is integration of HRM policies with business strategy, internally and at line management level. Key stakeholders influence, and in some situations can undermine, the process of integration at these levels. Similarly, the division of responsibilities between central and line department level shapes and dictates the extent to which HRM policies provide strategic fit. Integration of HRM with business strategy can assist the organization in achieving its objectives. In turn, the

integration of HRM responsibilities at line management level frees up resources in the personnel section to develop strategically integrated HRM policies which add value to the organization.

Question-4: What conclusion does the author draw? Are these conclusions justified in the light of the empirical/theoretical evidence by the author? How important are these conclusions?
Based on early concept of categorizations of HRM, author concluded that Overall academic responses could be best categorized as focused on realigning IHRM by mainly focusing on cross-cultural management and analysis of comparative IHRM systems and Those of the practitioners as building IHRM by mainly focusing on the functional elements of IHRM, such as recruitment and selection, training and development, performance management and reward management. Irrespective of countable between the groups, there is some common ground. The responses from both groups indicate that they recognize the need to develop the strategically advanced practice of IHRM which suggests that we need to see this as a duality, comprising opposing forces that must be balanced as they are complementary

Question-5: How could this work be further extended or refined?

In this article we found: Academicians are limited to one nation, rather than cross-national, studies. Practitioners tend to be reticent to read academic research and not to publish in the practitioner-friendly journals which mean that best practice in IHRM tends to be anecdotal and not shared between academicians and practitioners. Gap between the strategic focus of academicians and the operational focus of practitioners These problems can be solved through feedback loops in which practitioners guide and respond to the academicians theories and models and suggest whether their experience is consistent with the academic assessment, in turn, guide and respond by making their ndings more widely readable and accessible. In order to enhance knowledge of practitioner, they need to enhance their research linkages with academicians. In order to balance the duality of research and practice, practitioners need to be involved in specic organization-based projects that provide them with relevant information they are seeking and can also benchmark them against their industry competitors. Such joint projects can be used to present organization-specic workshops that involve participants from academia and industry, and industry partners can be encouraged also to present research ndings jointly in academic forums like conferences. In order to enhance perceptions that teaching/learning is relevant to industry, guest lecturers could be encouraged and use of organizational case studies and site visits or internships as well. These strategies enhance the real world focus of IHRM teaching. Finally, debate between practitioners and academicians can be effectively enhanced by simply increasing the contact the two groups have with each other. This can involve increasing the attendance of other groups seminars, increasing the representation of academicians on industry boards, increasing the representation of practitioners on university advisory committees and establishing joint working groups to dialogue current issues in IHRM.