Human Resources Best Practice as a Performance Intervention in a Global Context. Facing Cross-cultural Challenges

Devoir expédié , 2015 , 10 Pages , Note: 72

Gestion des ressources humaines - Divers

In a global economic environment where competition changes rapidly, HR decisions have a crucial role to play in influencing the MNC’s performance, by improving efficiency and contributing to revenue growth. Personnel Management (PM) has always been considered a vital function, a function that was mainly dealing with routine administrative activities such as hiring employees and maintaining records. The extensive competition, mainly due to technology change, deregulation and globalisation, increased the PM’s operations and upgraded the concept and perspective over it.

By moving on and replacing PM with Human Resource Management (HRM), organisations started recognising people as an important asset and as a business partner. This changed the role of the HR department, engaging more activities and practices such as communication, recruiting, training, development, motivation, etc. making HRM a more dynamic operation, designed to maximise personnel’s performance. According to Mello (2014), Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) refers to the strategic concept of HR that gives the opportunity to HR professionals to play a more substantial role in the success of the organisation by developing systems and policies aligned with the MNC’s targets and goals. Obviously, SHRM does not replace HRM, but it empowers its role.

Introduction

In a global economic environment where competition changes rapidly, HR decisions have a crucial role to play in influencing the MNC’s performance, by improving efficiency and contributing to revenue growth (Becker and Gerhart, 1996).

Personnel Management (PM) has always been considered a vital function, a function that was mainly dealing with routine administrative activities such as hiring employees and maintaining records (Armstrong, 2012). The extensive competition, mainly due to technology change, deregulation and globalisation, increased the PM’s operations and upgraded the concept and perspective over it (Wilton, 2011).

By moving on and replacing PM with Human Resource Management (HRM), organisations started recognising people as an important asset and as a business partner (Boxall and Purcell, 2011). This changed the role of the HR department, engaging more activities and practices such as communication, recruiting, training, development, motivation, etc. making HRM a more dynamic operation, designed to maximise personnel’s performance (Collings and Wood, 2009).

According to Mello (2014), Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) refers to the strategic concept of HR that gives the opportunity to HR professionals to play a more substantial role in the success of the organisation by developing systems and policies aligned with the MNC’s targets and goals. Obviously, SHRM does not replace HRM, but it empowers its role (Barney, 1991).

In the academic fields there are two widely accepted approaches when it comes to employees’ treatment and control, the "Hard” approach and the "Soft” approach (Truss et al., 1997). The "Hard” approach emphasises on the performance management and personnel is treated as any other resource in the organisation. On the contrary, the "Soft” approach gives significant value to the personnel, considering them as an essential asset (Gratton, 1999). In this approach, the objective is to integrate the MNC’s strategy with personnel commitment, motivation and trust in order to accomplish flexibility throughout the procedures and at the same time gain the best possible quality (Guest, 1987). Both approaches are theoretical since in real operations, HR managers use both approaches (Truss et al., 1997).

Marchington and Gruguli (2000) state that the "Best Practice” model is based on universalism. Defenders state that HR activities should be processed as a set of HRM practices that can improve performance regardless of the organisation location and size (Pfeffer, 1998). Critics argue that the "Best Practice” model is based on a large variation of HR practices relying on tangible and intangible assets and tends to ignore employees’ interest (Armstrong, 2012).

Those defending the "Best Fit” model insist that the only way to achieve high performance is by aligning HR policies with the competitive strategy (Price, 2004). Although the "Best Fit” seems more realistic than the "Best Practice”, it tends to be static and does not take into consideration other factors that surely influence HR approaches, such as cross-cultural challenges and organisational goals (Armstrong, 2009).

The "Resource-based view (RBV)” approach emphasises developing unique internal resources to gain competitive advantage rather than searching the environment for them (Barney, 2001). In order to sustain competitive advantage, MNCs should focus on human capital and on developing employee skills, emphasise on improving interactions between employees and view people as a valuable and irreplaceable asset (Becker and Huselid, 2006).

Hoskisson et al. (1999) believe that the connection between MNC’s strategies and human capital, forces HR management to set the appropriate tools and techniques in order to gain effective performance and overlap the various dilemmas and cross-cultural challenges (Wright, et al, 2001). This report will critically analyse the use of recruitment, selection, training and development as intervention tools to justify HR challenges in MNCs.

Recruitment and selection

Barber (1998) defined recruitment as the procedure which includes those practices and activities having as primary purpose to identify, attract and select the correct personnel, which according to Bach, 2005, can respond effectively and increase the organisation’s performance. Therefore, it is obvious that the orientation of a MNC towards recruiting and selecting has a vital role in the overall performance and that is why HR management should always be involved and introduce different policies within the organisation (Bonache et al., 2001). According to Taylor (2005), various techniques are used to decide which candidate is the best for each position and evidence show that during recruitment the MNC’s strategies and performance goals should always been taken into consideration (Wilk and Cappelli, 2003).

In the early recruitment stages, a detailed job description analysis should be prepared, which, according to Mader-Clark (2013), should mirroring on the MNC’s performance goals and objectives and describe in a clear and concise way the job duties and requirements. Boyatzis (1982) believes that based on the job description and on the required information, the MNC will be able to approach the best individuals and recruit them. Wilton (2011) however, insists that this kind of job analysis is static and far too insufficient. He also believes that a job description analysis should contain a variety of competencies rather than information regarding skills, behaviour and knowledge. This is the point where the selection perspective is aiming to ensure that candidates not only fit the MNC’s culture and strategy, but the strategy and culture also fit with the candidate’s characteristics (Wilton, 2011).

Various recruiting channels and practices exist today based on the job information, such as recruitment agencies, personal contacts, media, internet, social media etc. (Czerny, 2004). The recruitment procedure ends with a candidates’ shortlist and moves on to the selection process and according to Hacker (1999), the correct selection using the best practices, creates the appropriate circumstances within the MNC, for both the organisation and the employee to increase their performance. Although empirical evidences show that selection errors are costly (Sunderland and Wöcke, 2011), unfortunately, most managers do not implement best practices in recruitment and selection (Ryan and Tippins, 2004).

One of the main dilemmas in recruiting is whether to recruit internally or externally, with Sunderland and Wöcke (2011) stating that internal recruiting is faster, less costly and can provide more tailored information and a wider pool of candidates, while on the other hand, Mello (2014) argues that internal recruiting can become political and competitive and most of the times it creates conflicts between employees and strains collegiality.

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• Université: University of Wolverhampton
• Cours: MA in Management
• Note: 72
• Auteur: George Yiapanas (Auteur)
• Année de publication: 2015
• Pages: 10
• N° de catalogue: V506282
• ISBN (ebook): 9783346078551
• Langue: anglais
• mots-clé: human, cross-cultural, facing, context, global, intervention, performance, practice, best, resources, challenges