The making and remaking of HRM: the practice of managing people in the Eastern Cape Province,South Africa

This paper explores the nature of human resource management (HRM) practice in the Border region of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa, located within contemporary local and international debates regarding the content and nature thereof. Four distinct patterns of practice were identified. The first represented a simple changing in nomenclature of the relevant personnel sections, with, in several cases, staff being seen not as managers, but rather as a distinct, and somewhat junior, category of employee. In the second category, the traditional personnel function was broadened to encompass clearly delineated areas such as training and development. In the third category, while HRM practitioners did play an important strategic role, this was more in terms of facilitating the adoption of progressive industrial relations policies, than in developing a vision for managing human resources across the organization. In all cases, what human resource practitioners did seemed somewhat removed from the 'conventional wisdom' definition of HRM. In part this was a result of the persistence of effective and militant trade unions, necessitating the adoption of hybrid HR-industrial relations practices. However, it also represented a product of particular managerial traditions, and the fact that HRM represents a complex package of concepts and practices, which, inevitably, are subject to adjustment in the light of prevailing realities. This study sheds further light on the diverse and multi-faceted area of HRM practice, and underscores the need for flexibility and pragmatism in both transitional, and, indeed, mature economic contexts.     

Introduction: the Asia-Pacific HRM model revisited

This article introduces a symposium which 'revisits' the Asia-Pacific HRM model, much discussed in recent literature. It argues that, while the IR/HRM systems of the countries in the region are prima facie heterogeneous, there is both commonality and diversity. It posits the four logical cases of 'hard convergence', 'soft convergence', 'soft divergence' and 'hard divergence'. It argues that the most probable outcomes are likely to be the middle options. 'Soft convergence' may have occurred as a result of broader responses to broad economic trends such as globalization; 'soft divergence' may still be de rigueur , as the devil is always 'in the details'. Institutional and legal changes may also take place more slowly than enterprise-level or organizational ones.     

The effects of labour costs and workplace constraints on foreign direct investment among highly industrialized countries

Drawing on economic propositions underlying theories of foreign direct investment and organizational propositions underlying international human resource management strategic decision making, the theoretical model developed herein integrates two distinct but interrelated strategic HRM assessments. In deciding where to invest, multinational companies (MNCs) assess both (1) the net comparative labour cost advantages associated with alternative host-country IR systems and (2) the comparative flexibility afforded them by alternative IR systems to either transfer or create preferred HRM strategies abroad. The results of the present study indicate that, on average, MNCs from the major investor countries of the world give substantial weight to differences in national IR systems in deciding how much to invest across alternative high-skill, highwage countries. In particular, the evidence indicates that MNCs have invested more in countries with higher skills, lower compensation costs and lesser government and collective bargaining constraints on MNCs' flexibility to set the terms and conditions of employment or otherwise deploy preferred HRM practices abroad.     

Human resource and industrial relations practices of UK and US multinationals in Germany

Most of the research about HRM and IR practices of MNCs in their host country has been conducted in deregulated countries such as the UK and the US. Host countries with relatively weak institutional arrangements facilitate the transfer of home-country practices. In contrast, those with institutionally strong systems, such as Germany, impose stronger pressures for adaptation. This paper reports research about nine US and four UK subsidiaries operating in Germany. It examines how their HRM and IR practices are shaped by German labour and IR institutions, how they differ from a control group of indigenous firms and what room for manoeuvre is left for the introduction of home-country practices. The main conclusions are that small and medium-sized subsidiaries in particular can to some extent avoid the pressures exerted by German labour and IR institutions. This facilitates the transfer of home-country practices. However, even larger affiliates that comply with the German institutions can transfer practices from their parent company. The highly regulated German system leaves some room for flexibility. Nevertheless, the institutional environment prevents large companies from following a unitarist HRM and IR approach.     

Human resource strategies,workplace reform and industrial restructuring in Australia and New Zealand

In recent years, Australia and New Zealand have pursued two different routes of labour market reform. New Zealand opted for a radical experiment in the deregulation of industrial relations and other areas. Australia pursued a co-operative and co-ordinated approach to reform within the centralized arbitral system. Both reform initiatives were designed to stimulate improvements in organizational performance and cost competitiveness. In this paper, we argue that there are three main types of strategies that management can use to reduce labour cost and improve performance: productivity-enhancement, costminimization and work-intensification strategies. We argue that the former is a long-term sustainable strategy whereas the latter two are negative short-term strategies that may have deleterious longer-term effects. This paper reports the results of a cross-national survey in New Zealand and Australia into the extent of adoption of these management strategies. The results are presented by industry, employment size, mode of operation and countries as a whole. The research findings indicate that New Zealand's decentralization has encouraged a higher degree of employer experimentation with both positive and negative workplace change strategies, especially in the private sector. Australia's more centralized system limited the use of cost-minimization strategies but not productivity-enhancing strategies in the public and not-for-profit sector. The research found evidence of work intensification in both countries.     

Flexibility and labour management: Chinese manufacturing enterprises in the 1990s

The rapid economic growth and structural reform that have taken place in China over the past two decades have had a substantial impact on the system of labour management in Chinese manufacturing enterprises. The purpose of this article is to document and analyse the nature of these changes in state-owned enterprises and joint venture companies. The effect of these changes on work relations, employment relations and industrial relations will form the basis of the analysis. The emphasis in the analysis will be on how work, employment and industrial relations have accommodated the demand for greater flexibility. Labour management in six manufacturing firms in the Shanghai region will be examined. This research is a pilot project for a larger-scale research in 1999. While no attempt is made to generalize the research findings, the research clarifies the extent and limits of flexibility in the current Chinese economy.     

The management of labour in Japanese manufacturing plants in China

While there is now considerable scholarship concerning Japanese management practices in their overseas production operations in Europe and North America, little is known about Japanese investment in other parts of the world, especially in Asia. This paper draws on on-going research into the nature and operations of Japanese manufacturing investments in China. The paper focuses on interviews primarily with Chinese managers in twenty plants in three locations within China, to examine their personnel polices and practices, and draw from this their overall industrial relations strategies. The main findings were, first, that, despite claims of cultural similarity between China and Japan, personnel management practices were generally not transferred from Japan to the plants in China. Second, practices that may appear as Japanese inspired were often informed by local practices. Third, there was diversity in the forms of practices used, indicating neither sophistication nor a singular recipe of management methods. Thus, the paper seeks to challenge proponents of Japanization who claim, essentially, that Japanese management techniques are predicated on the construction of particular forms of social relations around work that allow sophisticated, and integrated, production-management systems to function. Instead, depending on a complex interrelation between location industry and the history of each plant, managers sought to use various local and 'universal' (generic to capitalism) strategies and practices to control and utilize labour.     

Strategic HRM as social design for environmental sustainability in organization

A strategic model of human resource management is proposed as a framework to support sustainable adaptation to the disruptive and dynamic challenges in the business context related to environmental sustainability. The implications of a whole‐systems ecological approach to the design and implementation of human resource systems are explored, and the literature on best HR practices to support environmental sustainability is summarized. Implications for practice and research are presented.     

Transfer of HRM practices across cultures: An American company in Scotland

This paper reports the findings of a case study into human resource management (HRM) policies and practices of the Scottish subsidiary of an American multinational firm. The study is discussed within the debate on transfer of HRM practices between nations, and on subsidiary - parent company relationships. The paper makes a distinction between HRM policy on the one hand, and HRM practice on the other. It will be argued that whereas companies might find it feasible to have company-wide policies , they might find it unavoidable to be responsive to local conditions when it comes to HRM practices . Further, it will be argued that some practices can be transferred across nations almost without any change from one country to another. Some must be modified to become workable in another setting. And some are more deeply culture-specific and may not always be transferable. The findings of the study support the argument that multinational companies' management practices are more prone to local cultural influences than are their overall policies and strategies. Moreover, some of the practices which the company had imported from abroad had to be modified to make them workable, given its local cultural and non-cultural contexts. These local contexts had at the same time affected the relationship between the Scottish subsidiary and its parent company. The study found four clusters of factors which intervened in this relationship. A dynamic model of subsidiary-parent company is proposed to elaborate such an intervention. On the basis of the study it is argued that HRM in a foreign subsidiary is a complicated matter. The choice between one of three major options, polycentric, ethnocentric, and global, advocated by many scholars, is found to be too simplistic a model for understanding what actually goes on in a subsidiary and between it and its parent organization.     

The impact of HRM practices on service quality,customer satisfaction and performance in the Indian hotel industry

This article reviews findings from a first survey of employers' views on collective bargaining reform that now forms the centrepiece of post-apartheid South Africa's experiment with 'democratic corporatism'. Using factor analysis, three constructs have been identified that inform employer attitudes to a revised system of sectoral bargaining: 'autonomous capacity'; 'conditional association'; 'external threat'. Despite the potential for anomie, these factors appear significant in the way they consistently explain an employer's orientation towards associational membership and, by proxy, sectoral bargaining. Moreover, at least two-thirds of responding firms identified strongly with each of the three factors but, typically, firms with weak capacity and in need of collective protection from the other actors are most likely to associate. Regression analysis further reveals company well-being, foreign ownership and union presence to have a significant impact on these three factors to varying degrees. Equally, two of the factors (autonomous capacity and external threat) impact significantly on an employer's tolerance of free-riding in others and on the temptation to do so for oneself. Overall, for this sample of firms, employer bodies are to be viewed more as 'political devices' than as 'economic agents' in the immediate aftermath of political liberation. In this sense, they are different from their European counter-parts. However, there is an increasing likelihood of this changing as the flexibility agenda looms ever larger in employers' minds and as issues of 'political insecurity' correspondingly fade.     

战略管理咨询逻辑框架批评及重构

在评述国内外企业战略管理研究成果的基础上,联系战略咨询管理实践,遵循“实际问题导向”的思路,从战略管理逻辑本质的梳理构建,目标设定的层次性分析、前设条件集的系统明晰三个方面,充分讨论并清晰架构起战略管理咨询实践的逻辑框架,解决了战略管理咨询工具论缺失的种种困境,构建了战略咨询各理论工具实施运用的理论基础平台。     

Participatory management and industrial relations climate: a study of Chinese,Japanese and US firms in Taiwan

This study examines the relationship between industrial relations climate and the employee attitudes towards participatory management in Chinese-, Japanese- and US-invested electronics firms in Taiwan. Among the findings, Chinese firms tended to have a higher level of participatory management and more effective participatory management than US-invested firms in Taiwan. It was also confirmed that the harmony and openness aspects of industrial relations climate had a positive and significant correlation with the effectiveness of participatory management, including the personnel, operational and social matters. It was concluded that multinational corporations (MNCs) which need centralized control of their overseas operations will be less willing to encourage participatory management in their local operations. Finally, it was revealed that the effectiveness rather than the level of participatory management could better predict industrial relations climate.     

The use of executive share-based compensation in Poland: investigating institutional and agency-based determinants in an emerging market

In this paper we investigate the under-researched topic of the use of executive share-based compensation in Poland, and we analyse empirically whether theoretical explanations developed and applied mainly in the context of developed countries also hold in this specific context. Building on agency and institutional theories we study the determinants of using executive share-based pay in 362 companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. As a result, we highlight the role of the state in Polish firms and the need to consider specifically principal–principal conflicts typical of emerging economies in post-state-socialist organisational research. Our findings not only reflect particularities of the institutional environment in the country studied but also highlight the limits of the traditional principal–agent lens applied in emerging economies.     

Towards a strategic model of employment reform in developing countries: explaining and remedying experience to date

The article argues for the importance of employment reform as a subject for international HRM scholarship. Employment reform has been one of the most significant, but also most neglected, recent initiatives in international HRM. Explanations by the World Bank and IMF for the poorer than expected outcomes of reform to date emphasize the importance of political commitment. They are compared with explanations for the similarly poor outcomes of downsizing in industrialized country organizations, which emphasize strategy, diagnosis, incrementalism and provision for retrenchees. Further clarification is provided by the results of field interviews in Ghana, Malaysia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Uganda and the UK. The article argues for a strategic approach to employment reform, one based on diagnosis and drawing on HRM expertise. It should take account of process factors in reform, make provision for the 'victims' of reform, loosen the link between employment reform and pay reform, and refine the role of donors in supporting reform. HRM practitioners and scholars have an important contribution to make to developing a new approach.     

Clash of public administration paradigms in delegation of education and elderly care services in a post-socialist state (Poland)*

The aim of this article is to analyse the clash of concurrent perspectives (Public Administration (PA), New Public Management (NPM) and New Public Governance (NPG)) in the area of delegating public services by local governments to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in education and the elderly care sector in Poland. The article is based on 22 case studies of service delegation throughout Poland, carried out at the University of Warsaw in 2013 as part of an Innovative Project within the framework of the EC Human Capital Programme.     

An international comparison of human resource management objectives and activities

The paper reports on mailed surveys of human resource professionals in Canada, South Africa and Zimbabwe who were asked for their views on the priorities they set in terms of human resource objectives and activities. Respondents were also asked to indicate the challenges facing the field and the resulting changes that may be required in each country. The results indicate considerable agreement between the three countries on the need for flexibility and cost effectiveness, but disagreement on priorities among some other activities. There are major differences between perceptions of immediate and long-term priorities to be set. There is a concern that short-term efficiency may be accorded a priority which prevents due consideration being given to future development and societal issues.     

The impact of cultural value orientations on individual HRM preferences in developing countries: lessons from Kenyan organizations

The intention of the study is to examine the impact that individual national culture value orientations have on the preference for the design of HR policies and practices. The value orientation structure and preferences for thirty-four HR design choices are studied in a sample of 274 Kenyan employees from eight multinational, state and private domestic firms operating in the manufacturing and processing sector. The study shows that the HR design choices of Kenyan employees reflect the following picture across four factors: high HR involvement/participation: high predictability of rewards; performance rather than loyalty-based policies; and moderate levels of HR empowerment. Kenyan employee value orientations reflect: activity thinking over activity doing; individual over collective relationships; relationship to nature mastery over relationship to nature harmony; low subjugation to nature; and human nature evil (manipulative). More importantly, three out of the four HR preference factors are valuesrelated, i.e. the individual's value orientation is highly predictive of their preference for the design of HR policies and practices. From 9 per cent to 19 per cent of the variance in preferences for involvement, empowerment and predictability of rewards is accounted for by national culture value orientations. HR involvement preferences are related to activity thinking values. Predictability of rewards is related to high activity doing. Empowerment HR is related to low relationships hierarchical values. Preferences for performance versus loyalty-based HRM are intriguingly values-free judgements, although ethnic factors play a role here.     

聚合全球供应链的战略质量管理

分析全球供应链质量管理研究背景,提出了聚合全球供应链的战略质量管理,解析了全球供应链战略质量管理内涵。从核心关注点、流程质量、过程三个角度,在全球供应链上拓展了战略质量管理的内容,并提出了实施的组织构想和实施步骤。     

HRM practices in China-Western joint ventures: MNC standardization versus localization

In recent years, multinational corporations have become increasingly ascendant in the world economy. The HRM strategies that these corporations adopt may blend global integration with local responsiveness. This paper examines the compatibility between MNC standardization and localization of different HRM practices in a sample of Sino-Western joint ventures. The findings indicate that various HRM practices have different responses to MNC standaridization and localization.     

Market orientation,HRM importance and competency: determinants of strategic HRM in Chinese firms

This study examined three factors leading to a firm's adoption of strategic human resource management (SHRM): market orientation, HRM importance and HRM competency. Using a sample of firms from China, empirical results showed that the three factors are significantly related to a firm's adoption of SHRM. Given the transitional nature of the Chinese economy, the moderating effects of ownership types and firm size were also investigated. However, the moderating effects were not as strong as predicted. Managerial implications and directions for future research of SHRM in an emerging economy context are discussed.