How culture-sensitive is HRM? A comparative analysis of practice in Chinese and UK companies

There has been some concern about the extent to which models and practices of HRM are capable of being transferred from one country to another. This emerged in the late 1970s as concern that Japanese ideas might be adopted uncritically by US companies, and during the 1980s as concern that these ideas, after recycling within the US, might not be totally appropriate for consumption in other parts of the world. Further urgency is added to the question by the pressures on many organizations to develop their businesses internationally, or globally – since this increasingly means they have to consider and establish HRM policies which can span different national systems and cultures.

This paper considers the problem through a direct comparison of practices in matched Chinese and UK companies in order to establish where variations occur both within and between countries. It is evident that there are considerable variations in the form of HRM in different settings, but also some surprising similarities. Thus, for example, there are more similarities in manpower planning systems between Chinese companies and some of the UK companies than there are between all the UK companies. In this case it can be concluded that these elements are not greatly affected by national (and assumed cultural) differences. On the other hand, there is a sharp difference between the UK and Chinese companies with regard to pay and reward systems, but much consistency within each country. This suggests that there may be deep-seated differences between the two countries with regard to attitudes towards rewards which will limit the transfer-ability of HRM ideas in this area.     

GENDER PAY GAPS IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION: A REVIEW OF THE EVIDENCE

The goal of this paper is to examine the patterns and movements of the gender pay gaps in the countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU) and to place them in the context of advanced economies. We survey over 30 publications and conduct a meta‐analysis of this literature. Gender pay gaps in the region are considerable and above the levels observed in advanced economies. Similar to advanced economies, industrial and occupational segregation widen the gaps in the FSU countries, whereas gender differences in educational attainment tend to shrink them. However, a much higher proportion of the gaps remains unexplained, pointing toward the role of unobserved gender differences related to actual and perceived productivity. Over the last 25 years, the gaps contracted in most FSU countries, primarily due to the reduction in the unexplained portion. Behind the contraction at the mean are different movements in the gap across the pay distribution. Although the glass‐ceiling effect has diminished in some FSU countries, it has persisted in others. We investigate the reasons underlying these findings and argue that the developments in the FSU region shed new light on our understanding of the gender pay gaps.     

Attitudes to pay systems:an exploratory study within and across cultures

The present study investigates employees’preferences for criteria that are used in pay systems, namely, performance, cost of living, tenure, educational qualification, collective bargaining, skill, market rate, responsibility and special demands. The study also explored variation and similarities of employees’preferences for the criteria across four countries, namely Australia (N = 162), Indonesia (N = 100), Malaysia (N = 129) and Hong Kong (N = 39). The results indicate that the respondents prefer multiple criteria to determine their pay. Preferences for length of service and educational attainment were found to be significantly different across countries, particularly between Australian and Asian samples (Indonesian and Malaysia). This variation is, in part, attributed to cultural differences. Other variables, such as age, educational qualification, position, and industry sector, have been found to be significant correlates of preference for pay systems. Implications for reward management have been discussed.     

Societal effects meet sectoral effects: work organization,competencies and payment systems in the Volvo Commercial Vehicle Division

By comparing the development of competence payment systems in Volvo's Commercial Vehicle plants in Sweden, Belgium, and the UK, the paper seeks to explain some of the reasons why the UK is lagging behind in the development of innovative pay systems. In the Commercial Vehicle sector the reticence of UK-based assemblers such as Volvo and Leyland Trucks to introduce new forms of payment systems can be only partially explained with reference to societal factors. One has to look further, to the historical development of the UK automotive sector and the perception of management that the introduction of a payment system based upon individual effort would lead back to the restrictive practices and demarcation disputes which exemplified the employment relationship in the 1960s and 1970s.     

Sex discrimination in selection and compensation in Taiwan

This article describes the current status of women in the workplace in Taiwan. Statistical evidence shows sex segregation in the labour market. Discriminatory practices in the hiring process are documented via a content analysis of 7,037 classified ads. Overtly discriminatory actions, such as blatantly stated gender requirements in the classified ads, are shown to be still common in hiring practices. Census data on a gender gap in compensation shows that women in Taiwan evidently get less pay than men do for the same work. The ratio of female to male employees is significantly and negatively correlated with the ratio of female to male in pay. The higher the percentages of women in an industry, the lower the pay women get compared to men. Also, the ratio of female to male in pay is negatively related to the turnover rate. Companies that pay women fairly tend to enjoy lower turnover rates. The implications of these women's issues in human resource management in Taiwan are presented.     

Separating contract from governance

This paper contends that there is an important distinction between governance structure and contractual form, and that organizational boundaries, defined by governance structures, need not explain contractual form. The basic idea is that governance refers to the general environments and instruments that structure and ‘govern’ specific terms of trade negotiated in ‘contracts’. Problems of verifiability and observability of contractual performance are hypothesized to drive the differential effects on governance structure and contractual form. Specifically, transaction cost factors known to result in employment as a general governance structure do not automatically result in contracts characterized by the payment of fixed‐wages. Instead, incentive pay and the delegation of decision‐making authority to workers may be preferred by firm owners. The paper proposes that the relationship between a firm and a worker involves a two part decision‐making framework in which one choice is the type of governance that structures the second choice regarding the specific characteristics of the contract linking the worker to the firm. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gender pay equity: Exploring the impact of formal,consistent and transparent human resource management practices and information

This article explores the extent to which formalised HR practices can reduce gender bias in pay setting or whether, following Acker (2006), gender bias may still be embedded within formalised HR practices. Detailed investigation of a critical case study of a Chilean finance organisation with a strong commitment to formalised, consistent and transparent pay practices based on individuated information, revealed only a small negative gender effect on pay and no identifiable gender effects in starting salaries, merit pay or promotion. These findings provide some support for the proposition that HR practices focused on job‐related performance (Reskin, 2000) and limiting managerial discretion may facilitate gender pay equity. However, the case also reveals the limits of these policies. Women scored equally well on performance but formalised scores on future potential were higher for men and mattered more. A significant gender effect emerged in promotion to more senior posts. These mixed outcomes suggest that Acker's (2006) proposition still holds.     

The determination of wages of newly hired employees: Survey evidence on internal versus external factors

This paper reports findings on the relative importance of internal versus external factors in the setting of wages of newly hired workers. The evidence, from a rich firm-level survey on wage and price-setting procedures in 15 European Union countries, suggests that external labour market conditions are less important than internal pay structures in determining hiring pay, with internal pay structures binding even more often when there is labour market slack. When explaining their choice firms allude to fairness considerations and the need to prevent a potential negative impact on effort. Cross-country differences are found to depend on institutional factors: countries in which collective agreements are more prevalent and collective agreement coverage is higher report more often internal pay structures as the main determinant of hiring pay. Within-country differences are found to depend on firm and workforce characteristics: there is a strong association between the use of external factors in hiring pay, on the one hand, and skills (positive) and tenure (negative) on the other.     

Determinants of government underfunded public pension liabilities in the OECD

Underfunded government liabilities for public pensions constitutes a major expenditure in the management of social programmes in many countries, but to date has not attracted much attention from accountants as it does not easily fit within an accrual-based accounting system. This paper discusses major measurement problems associated with this liability and then examines determinants of variations in projected flow-based funding patterns among OECD governments. Alternative ‘behavioural persistence’ and ‘regression to the mean’ hypotheses about the determinants of underfunding practices are formulated and tested using an OECD data set describing the financial and socio-economic characteristics of government-sponsored public pension systems in these countries. Consistent with the behavioural persistence hypothesis, cross-sectional variations are found to be associated with the funding ratio and the rate of taxation required to keep government debt constant. Variations in underfunding practices across the sample are also sensitive to cultural differences in attitude towards public pension accountability between continental European and Anglo-American countries.     

‘And now I’m free’: Women’s empowerment and emancipation through entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia and Sweden

Critical perspectives have called for the study of women’s entrepreneurship as a route to social change. This ‘social turn’ claims women are empowered and/or emancipated through entrepreneurship with limited problematisation of how these interchangeably used concepts operate. Using an institutional perspective in combination with a narrative approach, we investigate women entrepreneurs’ life stories on their ‘road to freedom’ where entrepreneurial activity enables them to ‘break free’ from particular gendered constraints. Through juxtaposing women’s narratives in the contexts of Saudi Arabia and Sweden, the relationship between empowerment and emancipation is disentangled and (re)conceptualised. The findings distinguish between empowerment narrated as individual practices to achieve freedom for the self within institutional structures and emancipation as narrated as a wish to challenge and change structures of power and reach collative freedom. The yearning for collective emancipation propels women’s stories of entrepreneurship by raising expectations for entrepreneurship as a vehicle for institutional change. Such stories may fascinate and inspire others to engage in entrepreneurial endeavours to become empowered, but whether they reach emancipation remains an empirical question to be answered. The performative dimension of entrepreneurial narratives is, however, their ability to turn emancipation into an (un)reachable object of desire, with a quest for even more individual empowerment and entrepreneurial activity, at the same time excluding other forms of human conduct as conducive for change.     

The adoption of international best practices in a Western culture: East meets West

Contemporary organizations facing changing economic and strategic realities have considered many models of organizational performance, in particular those based on ‘actices’odels of best practice have emanated from the USA, some European countries and Japan; however, the question remains –ternational best practices be transferred to Australia or elsewhere? Since companies in Japan, in particular, have been seen as harbingers of these best practices, we compare the level of adoption in Japanese and non-Japanese companies in three Australian industries. Differences between Japanese and non-Japanese companies were more apparent in the automotive industry with only a few differences found for the information and tourism industries. The main differences between the two ownership categories were in areas of unionization and management–elations, that is, areas that may be influenced more by institutional arrangements than by cultural differences. Perhaps the most interesting finding from the comparative research was that there were relatively few differences between the Japanese and non-Japanese companies. These characteristics include: organizational structure, labour turnover, teams as part of the organizational structure, levels of training, use of ringi-style decision making, security of employment, employee welfare schemes, the use of and success with performance appraisal and performance-related pay, and a wide range of quality systems. The key pillars of Japanese management are not being transferred, and we cannot expect to see identical arrangements regarding other management practices. But the differences between Japan and western countries such as Australia are very gradually declining.     

The emergence of bifurcation bias from unbalanced families: Examining HR practices in the family firm using circumplex theory

Family firm human resource (HR) research focuses largely on examining differences in HR practices between family and nonfamily firms or between family and nonfamily employees within family firms. Few studies, however, attempt to explain why these differences emerge. We offer insight into the source of heterogeneous HR practices by investigating attributes of the owning family. We integrate a primary family science perspective, circumplex theory, to describe how an unbalanced family structure leads to unbalanced HR systems in the family firm. An unbalanced HR system is depicted as a form of bifurcation bias, or the asymmetric treatment of family and nonfamily employees via the family firm's HR practices. By integrating and extending circumplex theory into the family firm, insight is offered into how the structure of the family system influences the structure of the family business HR system, thus impacting firm outcomes. Implications for both scholars and practitioners are offered.     

Cash,codes and complexity: New adventures in the public management of pay scales

Communication makes a difference. The manner in which we communicate creates the phenomena we communicate about. It can seem obvious, but we are nevertheless seldom aware of the complexity that this constructivist assumption implies. Through an analysis of a new pay reform in the Danish public sector, this article theorizes the complexity in terms of Niklas Luhmann's systems theory. In an attempt to understand the ambiguities of today's management of pay, it identifies four wholly different ‘codes’ of communication; law, money, learning and love. Each of them struggles for the position to construct ‘pay’, ‘personnel’ and ‘management’ differently. Ambiguity is construed in terms of the complex interference that arises between the systems of communication that are coded in these ways. Through this codified complexity, the new pay reform does not merely represent an innocent ‘management technology’, but a productive ‘management policy’ drawing on conflicting codes setting specific distinctions for rewarding, distinct boundaries for managing work life.     

Cultural barriers in the transferability of Japanese and American human resources practices to developing countries: the Turkish case

Multinational enterprises can be expected to increase their chances of success by understanding the socio-cultural systems of the regions in which they operate. This paper examines the applicability of Japanese and American human resources management practices in Turkey within a socio-cultural perspective. Emphasizing the contextual differences between developing and industrialized countries and comparing work-related values of the three countries, the paper argues that Japanese human resources practices are more compatible with Turkish societal characteristics than are their American or Western counterparts.     

PERFORMANCE-RELATED PAY AND THE PROSPECTS FOR GENDER PAY EQUITY

Equal pay for work of equal value has come to be almost inextricably associated with the application of job evaluation. Current trends towards performance-related pay systems pose a potential threat to the pursuit of greater gender pay equality as discretion in pay determination increases and there is no clear relationship between earnings and job grade. This paper examines the basis for this view drawing upon the now widespread literature and research into performance-related pay. the argument is made that the problem for gender equality lies both in the nature of the payment system and in the context in which it is being applied, including the changes in the nature of employment relationships that are accompanying these developments. While some women may benefit, overall the moves towards a widening income dispersion and the increased importance of management discretion and appraisal are likely to disadvantage women. However, the individualization of pay is likely to lead to further fragmentation of the interests of women, reducing the likelihood of collective resistance. Opportunities to monitor pay trends will also decrease as the spread of performance-related pay reduces the transparency of the labour market.     

The de-collectivisation of pay setting in Britain 1990–98: incidence,determinants and impact

What were the causes and consequences of declining collective bargaining coverage in Britain? The demise of collective bargaining did not lead to a greater use of individualised payment mechanisms, ‘high-involvement’ practices or productivity gains. Wage inequality rose as a result of the decline. However, workplaces that abandoned bargaining created more jobs. Overall, these results raise questions about Britain’s labour market performance during the 1990s because they suggest that falling unemployment as a result of weaker trade unions came at the price of slower productivity growth and widening male wage inequality.     

How to close the gender pay gap in Europe: towards the gender mainstreaming of pay policy

The European Employment Strategy includes a new commitment to a substantial reduction in the gender pay gap in European Union (EU) member states, but progress requires a radical shift away from the traditional policy emphasis on the supply‐side deficiencies of women compared with men. Mainstream theory argues that gender inequality is reduced once the pay gap is ‘adjusted’ for differences in individual characteristics (education, experience, etc.). But new empirical studies in many EU member states demonstrate that the work environment—the general wage structure, job and workplace characteristics—shapes gender pay inequality. Given the negative gender impact of trend declines in minimum wages, moves towards more decentralisation of wage‐setting and public sector restructuring, the article argues for a holistic, gender mainstreaming approach to pay policy.     

Performance Measurement and Incentive Compensation: An Empirical Analysis and Comparison of Chinese and Western Firms' Practices

This paper describes the findings of a study aimed at providing a replication and extension in China of studies focused on incentive compensation practices of automobile retailers in the USA and the Netherlands. Rich, detailed data-sets from all three countries are analysed together and in comparison. As theory is not well developed at the level of detail of the data collected, the purpose of this study was primarily exploratory, to provide empirics that can lead to the development of theory. The findings show that Chinese firms are much more likely to provide incentive compensation than are Dutch firms, and they are even somewhat more likely to provide them than are US firms. But Chinese bonus plans are more likely to be subjective, rather than formula-based. In the situations where incentive payments are based on pre-set formulas, the Chinese firms' systems are more like those used in the Netherlands than in the USA, with bonuses based on non-financial performance measures and with more complex performance–reward functions. Like managers in the US firms, but unlike managers in the Dutch firms, Chinese managers who receive some form of incentive compensation are more satisfied with their pay. The paper concludes with tentative explanations of the findings and suggestions for future research.     

A fair go? The gender pay gap among corporate executives in Australian firms

In virtually all economies, executive positions are highly male dominated. This study examines the pay gap between male executives and female executives in large Australian firms from 2011 to 2014 to evaluate whether female executives are paid equitably compared with male executives. The mean pay comparison shows that female executives earn 80.7% of the total pay earned by male executives. A large part of the gender pay gap is explained by differences in positions held; female executives are particularly underrepresented in highly paid executive positions. After controlling for executive position and other relevant individual and firm characteristics, there remains a 15.1% gender gap in total pay. Our findings suggest that to achieve the goal of gender equity, both the proportion of women at executive level and the executive-level gender pay gap need to be monitored.     

From sending to host societies: immigration in Greece,Ireland and Spain in the 21st century

In a relatively short period of time, new immigration patterns have changed the geography of immigration of the EU15, bringing three old emigration countries, Ireland, Spain and Greece, to the forefront of the new immigration wave. This article studies the analogies and differences of the recent immigration experience of this group of countries, focusing on the demographic characteristics of the immigrants (origin, sex, gender and education), labour market insertion (wages, labour market segregation and quality of matching) and overall economic performance in terms of poverty rates.