Critical evaluation of international human resource management literature and globalization

¶ … International Human Resource management Articles

In this paper, we will critically evaluate two separate journal articles related to international human resource management (IHRM) and draw out their contribution to IHRM in an integrated literature review. The topics of these two articles are Development and Globalization. First, we will overview both of the articles separately in this introductory phase and then in the literature review we will support our outline of concepts and ideas in the two articles. A critical analysis will then be done relevant to the articles which will examine the strengths and weaknesses of the articles. After the critical analysis we will advise how both of the subject matter discussed can be applied to multinational companies either large or small.

Finally, we will give a conclusion and recommendation in which the former will include summary of what we have found looking back at the overall paper and the later will consist of recommendations as to how our selected findings can influence the area of International Human Resource Management.

Article 1

This article is about the development practices and Human Resource Management in indigenous Russian firms and foreign multinational companies. It has uncovered a wide variety of differences in the practices of Human Resource Management that exist between the indigenous Russian firms and the multinational companies that operate in Russia. The article also suggests that the Russian firms tend to focus more on making their workforce to contribute more on strategic decision making, the evaluation of the implemented decisions is followed by this step.

The Multinational firms working in Russia put more preference in the methodologies of personal control as well as direct communication, they also put less emphasis on involving the managers of their respected firms to take participation in the strategic decision-making phase. Here it should be noted that the multinationals put more focus on the training and development of their employees as compared to the local Russian firms, but the local companies put more emphasis on structured approaches as well as technologies for the fulfillment of their objectives which are set by heads of the firms. By closely analyzing both of these strategies, it is seen that they both can be very much effective if applied appropriately.

The article also focuses on the future research directions which mainly fall into three types. The first type suggests that the article is basically focused on only a selected portion of the technology industry namely the I.T and advertising, therefore it is very important that a similar research must be carried out to determine the facts about other parts of Russian economy, examples of these parts include engineering, retail, services and consulting since these sectors involve huge multinational activities.

Secondly, the article is based on a study which uses surveys as its primary and main source for acquiring data. Here the data should include more results which are based on interviews involving a chosen set of respondents. "There are many ways through which the interviews can be conducted such as the manner which is guided by the IiP (investors in people) framework which includes a vast variety of methodologies helpful in the collection of data" (Kamoche, 2001). The third recommendation addresses on the limits of the study conducted by the article. It is very important to know here that any future studies can include more varieties of samplings from the databases of companies which include both the multinationals and the local Russian corporations. "Better consumer response always results from better HRM" (Scott, 1998).

Article 2

This article is about Europe and the management of globalization. It emphasizes on how Europe is trying its best to manage the factor of globalization according to its own terms, it has also listed in detail five ways by which the European Union (EU) tries to manage globalization. Let's have a brief look here on each of these ways. The first method of management involves the expansion of the scope of policies of European Union, this is done by the development of new measures for usage such as the introduction of Euro currency. The creation of European Central Bank also falls in this spectrum as one of its primary objectives is to provide assistance to European nations in fighting inflation.

The second way includes efforts through which the setup of regulatory standards is formed whose influence exists as much outside Europe as it is within it. As an example, it is seen here that the European Union is the biggest regulatory authority in many different sectors which includes industrial chemicals, food and telecommunications. Third way details on the senior European management's effort to make the international organizations more powerful. In this spectrum the European Union has made great efforts in order to strengthen organizations which include International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, OECD and others. Here the main aim is to develop an institutional architecture which monitors the rules of globalization and if possible enforce them on the terms of Europe.

Fourth way involves different strategies which aim for the enlargement of territorial sphere which comes under the influence of European Union. The final way involves the management's efforts in redistributing costs of globalization.

The article suggests that every agenda discussed has its side effects as well which can possibly make the European Union weak instead of strong. Here example includes scenarios where European Union loses its trade cases. Its efforts to have more states in the international trade organizations can also weaken its status within the trade organizations as the new members may have their own preferences which might even contradict the official European interests.

A big doubt which is faced by the European efforts in the management of globalization is that the very same institutions which Europe wants to see strong have come under great criticism from the Europeans themselves for not being successful enough in managing globalization, in some cases it is even though that these institutions are responsible for many problem's acceleration. All of these issues aside, Europe is currently going through a massive financial crisis which has posed a great challenge to the entire capitalist world.

The five mechanisms that we have briefly discussed are hardly regarded as exclusive for Europe only. Here many different nations such as the United States and China are trying their best to put globalization according to their terms and best interests. Above this, the 2008 financial crisis showed the limits of European efforts to organize global economy according to their terms since it does not enjoy the backing of the greatest spender as well as borrower nation which is the United States and neither support of the nation which is the greatest exporter and saver in the world, namely China.

The European Union may not be able to rig the system of globalization but it can attempt to improve its predictability along with oversight and regularity through the rules which accommodate European interests.

Literature review

In this section, we will do a review of both of the articles and outline the concepts and ideas presented in the two articles. " In Russian literature on HRM, the term 'HRM system' is defined as a subsystem of the company management system aimed at attraction and effective utilization of the labor force available to the company" (Bizukov, 2005).

The Human Resource Management article gives a view on how the local Russian companies and the foreign multinationals take the approach of their businesses emphasizing on the fact that both of the methodologies can give good results in different functional elements such as labor relations management, operational management, personnel planning, employee training, recruitment, development and assessment, providing legal support, providing appropriate labor conditions as well as work safety, compensation management, employee records management, Human Resource systems information support and the development of management structures.

"It is commonly observed that multinational organizations offer more incentives to employees as compared to other local firms" (Cyr, 1995), this is the main reason why individuals choose to go there instead of the homegrown companies but in the case of Russia it seems that stiff competition exists everywhere even among offering benefits, this is one of the main reason why both of the models adopted by the two types of firms discussed are capable of success.

The development article specifically focused on surveys as a source for data, here some of the important topics which it selected to ask queries from its representatives includes questions regarding organizational goals on how to achieve them, how the management involves employees in the development of organizational plans and about any measurable performance objectives which might be present in plan of the organization. "Effective participation from the employees in the affairs of the organization is the key to success for any firm" (Keeley, 2001).

Employees of both multinational as well as local Russian companies were also asked how they participate in their organization's performance in which majority replied that they prefer direct communication with the manager. " One of the most important things to look after in Human Resource Management is the requirements of the personnel and staff, only then any firm can asses correctly its necessities" (Tayeb, 2005). They were also asked how did the management of the organization where they worked informed them about the assessment of their work, here majority of both the multinational as well as local firm's employees replied with the individual interview reply. "Knowing the employees more is very important in the business of Human Resource Management" (Ewert, 1996).

Overall, it was observed that most of the employees of either the local or multinational firms agreed with each other on many different points regarding the mentioned above topics. "One of the ways by which any firm can attract a more talented workforce is to offer better incentives as compared to its rival firm" (Harris, 2004).

Now let's review the globalization article. Here, globalization is defined as the flow of goods, services, capital, people and information across borders. It has been argued that this factor has been the cause of worry for Europe over the past decade. One of the reasons for this is the rise of the far Eastern economies such as China which take advantage of their cheap exports and earn foreign capital as well as investment while Europe ends up buying the same goods and services that it manufactured in great numbers just over a decade ago.

This article also focuses on the European tactics for the management of globalization which favors them however every step they take for their progression in an ever increasing competitive environment of today may backfire on them if not applied correctly. "The EU has become the world's largest regulatory power across a range of sectors including food and industrial chemicals" (Drezner 2007).

The European's integration policies seems to be one of their greatest strength at the international stage, here an example of France and Germany is given in which it is shown how many postwar acts of reconciliation has jointly benefitted both of these nations and Europe in general. In order to make the effects of globalization friendlier for Europe, they have developed five main mechanisms which not only assist them in facing internal challenges but also external crisis events. These five mechanisms are namely the expansion of policy scope, exercising regulatory influence, empowering international institutions, enlarging the territorial sphere of the European Union's influence and finally redistributing the costs of globalization.

Here a main obstacle comes from the competitors of European Union, nations like China and United States often use their power to enforce their terms on globalization. While the United States is the biggest economy and the biggest spender in the world the Chinese are more capable of doing a profitable trade which comes in favor of them. All of these points greatly influence Europe's position at a global stage and their chosen methodologies are today applied by the Americans as well as the Chinese in their favor which makes it very difficult for the Europeans to enforce their demands. "There is a growing literature as well on Asian efforts to manage globalization but this tends to take place at the nation-state level" (Alon, 2009).

Critical analysis

Let's analyze our chosen two main articles and see how relevant they are to the topic of International Human Resource Management (IRHM). The article related to human resource practices in Russia discusses two types of firms and how they perform their duties. "In the case of the multinational firms it is seen that they tend to bring more ideas from abroad" (Hailey, 1999), also they learn from the local environment and then execute their operations according to their overall knowledge. "The local firms often lack the key component of Internationalism since not all of them operate beyond their nation's boundaries." (Sisson, 2000) This tend to limit their creativity towards performing their tasks thus the true essence of International Human Resource Management is observed to come from the multinationals which often operate throughout the world and bring expertise and successful ideas from different corners of the globe to any host nation.

This article focuses on the aspect of IRHM but fails to give a complete picture in this regard especially when the local Russian firms are taken to consideration. There are, however many strengths of this article relating to IRHM such as the detailed answers of the questions being asked and the topics which are covered by the questions themselves. "Better HRM results from a management which is more open to new ideas" (Farrington, 1998). However, a limitation here is that only the method of survey is taken to collect data. "HRM is still in its evolving period" (Howitt, 2001).

Any individual who wants to do business in Russia through a multinational firm will have a great deal of idea of the challenges, advantages and opportunities it may face there. It is also very beneficial for those multinational firms who are currently doing business in Russia and want to upgrade or further understand their knowledge regarding the management issues there.

The second article which focuses on globalization focuses specifically on the European Union, here International Human Resource Management may come in the form of government actions. Although the principles of governing an organization can be applied to govern a government but here the focus is not directly multinational corporations. Globalization involves trade of many different sorts of equipment therefore these principles can be used there in order to attain a better profit margin as well as trust from the dealers.

The article greatly emphasizes on the five methodologies which the European Union can use in order to take more control over globalization and tend to manipulate it according to its own desires and wants but it fails to give details on a concrete solution which can assure of success. The article also did not mention any concrete proposals or ways through which the Europeans should counter the influence of United States and China at the same time.

In short, it also failed to give a good IHRM plan which the European governments might adopt or to learn from in order to be more competitive. The article should have focused on more strengths of the European Union and how it can take advantage of certain things such as Science and Technology and how it could have used it for its benefit.

From the perspective of a student or any learner, this article can give a good idea about what the official European policy is regarding international organizations, regulations, sphere of influence and so on but it fails to give something new for the reader with appropriate knowledge. For any policy maker or any government official, it shouldn't posses much interest.