HRM Transfers in Multinational Corporations: Key Challenges
This paper examines the challenges multinational corporations (MNCs) face when transferring human resource management (HRM) practices across borders. Drawing on Bjorkman and Lervik's framework, the paper explores how implementation failures, cultural differences, and local labor market conditions impede effective HRM transfer. It discusses Perlmutter's and Bartlett and Ghoshal's subsidiary strategy classifications, analyzes the role of corporate and national culture, and reviews Taylor et al.'s adaptive, exportive, and integrative HRM approaches. The paper concludes that successful HRM transfer requires a nuanced understanding of both parent company priorities and local market dynamics.
- Introduction: HRM in a Global Context: Why global competition complicates HRM for MNCs
- Implementation Challenges and Subsidiary Strategies: Subsidiary classifications and standardization conflicts
- The Role of Culture in HRM Transfer: Corporate and national culture as HRM barriers
- Local Labor Markets and Macroeconomic Factors: Labor regulations, wages, and parent-subsidiary tensions
- International HRM Strategies and Approaches: Adaptive, exportive, and integrative HRM design choices
- Conclusion: Synthesis of HRM transfer challenges and recommendations
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What makes this paper effective
- Grounds its argument in established academic frameworks — Perlmutter's subsidiary classifications and Taylor et al.'s adaptive/exportive/integrative model — giving the analysis clear theoretical anchors.
- Uses concrete real-world examples, such as Nike's labor controversies in Asia and General Motors' subsidiary mandates, to illustrate abstract HRM concepts for a general audience.
- Maintains a logical three-part structure (implementation, culture, labor markets) that mirrors Bjorkman and Lervik's distillation of HRM transfer failure, showing the student can organize an argument around a central source.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective synthesis of multiple theoretical frameworks — connecting subsidiary strategy typologies with HRM system design choices. Rather than treating each source in isolation, the student links Perlmutter's ethnocentric/polycentric/geocentric taxonomy directly to Taylor et al.'s adaptive/exportive/integrative approaches, showing how strategic classification drives HRM design decisions.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a problem statement and frames the argument around Bjorkman and Lervik's three failure modes. Three body sections each address one major challenge: implementation and subsidiary strategy, cultural divergence, and local labor market conditions. A short bridging section maps international strategies to HRM approaches before a concise conclusion synthesizes the main findings. The structure is linear and cumulative, with each section building on the last.
Introduction: HRM in a Global Context
Human resource management is quickly becoming a contentious issue for multinational corporations, irrespective of their home country. Talent and competition now know no boundaries. Companies that once dominated particular regions or demographic territories must now compete on both a global and local level, presenting an interesting dynamic as it relates to HRM practices. Larger corporations must now compete at a granular level, creating complexities within the overall HR function itself. Countries have different rules of law, customs, societal norms, and regulations. What may be acceptable in the United States may be entirely unacceptable in China or Germany. Therefore, multinational corporations must be especially careful when attempting to utilize HRM practices at a local level. This is particularly true for subsidiaries that often possess specialized market knowledge that the parent company may not have.
Bjorkman and Lervik note in their opening remarks that HRM transfers are often unsuccessful. They state that the reasons for such failures can be distilled into three categories: implementation, internalization, and the over-integration of HRM practices. Much of the literature on this issue confirms Bjorkman and Lervik's assessment of the overall transfer of HRM practices.
References
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Perlmutter, H. V. (1969). The tortuous evolution of the multinational corporation. Columbia Journal of World Business, 4(1), 9–18.
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Taylor, S., Beechler, S., & Napier, N. (1996). Toward an integrative model of strategic international human resource management. Academy of Management Review, 21(4), 959–985.
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