Global HRM Functions

Cross Culture Features

Cross culture management can refer to a company's initiatives to increase

understanding of different groups, develop effective communication or marketing
efforts to reach out to customers and clients outside its traditional market.

Cross culture management is becoming increasingly important as the success of

international trade depends upon the smooth interaction of employees from
different cultures and regions.

The mission of CCM for this specific purpose is, hence, to align the variety of cultures
in the companys workforce to the local culture, such result effective managers
should achieve by recognizing and adapting to the different work styles and cultures,
and finally result in a harmonious coordination while aiming in the meantime at
building strong relationships through personal rapport and reputation and keeping a
high motivation level amongst them.

Transforming. The focus of cross-cultural human resource management is to keep

changing. From internationalization operations of enterprises perspective, in different
stages of international operations, human resource management has different tasks
and goals.

CCM describes organization behaviours within countries and cultures and improves
the interaction of co-workers, managers, executives, clients, partners, suppliers,
etc.

An adequate understanding of cultural context impacts the behavior of

organizations employees is very important.

CCM helps managers to cope with employees of foreign culture.

It forms the basis for the development of intercultural training measures

It assists a structured analysis about transferability of specific elements of the parent

firms existing HR policy to foreign subsidiary

It helps to decide incentive structures which would be effective in a specific culture

It helps to be proactive and anticipate the environmental differences.

Convergence of Cultures

Convergence is defined as the adoption by a global organization of similar HR practices

across the world, and divergence as the approach by a global organization when it
adapts its HR practices across the world to suit local conditions. The main factors are
the:

extent to which there are well-defined local norms;

degree to which an operating unit is embedded in the local environment;

strength of the flow of resources between the parent and the subsidiary;

orientation of the parent to control;

nature of the industry;

specific organizational competencies, including HRM, that are critical for achieving
competitive advantage in a global environment.

Cultural convergence occurs when multiple cultures become more like one another
through exposure to traditions, ideals and languages.

Convergence can also be stated as Universalist and contextual paradigm.

Universalist paradigm concentrates on the management of HRM across various national

borders. That is the human resource practices and policies can be transferred from one
country to another by believing that those which worked well in one country will work
in the other country as well.

On the other hand, the contextual paradigm leads to the necessity of considering all
the organisational internal and external factors. The divergence HRM compares systems
of one country with the other country and then identifies similarities and differences
then forms the antecedents from those differences.

Technology is a key example of cultural convergence in that it both facilitates the

convergence and its use is a product of said convergence.

Youth from a variety of cultures interact with social media and information sites on the
Internet. Global companies use the Internet for research, marketing and adapting to
their customers' needs. A technology-caused generation gap exists in many cultures. In
these ways, Japanese culture mirrors the culture of the United States.

Cultural convergence occurred through the spread of the English language. For
decades, the United States was the center of international business. Everyone in the
world learned English to compete in its market. Americans travelled to other countries
to teach English. The diffusion of the language led to the exchange of cultural

Meaning

Recruitment is defined as searching for and obtaining potential job candidates in sufficient
numbers and quality so that the organization can select the most appropriate people to fill its
job needs.

Selection is the process of gathering information for the purposes of evaluating and deciding who
should be employed in particular jobs.

While recruiting people for international operations, the international HR managers must identify
the global competitiveness of the potential applicants at the time of the recruiting process.

The international HR department must have a fairly good idea about the skills and availability of
human resources in different labour markets in the world.

The approach and understanding required in the recruitment of employees for multinational
assignments is different from the usual recruiting efforts required in the home country
environment.

It is necessary to consider cultural differences, regulations, and language considerations.

With internet technology, recruiting for multinational assignments has become much easy, as
there is wide access to international labour markets particularly in the case of candidates for
professional management assignments.

Some of the major differences between domestic and international staffing are first that
many firms have predispositions with regard to who should hold key positions in
headquarters and subsidiaries (i.e. ethnocentric, polycentric, regiocentric and geocentric
staffing orientations)

Second, the constraints imposed by host governments (e.g. immigration rules with regard
to work visas and the common requirement in most countries to require evidence as to
why local nationals should not be employed rather than hiring foreigners) which can
severely limit the firms ability to hire the right candidate

Some distinct trends observed in international staffing Work Force Diversity Off
shoring Increasing use of background checks Identifying recruiting sources
Challenges of dual career couples.

In companies that function in a global environment we have to distinguish

different types of employees: Parent country national, Host country national, Third
country national