You Manage It! 5: Global Are Culture-Specific HR Policies a Good Idea?
Over the past 10 years, East Computer Company has grown from a domestic producer of microchips in Boston to a multinational company with assembly plants in four foreign locations. The company’s personnel policies were developed five years ago, before East Computer’s international expansion, by a task force headed by the vice president for HRM in Boston. The company’s CEO has just appointed a new task force to examine the extent to which current domestic personnel policies can be “exported” to East’s new international locations. The essential elements of these policies are the following:
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All job openings are posted to allow any employee to apply for a position.
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Selection is based on merit. Appropriate selection devices (for example, tests, structured interviews, and the like) are used to ensure proper implementation of this policy.
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Nepotism is expressly forbidden.
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Promotion from within is the norm whenever feasible.
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Equal employment opportunities are available to all, regardless of sex, race, national origin, or religion.
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Pay for various positions is established through a rational process that includes both job evaluation and market survey data.
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There is equal pay for equal work, regardless of sex, race, national origin, or religion.
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Goals are jointly set by supervisor and subordinate, with an annual formal appraisal session at which both parties have the chance to discuss progress toward goal achievement. The appraisal is used both to provide performance feedback to the employee and as a basis for merit pay decisions.
As a first step in evaluating these policies, the vice president for HRM classified the countries where East’s facilities are located according to Hofstede’s dimensions. She came up with the matrix shown below.
You have been hired by East Computer Company to help management develop personnel policies for each of the four international facilities. Ideally, management would prefer to use the same policies that it uses in the United States to maintain consistency and reduce administrative problems. However, the vice president for HRM has made a strong case for “tailor-made” personnel policies that are suitable to each facility’s cultural environment.
Critical Thinking Questions
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17-38. Given East Computer Company’s present personnel policies, what problems is the company likely to face in each facility if it transports its domestic policies abroad?
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17-39. How would you change or adapt each of the company’s current personnel policies to better fit the cultural environment of each international facility?
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17-40. What set of management recommendations would you provide for keeping, changing, or adapting East Computer Company’s HR policies for the United States, Australia, Mexico, England, and Norway? In your recommendations, be sure to mention any risks associated with implementing your recommendations.
Team Exercises
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17-41. Students break into groups of five. One student role-plays a consultant who is conducting an exercise to uncover possible problems in uniform application of the company’s current policy. Each of the other four students takes the role of advocate for one of the four international locations. Each advocate should make an argument for or against keeping specific parts of East’s existing HR policies.
Students form groups of four students, with each group acting as the advocate for one of the four international locations. After deciding which policies to keep and which to change, a representative from each group presents the group’s recommendations to the class. After these brief presentations, the class discusses the costs and benefits of culture-specific HR policies.
Experiential Exercise: Team
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17-42. Students are divided into groups of five. Using the Internet or any other sources each team will develop an outline of human resource practices that are most likely to succeed in each location based on the materials learned in this chapter.
Experiential Exercise: Individual
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17-43. Find some individuals (other students, friends, or relatives) who were either raised in and/or are familiar with a foreign country. Interview them and ask their opinions about how they perceive that country in terms of five of Hofstede’s dimensions. On which dimensions is the country high? Low? Based on the interviewee’s assessment, is the culture of that country reflected in any human resource practices such as hiring procedures, compensation, performance appraisal, and the like? Several students will be asked to present their finding to entire class (about 5 to 10 minutes each) to be followed by open class discussion moderated by the instructor.
| Cultural Dimensions | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Facility Location | Power Distance | Individualism | Uncertainty Avoidance | Masculinity | Long-Term Orientation |
| Australia | Low | High | Medium | Medium | Low |
| Mexico | High | Low | High | High | Medium |
| England | Low | High | Low | High | Low |
| Norway | Low | Medium | Medium | Low | High |