International Human Resource Management
Managing people in a multinational context
Chapter Objectives
• Define key IHRM terms
• Review expatriate* management evolution
• Outline differences between domestic and
international HRM
• Discover the increasing complexity and
potential challenges of current IHRM
* = Give up residence in one’s homeland and take residence in another country.
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Inter-relationships between approaches to a field
IHRM = International Human Resource Management
HR = Human Resources
IR = Industrial Relations (Employment Relations)
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Defining HRM
An organization’s HRM activities include:
1. Human resource planning
2. Staffing (recruitment, selection, placement)
3. Performance management
4. Training and development
5. Compensation (remuneration) and benefits
6. Industrial relations
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Inter-relationships between approaches to the field
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International assignments create expatriates
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Differences between domestic HRM and IHRM
IHRM complexity can be attributed to six factors:
1. Human resource planning
2. Staffing (recruitment, selection, placement)
3. Performance management
4. Training and development
5. Compensation (remuneration) and benefits
6. Industrial relations
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Variables that moderate differences between
domestic and international HRM
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Steps to truly international HRM
1. Recognize that one’s own HRM reflects home culture
assumptions and values.
2. Recognize that one’s own peculiar ways are neither universally
better nor worse than others - just different and likely to exhibit
strengths and weaknesses, particularly abroad.
3. Recognize that organization’s foreign subsidiaries may prefer other
ways to manage people – ways that are neither intrinsically better
nor worse, but possibly more effective locally.
4. Headquarters willingness to acknowledge cultural differences and
steps to make them discussable and therefore usable.
5. Build shared genuine belief that cross-cultural learning will result
in more creative and effective ways of managing people.
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Strategic HRM in multinational enterprises
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