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前言
人力资源管理(HRM)指的是管理一个组织的劳动力,它负责选拔、晋升、奖励、培训和解雇员工(Towers&David,2007)。人力资源管理一直以来都是一个不可逃避的问题,经常进行热烈的讨论,因此,没有必要强调人力资源管理在细节方面的重要性。然而,尽管事实上人力资源管理是一个组织不可避免的一种行为,但是，如果说一个人可以管理他/她的劳动力，并且在全球化不断发展的时代并没有考虑民族文化,特别是这个公司这个企业开始进军国际化的时代，这样说就是不合理的。因此,这篇文章的目的是分析在全球化不断发展的条件下，公司是否应该考虑采用不同的人力资源管理实践方式。
关于人力资源管理在全球化发展背景中的要求
20世纪早期，人类关系运动孕育了人力资源的产生,人力资源产生的目的是为了增加有效管理的业务价值,采用的方法主要是关心就业和员工福利，但是随着全球化的到来,人力资源的重点延伸到这样的战略活动,比如并购,劳资关系(Jonathan &DeGraff 2010)。许多专家因此开始研究人力资源管理在这个新环境下的发展。
Introduction
Human Resource Management (HRM) refers to the management of an organization’s labor force, it is responsible for the selection, promotion, rewards, training and dismissal of employees(Towers&David,2007). HRM has long been an issue that enjoys a heated discussion, therefore, there is no need to emphasize the importance of HRM in great details. However, despite the fact that human resource management is an activity undertook within an organization, it is not safe to say that one can manage his/her labor force without considering the national culture in the era of globalization, especially when the organization goes abroad. Thus, this essay is made with the purpose of analyzing whether companies should consider to adopt different HRM practices in global context.
A claim about HRM in global context
Human relations movement in the early 20th century gave birth to HR, it was created with the aim of increasing business values by effective management of work force, the methods adopted were mainly concerned with payrolls and benefits. But with the advent of globalization, the focus of HR extends to such strategic activities like merger and acquisition, industrial relations(Jonathan &DeGraff,2010). Many experts thus began to study HRM in this new circumstance.
Harzing and Pinnington once claimed that in International Human Resource Management, it is impossible to consider the needs and assumptions of organizations from the perspective of one country, national economy and single domestic market. What they imply is that in the global context, organizations’ management of human resource should follow the general trend in the world, but not confine themselves to the narrow situation in their native country, whose ideology or culture may block their way to success(Merkle&Judith,2008). Therefore, the needs and plannings of an organization are not necessarily to cater to the requirements of national economy or culture. It has to be admitted that their argument is reasonable to a great extent, but maintaining that national economy and culture being surely detrimental to the performance of organizations is not true. They neglect different cultural contexts, some ones need changes to meet the requirements of the new situation, but others are still suitable in this era.
Thus, the following sections are devoted to the analysis of the claim from two perspectives with concrete examples.
Chinese culture’s adverse impacts on HRM Harzing and Pinnington insisted that it is impossible to consider the needs and assumptions of organizations from the perspective of national economy, culture and ideology which may hinder the movement of organizations. It is proved right especially in China. Negative aspects of Chinese culture account for the relatively poor performance of its companies both in the domestic and global market for corporate culture is usually consistent with national culture(Gary&Dernelle,1994). When talking about Chinese culture, one will never fail to mention Confucianism, which, in its long cause of development and evolution, has helped shape people’s thoughts, behavior and determined the ideology. Therefore, Confucianism has become an deep-rooted characteristic of national identity(Creel&Herrlee,2009). Chinese culture emphasizes collectivism and this philosophy can also be found in corporate culture. Under the influence of such culture, the human resource management of Chinese organizations exhibits such features:
l In Chinese companies, especially the state-owned ones, leaders are playing passive roles in company’s management, they do not worry about the performance of their organization for they will enjoy bailout from the government(Wright&Robert,2009 ). This will inevitably lead to poor organizational performance and saps company’s sense of urgency. That’s the reason why Chinese state-owned enterprises enjoy no competitive advantages over private-owned or foreign enterprises.
l Collectivism emphasizes consistency, therefore, within an organization, there is a strong tendency toward mutual independence or reliance. This results in greater cooperation and less friction. Under this condition, no one will or be encouraged to put forward different ideas, for they fear to break this harmony. This phenomenon accounts for the poor innovation in China(Lazonick,2004). In terms of decision-making, no one likes to make their voice heard, for they are afraid of making mistakes. This practice leads to poor transparency, passive obedience, diffused accountability through consensus and atmosphere of recriminations.
l Promotion is mainly based on seniority, a candidate for promotion is judged from such aspects as work attendance, whether did he or she make mistakes, relationship with colleagues and leaders. The life-long employment deprives workers of enterprising spirit and sense of urgency. Employees can maintain their position in company unless they make major mistakes or in bad relations with leaders. This is also the product of collectivism.
The above four points are the impacts of Confucianism on corporate culture and then on the management of human resource(Hofstede,1993). From these, we can conclude that national culture inevitably exerts its influence on corporate culture, the adverse influences such as lack of urgency, diffused accountability, poor innovation, life-long employment, poor transparency, inefficient decision-making and non-profit orientation are fatal to the performance of companies.
The following will illustrate the above conclusion with a concrete example. A multinational in China: Baosteel
Baosteel is a multinational and major steel producer in the world. There is much to be said about its human resource management. With its birthplace in China, it grew up under the permeating influence of the Chinese culture. It includes the disadvantages of Chinese companies in human resource management mentioned above. In the early years of its foundation, it had been caught in a poor situation. This part will introduce its shortcomings in HRM before it went abroad.
l It exhibited the characteristics of collectivism. Workers received almost the same salary, which failed to mobilize workers to make innovations. Therefore, for a long time in the past, Baosteel was caught in a bad performance, its lack of innovation deprived it of competitive edge over rivals, inefficiency brought it huge costs and small profits.
l It attached great importance to ‘denial’ in performance management of workers. This created a culture of blame, workers tended to shift their blame to others. It deterred employees from proposing advice and making innovations because they were afraid of making mistakes.
l It failed to mobilize workers in decision-making. Information about performance, financial status, strategies, state policies were all withheld from workers. This practice contributed to the poor transparency, workers could not fully participate in organization’s activity(Child,1994). They passively accepted what had been decided by the administrative level.
l It and its workers lacked a sense of urgency. As a largest steel and iron company, Baosteel enjoyed the favor of the Chinese government. In the early years of its foundation, it received bailout from government when it was caught depression. Its employees regarded their job as ‘iron rice bowl’ and did not devote their enthusiasm to the fullest extent(www.szdhsjt.com). Its leaders maintained a good fit with national culture at the expense of organizational performance.
This dysfunctional organizational culture halted the movement of Baosteel. With the increasingly fierce competition, its leaders recognize the importance of effective management of human resource so as to minimize the profits. As Harzing and Pinnington said : in the International Human Resource Management, it is impossible to consider the needs of an organization from the perspective of one country, national economy, and this claim is applicable to the case of Baosteel. Incomplete market economy, deep-rooted collectivism and bailout drained Baosteel of its sense of urgency, enterprising spirit and creativeness. To become a first-rate company in the world, Baosteel decided to adopt international standards in HRM to change its practice(Kelly,2006). Before it put the ‘go global’ strategy into practice, the administrative level recognized the importance to develop new organizational culture and adopt new practices in HRM. The following is the concrete methods took by Baosteel in this aspect: |
