The State of Differences in the Culture on which the Business is Established - Term Paper Example

The impact of national culture upon the effective execution of human resource management function and it is influential compared with other forces such as legislative framework or economic and political forces Name: Presented to Instructor’s Name, Course Institution Name, Location Date Due Introduction Businesses organizations that operate as a multinational companies, find the environment for the management of human resources quite diverse in significant ways. Culture among other forces hinders the effective planning and effective execution of human resource management. Hence, to manage human resource without any problem one needs to understand the state of differences in the culture of different countries on which the business is established. There is a need also to establish the degree on which human resource management plans are constrained all areas and also the degree of discretion that the business organization has in all areas of interest. Therefore the pros and cons of the two has to be discussed and the manage come up with an effective strategy to counter the negative impacts of culture and other limiting factors (Millmore, 2007). It is always common to find the organization is always forced to follow a localization plan since management is culturally dependent. For the best performance of the companies in a bid to achieve its objectives, it has to follow the localization plan, making the management practices to coincide with the local culture. Impact of culture National culture though it has a wide range of different definitions, there is a wide agreement that national culture involve a shared group of assumptions, beliefs, norms and values that are integrated into the inner core of the society. It is perceived to be a communal indoctrination of the individual mind. This unswervingly influences the character manifestation of a culture within the location and the crowd itself. National culture is a way of overcoming the widespread challenges in the society, the challenge of outside adaptation and inside integration. National culture is a threat that grasps the strength of a nation with the real meaning of each person, society and organisation (Millmore, 2007). It stitches a fragmented society to a needlepoint of strong commonality. A nation’s individual and institutional practicalities are the produce of its enriching ancestry. It has a strong influence in the operations of a multinational company particularly in the view of human resource policies; it has a way of shaping each thought, course of action and decision of every organisation. The values that are brought up by the large variety of cultures in the world are highly dissimilar, and therefore, the business operations are not forced to regional boundaries. Multinational corporations have to consider the variety and also the impact of culture on the corporation’s management plans (Millmore, 2007). As the penetration of the international barriers is largely considered, the change of human resource exercise from the nation of the cause to those of countries sharing the same culture is a problem with difficulties, hence the effects of culture on corporations. The difference in the norms, behaviors, values and beliefs of the national cultures are varied and common. These norms have great impact on the effective execution of human resource management in multinational corporations. The power distance as one of the common cultural norm affects the policies of human resource management. It is a sign of the suitability of the communal disparity that underpins the operation off all communities, these magnitudes shows the level to which difference in power allocation is established in different countries. In high power cultures, the difference widely acknowledged, hence, arising the autocratic human resource management plans. In low power cultures they are associated with the need to have equality, a strong relationship between individuals and high employee association in running of the business (Millmore, 2007). Uncertainty avoidance is another cultural norm that affects the management of human resource in a business. It is a mirror image of the level to which the individuals in a society can predict indistinctness of something and accept that level. Societies with high uncertainty evasion, the sense of defense and predictability in the long term is of great focus (Millmore, 2007). While in societies with relatively low ambiguity avoidance, the courage to take risks and unpredictability is upheld. This is one way that effective human resource management is achieved in the culture with uncertainty avoidance. Individual identity is of great relevance than the distinctiveness of a group or an organisation in some culture while in other cultures is the vice versa. In individualistic societies, an individual’s initiative, accountability and concerns outweigh other factors in play (Kaplan, 2004). However, in collectivist societies, they are characterized by fidelity and concerns of the groups or a wider social group. Effective human workforce need to encourage collectivism to avoid having people having conflicts due to lack of the value of working as a group and instead people upholding individualism. Another major culture barrier that affects the working of human resource management to execute an effective workforce is the power of masculinity and femininity (Kaplan, 2004). This is an expression of the significance of communal delineation among gender in the social order as well as the level to which customary male orientation which are emphasized over those coupled with females. In masculine societies the ambition to succeed is linked to the need to acquire material possession while in feminine societies, the interpersonal harmony is the most important. It is clear from continuous assessment of multinational organizations that they have opted for the movement of recognized norms from the nation of origin to that of the nation hosting the business organisation. The level at which the business organisation differentiates it human resource management policy into fitting the framework of the affiliate country’s culture is directly correlated with the heightened presentation of the company (Millmore, 2007). Moreover, human resource management policies those are correlated or consistent with a country’s culture have been manifested in increased employee encouragement, personal efficiency and heightened organizational performance (Newman, 1996). The admonition that “when in Rome does as Romans do” is highly applicable in the human resource management practices in international organizations and also in a business that is in a multicultural country. As correspondence between the internal strategy and the external surroundings is important, a slight misfit in an organization’s human resource management and the national culture will root rifts in organization’s establishment, whereby, even the most insignificant fissure will affect the smooth running of the business. Hence, for multinational corporations to be aggressive on worldly scale, it is important that they realize the relationships and shape up their compensation practices in correlation with the cultural particulars of a specific host country (Millmore, 2007). Basing our argument on the research of Rosenzweig et al (1994), three general human resource strategy orientation can be adopted by multinational business organization within their overseas affiliates; Adaptive, Exportive and also integrative, of which if frequently reliant on the arena of global corporate progress, basing on this specific typology, multinational corporation management activities within the abroad subsidiaries can reflect the fact that the original company referred to be ethnocentric can resemble practices within the neighborhood referred to as polycentric or can find an idle way between integration and differentiation also referred to as geocentric (Morris et al,2009). In the early days the people who explained the convergence theory argued that the adoption of an extortive plan basing on the presence of the so called universal truths the differences between countrywide cultures in the society of today are deeply embedded, therefore, the copying of the local practices is of great significance (Rowley et al, 2002). It can therefore be argued that in the middle of heightening globalization, the idea of willingly moveable best practices can no longer be appropriate (Kaplan, 2004). The most important issue for multinational business corporations is not to establish the most efficient human resource strategy but to figure out the best way to relate the business external environment and its general tactics and its human resource management policies. Technology impact compared to cultural impact Business organizations are to the highest degree predisposed by the changes occurring in both internal and external surrounding of the business organisation. Today’s human resource is greatly diverse in the basis of ethnicity, the sexual course, disability, race and other societal factors, the greatest challenge for the managers is learning how to benefit from diversity while increasing the strength of cohesiveness and cooperation among the diverse employees(Millmore, 2007). The change that new technology brings on board is also great. It has greatly affected on the total figure of job opportunities has been very devastating. Technology has placed power in the hands of a small group people who have embraced the technology hence running the mega organisation. The arising of new technology forces people to engage in learning new skills altogether, they also have to learn how to work collectively in project teams continuously (Kaplan, 2004). The impact of technology on the effective execution human resource management is not devastating as the impact that culture has. Culture as compared with technology is more attached to human resource than technology; technology can be adopted by any culture since it is always something new and can easily be accepted by diverse cultures. One group of people cannot allow an organization to undermine their culture hence the barrier created by culture is more strong compared to technology. Compared to cultural impact economical impact The economy of a nation or the world is also another factor that has an impact on the execution of effective human resource management; it is found that 86 percent of organizations are reported to have their human resource to be affected by the financial markets every year. Increased communication within the companies is the change that the majority companies have completed so far to counter the economic impact. Other action that has been taken is the restraint of voyage policies, establishment of hiring freezes and raising the employee participation to healthiness premiums and layoff (Kaplan, 2004).From the above analysis on the actions that companies have taken to counter the impact of economy on the execution of effective human resource management, it is clear that the effect of economic impact is greatly reduced compared to the impact of the culture(Millmore, 2007). When the right measures are but in place and implemented, companies will not expect layoffs or reduction of labor force, hiring freezes will unheard of and the increment in employee contribution towards healthcare will be minimized. The legal framework impact compared to cultural impact There are a set of laws and regulation that govern the running of any business entity in any nation; these legislations vary from one country to another. Some of the examples of the law include federal laws and other laws that are handling within the political and administrative framework of a particular nation. Federal Laws that include payment of income tax are enforced to any individual or organization that is doing business within a particular country (Millmore, 2007).The legal frame work of a nation cannot be a great hindrance to effective execution of human resource management, this is due to the fact that any country has it legal framework and therefore any organization can adopt and keep the law of the nation of interest easily because the law are always related, hence it is easier to cope with the impacts of legal fame work than that of culture to human resource management. Political impact compared to cultural impact. The political forces in any country have an impact on the human resource of any business organization. Politics has a way of influencing the way people work since legislation is a political endeavor, the law that govern the human resource management in any nation are produced by the political forces. Political forces can also cause problems like wars or coup making the work force in multinational organisation to run for their lives(Millmore, 2007). Political forces that affect human resource manage are few hence have no great impact compared to culture. Conclusion In conclusion, the study of the factor that affects effective execution of human resource management is of great significance since it gives an opportunity for multinational organizations to consider the point of consideration when solving the problems that face them(Kaplan, 2004). As it has been found out that culture is the most problematic factor and therefore much consideration has to be put in solving it impact. It should be noted that other factors should also be considered since the business cannot run effectively when they are ignored, however due to the increasing level of globalization and high competition in international business organisation human resource management policies have put into context with the culture of the country where business is done. This will heighten the performance of any organisation. References Farrell, D. (2007). Compensation, Organizational Strategy, and Firm Performance. new york: blackwell publishing ltd. Gomez-Mejia, L. R. (2004). Effect of Occupation on Task Related, Contextual, and Job Involvement Orientation: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. accademy of management journal , 66- 69. Gomez-Mejia, L. R. (1998). Evaluating Employee Performance: Does the Appraisal Instrument Make a Difference? Journal of organisational behavior management , 103-106. Kaplan, M. (2004). Cultural ergonomics. washington D.C: washinton university press. Lawless, M. W. (2005). Advances in global high-technology management. new york: JAI. Millmore, M. (2007). strategic humam resource management. new york : financial tinmes prentice hall. Read More