GE- McKinsey

IMPORTANCE OF HRM FOR SUCCESSFUL INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC ALLIANCES

Outline the importance of human resources management for the successful operation of international strategic alliances. Assess the significance of the major problems encountered by partners in the design and implementation of effective human resources management practices.

Introduction

In the ever competitive, challenging and dynamic business environment, businesses no longer able to stay alone or to compete effectively with other businesses in the ever globalized world. Today, competition is leveled to the extent whereby a network of companies is competing with another network of companies. A single entity or corporations is hard to survive or to fulfilled the ever demanding customers’ needs and expectations, while it is also not effective for only a company to compete against the well-established network of competitors. In fact, the competition between businesses had intensified in the recent years in an ever globalized and integrated world, whereby business cooperation or strategic alliances had extent beyond borders. Today, businesses are partnering with businesses from other nations, to form stronger partnership or collaborations between businesses of different countries for different types of benefits.

In the context of international strategic alliances, one highly critical issue to be aware of by senior management is the human resources management (HRM) practices or system to be applied in the organizations involved in the strategic alliances (Dessler, 2011). Although many HRM issues that is critical for an organization persist in managing people in the international strategic alliances context, the people management issues is more complex in an international strategic alliances arrangement, due to potentially distinctively different cross cultural and social factors. Thus, in this article, the importance of HRM for successful implementation of international strategic alliance will be discussed. Furthermore, the problems faced in the implementation and design of effective HRM practices that could be encountered by partners in the design and implementation of effective HRM will be discussed as well.

Importance of HRM for Successful International Strategic Alliances

In business management, human resources management is a very important area to be managed, as human are ultimately the key contributors towards the success or failure of an organization. In fact, in the ever competitive business environment, the requirements of human resources management are becoming more prevalent. Firstly, as the world enter into a knowledge based economy, people skills and competencies had now replace the other sources of competitive advantages, such as capital, machinery or other forms of business assets in determining the relative performance of a firm in the challenging world. Secondly, as the business landscape is becoming more competitive, businesses are competing to recruit and retain talents in the organization. Talent wars are not something uncommon today. Thus, all these are causing that HRM is increasingly important to an organization in the new economy system.

In such a scenario, the importance of HRM is becoming more obvious and prevalent as the businesses expand towards the global arena for bigger market shares, to growth and profitability, as well as to reach better economies of scale or stronger brand name in the world. In the context of international strategic alliances or partnerships, human capital has been the key criteria determining the degree of successfulness or effectiveness of cross countries collaboration or alliances (Ming, 2002). This is because cross cultural or cross nations expansion and collaborations are complex and complicated process, whereby the organization must become more changeable, adaptable, flexible and responsible in the different business environment, due to the differences and sometimes, even contradictory social cultural environment and consumers preferences, attitudes and behaviors. In facing with the challenges to operate or cooperate in a different business environment, it is becoming more important for the corporations to have smart, talented, dynamic and motivated employees to deal with the challenges troubling the firms in daily operations or decision making process. In such a scenario, HRM is very important in assisting a firm to become more effective and successful in the international strategic alliances process. Besides, from another perspective, HRM is also crucial to ensure effective and proper management within the organization. HRM is not only crucial towards achievement for success of competitive advantages of international strategic alliances in the external environment, but is also very important in coordinating smooth, responsive and effective operations internally. Within the firm, HRM is crucial to bring the people, primarily from different cultural background, of different behaviors, attitudes, beliefs and assumptions into a team (Dessler, 2011) that can focus and work together in the accomplishment of the corporation missions and visions.

In fact, the importance of HRM in international strategic alliances is nothing can be denied by the practitioners, as people have been observing that cross nations or cross cultural alliances have been hard to achieve success due to people issues (Berrell et. al., 1999). This can be witnessed by the abundance of literature of cross nation or international strategic alliances to be linked to the issues of human resources management. This is nothing hard to understand, as managing of people and workforce is complex, particularly in the context of managing people from different cultural settings. Besides, when people of different background and cultural settings interact, the psychological process due to the interaction can be complex, dynamic and hardly predictable. Thus, it is not hard to see that researchers are arguing that cross cultural management is a new topic to be taught to business students, and in the context of real world corporation business management, to the many employees. It is argued extensively that education, training and development of employees related to cross cultural issues, in terms of cross cultural interaction, and alliances is critical for any firms to become effective in collaborating with other firms from other nations.

Problems Faced in Implementation and Design of Effective HRM Practices

As argued above, the importance of HRM towards successful design or implementation of international strategic alliances is not something that can be denied. Nonetheless, although the importance of HRM is acknowledged, the challenges or problems usually faced by management in the context of international strategic alliances are something worth discussing. It is very crucial to understand and investigate these issues in depth, so that as the managers understand the potential challenges or difficulties, they can set their expectations accurately and plan in advance to deal with these problems or challenges.

Employee Selection Process. 

One of the key issues of international strategic alliances in the context of HRM is the staffing process to be employed in the joint venture or alliances. Staffing can be crucial as people may be highly sensitive to the appointment of people to fill the different positions in the joint venture. For example, one very sensitive issue is about who should take the leadership position, and in case of conflicts, who has the main say to deal with the difficult decision making process. Besides, the leadership of key management positions is sensitive as each partner will definitely want to appoint their personnel to safeguard their respective interests and well beings in the strategic alliances. Not only is that, it is also crucial to understand if the personnel appointed understand the cross cultural different and able to lead the people from diverse background, social cultural settings or mindset toward achievement of the goals set forwards in the international strategic alliances. In many joint ventures, the operations fail badly due to the fact that people from one side do not want to obey the order sincerely from the management, whom is appointed from the other partner. It is also not something uncommon that the key leader appointed simply unable to lead the diverse workforce, and had made deadly wrong decisions in managing the people.

Reward System. 

Apart from that, another common problem faced in international is about the promotional process in the alliances. For this issue, it tends to arise when the parent companies send certain personnel from the parent companies to work in the joint venture. As the career path design and the HRM system or practices in the parent companies may be distinctively different from that of the system employed in the joint venture, these personnel may face harder promotional issues in the newly formed strategic alliances. Besides, people may not be willing to try out new things, or to face the risk of uncertain career path or promotional opportunities when they are asked to join the new venture. Thus, overall, it is crucial to understand that the differences between promotional opportunities of the concerning promotional system or career path designed for the employees may be working against the senior management intention to send the relevant or best people to spearhead the joint venture. The system to attract good staffs to the new joint venture is critical and impactful towards affecting if experienced staffs are willing to take up the risks to participate in a new business venture under the international strategic alliance. It is crucial for the firm to understand how the reward system differ from the parents companies to that of the new joint venture. It can be reasonably expected that people may need time to get accustomed to the new rewards system and to make sense of that system. Besides, there are also questions if the reward system is relevant and effective in managing workforce. If the reward system is not designed properly, people simply may not able to work effectively (Ming, 2002), or to adopt different attitudes to gaming the reward system for personal benefits.

Performance Management System. 

Similar to the reward system, the performance management system in the newly formed joint venture between two companies in the international context may not be effective or accurate in managing the workforce. For example, it is definitely not easy to decide which companies’ performance management system to be used in the newly formed joint venture. Besides, it is also challenging to decide which companies’ performance appraisal or management system to be adopted in the new venture, and if these policies, practices or procedure will require adjustment or amendment to fit the local context. Negotiation between the two parents companies may be a long process. However, it is reasonable also to expect that if the agreed upon performance management system can effectively guide and lead the employee performance in the newly formed corporations. In this issue, the different cultural settings, or workforce mindset, assumptions, expectations and educational background may be great challenges to be handled (Thang et. al., 2007). In fact, it is also reasonable and mind boggling to ask if there really exist any effective or great performance management system to manage people of different cultural, experiences, educational or social background (Matveev et. al., 2004).

Employees’ Loyalty. 

Not only is that, there are also issues of employees loyalty in the newly formed joint venture under the theme of international strategic alliances. As people may be transferred from the parent companies to the new joint venture, it is uncertain if the staffs working under the new joint venture are loyal to the new company. Besides, it is also issues if the people from different companies can work together effectively, with trustful relationships among the many staffs in the new venture. This is important as the degree of trust will affect how people interact. For example, without trust within the people, people may not able to work effective for common goals, to share ideas, to support each other and to work in a team for better performance and attainment of certain organizational objectives. When trust does not present, conflicts between people can be more serious and frequent, and when that happen, people no longer able to work effective, or simply to concentrate on the work, but instead engage in detrimental or non-productive activities to deal with the tricky situations or non trustworthy staffs from the other parent companies.

Decision Making Process. 

When two different entity, particularly those with different corporate culture or corporate values, meet together, there is bound to have huge problems in the decision making process of the newly formed joint venture. For example, people from different corporations may have very different rules or practices in decision making process, as they are guided by different cultural factors of values previously. People are likely to get stunned when they found that the people from other side of the partner tend to have very different ideas, and judgmental rulers in the decision making process’ particularly one that is contradicting or opposing to their current beliefs or practices. Thus conflicts management within the organization between the staffs are crucial and indeed, not to be ignored. There must be proper ways to solve the conflicts between people in the organization, and how to utilize the different ideas, and the advantages offered by the diversity of workforce for better achievement and performance in the newly formed company. In fact, as we had discussed above, the decision to choose who is the key person that can make the ultimate decisions are crucial to the success of any joint venture. The practices or policies must be fair, and take the interests of both parties involved in the international strategic alliances into account before any materials decision is to be made.

Cross cultural communication. 

As discussed before, cultural differences between people in the context of international strategic alliances is the key barrier preventing effective or successful joint venture between many firms from the west to firms in the east. In fact, the culture between different regions of the world is so obvious that researchers have developed different framework to characterize the different cultural dimensions between people around the world. According to Hofstede (2003), cultural differences can be analyzed from four key dimensions, such as high or low power distance, individualism or collectivism culture, either masculinity or femininity, and lastly, either high or low uncertainty avoidance. All these will certainly affect the effectiveness of cross cultural communication, as people may not see eyes to eyes or able to understand the intended meanings to be conveyed by the counterparty of different cultural background (Harvey et. al., 2002). In fact, in many of the instances, people may simply not able to realize they the way they behave or communicate had already offended the other with different cultural beliefs or assumptions. Thus, it is important for management to understand the difficulties of communication within the joint venture, and to understand if the information technologies or communication channels available in the joint venture is effective and relevant. There are also challenges to which how the management can set up best practices to aid the accurate communication process between people from different cultural or social background. In event that the people are not able to speak a same language (Matveev et. al., 2004), the challenges in the strategic alliances is even more critical.

Unfamiliarity or cultural shocks. 

Depending on the location of the joint venture, there is bound to have unfamiliarity or cultural shocks of certain people in the new environment (Awang et. al., 2010). For example, when people working in the UK is sent to take up managerial expatriate roles in the new company in China, these expatriates will certainly faced some degree of unfamiliarity and challenges to adapt to the new business or workplace environment. Thus, it is important for the senior management to understand that such issues of unfamiliarity can be great impendent to proper performance from these employees, which definitely need certain time frame to suit the new business landscape or workplace (Dunbar et. al., 1990). The learning curve of these expatriates can be steep (Hogan et. al., 1990). Thus, it is crucial for HRM personnel to develop effective training and development program to assist these expatriate to become more culturally fit in the different environment (Caudron, 1991).

Conclusion

Overall, this paper had discussed the how the competition landscape in business environment around the world had evolved. Today, businesses are competing in a network manner, where companies are required to partner with other strategic partners for mutual benefits in the every challenging marketplace. This gave rise to the issues of international strategic alliances. As the competition is becoming more global, and the process of globalization is not expected to be reversible, international strategic alliances are not something that can be ignored by business managers or academicians. In fact, this article had also discussed extensively on how HRM are important in the context of international strategic alliances. In the first part of the writing, it is argued that human resources management is crucial for the success and superior performance of the joint venture. This is not hard to understand as people is the moving forces that work together in a team under a joint venture between firms from different culture or nations, towards achievement of the predefined company or cooperation objectives. In the second part, the challenges, problems, common issues as well as the difficulties faced by managers in international strategic alliances are discussed. All these are critical as it provide accurate awareness and expectation for managers to ponder upon before they enter into any strategic alliances across nations or culture.

References & Bibliography

Awang, F., & Roach-Duncan, J. (2010). Cultural differences and their effects on conflict resolution in business settings. Cultural Differences and Conflict Resolution, 27-26.

Berrell, M., Wright, P., & Hoa, T. T. V. (1999). The influence of culture on managerial behaviour. The Journal of Management Development, 18(7), 578-589.

Caudron, S. (1991). Training ensures success overseas. Personnel Journal. 70(12), 27-30.

Dessler, G. (2011) Human Resource Management ,12th edition,   Prentice Hall,

Dunbar, E., & Katcher, A. (1990). Preparing managers for foreign assignments. Training & Development Journal, 44(9), 45-47.

Dyer, L., & Holder, G. W. (1988). A strategic perspective of HRM. In L. Dyer & G.W. Holder (Eds.), Human Resource Management: Evolving Roles and Responsibilities. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs.

Fisher, G. B., & Hartel, E. J. (2003). Cross-cultural effectiveness of Western expatriate – Thai client interactions: lessons learned for IHRM Research and Theory. Cross Cultural Management, 10(4), 4-26.

Harvey, M. G., & Griffith, D. A. (2002). Developing effective intercultural relationships: the importance of communication strategies. Thunderbird International Business Review, 44(5), 455-476.

Hofstede, G. (1993). Cultural constraints in management theories. The Executive, 7(1), 81-93.

Hogan, G. W., & Goodson, J. R. (1990). The key to expatriate success. Training and Development Journal, 44(1), 50-52.

Li, X., and Putterill, M. (2007). Strategy implications of business culture differences between Japan and China. Business Strategy Series, 8(2), 148-154.

Martinsons, M. G., & Ma, D. (2009). Sub-cultural differences in information ethics across China: focus on Chinese Management Generation Gaps. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 10, 816-833.

Matveev, A. V., & Nelson, P. E. (2004). Cross cultural communication competence and multicultural team performance. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 4(2), 253-270.

Ming, W. (2002). Strategic Human Resource Management. Academy of Chongqing Institute of Commerce: Beijing.

Ramalu, S. S., Rose, R. C., Uli, J., & Kumar, N. (2010).Personality and cross cultural adjustment among expatriate assignees in Malaysia. International Business Research, 3(4), 96-101.

Siljanen, T. & Lamsa, A. M. (2009). The changing nature of expatriation: exploring cross-cultural adaptation through narrativity. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 20(7), 1468-1486.

Stening, B. W. (1994). Expatriate management: lessons from the British in India. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 5(2), 385-404.

Thang, L. C., Rowley, C., Quang, T., & Warner, M. (2007). To what extent can management practices be transferred between countries?: The case of human resource management in Vietnam. Journal of World Business, 42(1), 113.

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Essential Skills HR need...

What essential skills will HR need in 2018?

Constant disruption and new innovations are shaking up how people work, and the HR profession is not immune to these changes

Employees don't want feedback, they want attention

by HRD12 Jul 2018

Digital disruption is presenting HR professionals with a range of new challenges, changing the nature of roles and the expectations of employees.

So what are the key challenges for HR that will intensify as the pace of change quickens over the coming years?

Firstly, we are living in an age where nobody wants to work for the same company forever, according to Jason Averbook, author of the new book The Ultimate Guide to a Digital Workforce Experience - Leap for a Purpose.

“We live in a very curious world where people will not simply show up to the same company and spend 30 years there,” he told HRD.

Averbook said that in this world, switching jobs is front and center of people’s minds and there’s a major reason for that: technology.

“We see opportunities better than we’ve ever seen them before,” he said. “If you think about it, not that long ago the main way that people found out about new job openings was by reading the newspaper.”

“These days the world has visibility to new jobs and new opportunities every day. The barriers of entry to trying new things are completely different.”

Averbook believes that in this climate HR really has to change their focus from jobs to actual tasks.

“I think that’s probably one of the biggest changes that will impact HR ever,” he said.

“We are going to increasingly break down how work gets done into tasks and we already live in a world where contractors are common.”

Averbook said that the second key challenge is dealing with the fact that every employee is “dying for attention”.

“We live in a world where we post things on Instagram and Facebook - we live in this concept of an ‘attention economy’ - yet many employers don’t have effective strategies to give their workforces attention,” said Averbook.

“What they get is feedback, but employees don’t want feedback, they want attention.

“If you say to your spouse or partner ‘I’ve got to give you some feedback’ they are not going to respond by saying ‘yes, I’ve been waiting for feedback for a long time’.”

Averbook added that HR should really think about how they can deliver attention so that they can assure employees that they are listening and focusing on them.

This involves looking at questions such as: What’s the employee value proposition of working here? How do I deliver new ways of rewarding people? How do I deliver new ways of training people which they see as attention?

Finally, Averbook said that the third challenge centers around “thinking digital first”.

At the recent ServiceNow Knowledge 18 Conference in Las Vegas, Averbook told the audience that “HR is one of the oldest professions in the world”.

“We have been doing things forever the same way, doing all these processes the same way,” he said.

“If we really think about the digital world we live in today, we really need to think digital first.”

Averbook said this is going to involve focusing on the “next generation of the digital workforce technology”.

“How do I make sure that I am delivering technology to you that is going to add value, that is going to give you attention and that is going to deliver you the services that you need to help you do your job?”

“It’s so important to look at what’s the value of what we are going to do from a workforce lens, not from an HR lens.”

Jason Averbrook is co-founder and CEO of Leapgen, an international consulting and education firm.

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HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT IMPORTANCE OF HRM FOR SUCCESSFUL INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC ALLIANCES

BusinessEssays.net

HRM for Successful International Strategic Alliances


Outline the importance of human resources management for the successful operation of international strategic alliances. Assess the significance of the major problems encountered by partners in the design and implementation of effective human resources management practices.



Introduction
In the ever competitive, challenging and dynamic business environment, businesses no longer able to stay alone or to compete effectively with other businesses in the ever globalized world. Today, competition is leveled to the extent whereby a network of companies is competing with another network of companies. A single entity or corporations is hard to survive or to fulfilled the ever demanding customers’ needs and expectations, while it is also not effective for only a company to compete against the well-established network of competitors. In fact, the competition between businesses had intensified in the recent years in an ever globalized and integrated world, whereby business cooperation or strategic alliances had extent beyond borders. Today, businesses are partnering with businesses from other nations, to form stronger partnership or collaborations between businesses of different countries for different types of benefits.

In the context of international strategic alliances, one highly critical issue to be aware of by senior management is the human resources management (HRM) practices or system to be applied in the organizations involved in the strategic alliances (Dessler, 2011). Although many HRM issues that is critical for an organization persist in managing people in the international strategic alliances context, the people management issues is more complex in an international strategic alliances arrangement, due to potentially distinctively different cross cultural and social factors. Thus, in this article, the importance of HRM for successful implementation of international strategic alliance will be discussed. Furthermore, the problems faced in the implementation and design of effective HRM practices that could be encountered by partners in the design and implementation of effective HRM will be discussed as well.

Importance of HRM for Successful International Strategic Alliances
In business management, human resources management is a very important area to be managed, as human are ultimately the key contributors towards the success or failure of an organization. In fact, in the ever competitive business environment, the requirements of human resources management are becoming more prevalent. Firstly, as the world enter into a knowledge based economy, people skills and competencies had now replace the other sources of competitive advantages, such as capital, machinery or other forms of business assets in determining the relative performance of a firm in the challenging world. Secondly, as the business landscape is becoming more competitive, businesses are competing to recruit and retain talents in the organization. Talent wars are not something uncommon today. Thus, all these are causing that HRM is increasingly important to an organization in the new economy system.

In such a scenario, the importance of HRM is becoming more obvious and prevalent as the businesses expand towards the global arena for bigger market shares, to growth and profitability, as well as to reach better economies of scale or stronger brand name in the world. In the context of international strategic alliances or partnerships, human capital has been the key criteria determining the degree of successfulness or effectiveness of cross countries collaboration or alliances (Ming, 2002). This is because cross cultural or cross nations expansion and collaborations are complex and complicated process, whereby the organization must become more changeable, adaptable, flexible and responsible in the different business environment, due to the differences and sometimes, even contradictory social cultural environment and consumers preferences, attitudes and behaviors. In facing with the challenges to operate or cooperate in a different business environment, it is becoming more important for the corporations to have smart, talented, dynamic and motivated employees to deal with the challenges troubling the firms in daily operations or decision making process. In such a scenario, HRM is very important in assisting a firm to become more effective and successful in the international strategic alliances process. Besides, from another perspective, HRM is also crucial to ensure effective and proper management within the organization. HRM is not only crucial towards achievement for success of competitive advantages of international strategic alliances in the external environment, but is also very important in coordinating smooth, responsive and effective operations internally. Within the firm, HRM is crucial to bring the people, primarily from different cultural background, of different behaviors, attitudes, beliefs and assumptions into a team (Dessler, 2011) that can focus and work together in the accomplishment of the corporation missions and visions.

In fact, the importance of HRM in international strategic alliances is nothing can be denied by the practitioners, as people have been observing that cross nations or cross cultural alliances have been hard to achieve success due to people issues (Berrell et. al., 1999). This can be witnessed by the abundance of literature of cross nation or international strategic alliances to be linked to the issues of human resources management. This is nothing hard to understand, as managing of people and workforce is complex, particularly in the context of managing people from different cultural settings. Besides, when people of different background and cultural settings interact, the psychological process due to the interaction can be complex, dynamic and hardly predictable. Thus, it is not hard to see that researchers are arguing that cross cultural management is a new topic to be taught to business students, and in the context of real world corporation business management, to the many employees. It is argued extensively that education, training and development of employees related to cross cultural issues, in terms of cross cultural interaction, and alliances is critical for any firms to become effective in collaborating with other firms from other nations.

Problems Faced in Implementation and Design of Effective HRM Practices
As argued above, the importance of HRM towards successful design or implementation of international strategic alliances is not something that can be denied. Nonetheless, although the importance of HRM is acknowledged, the challenges or problems usually faced by management in the context of international strategic alliances are something worth discussing. It is very crucial to understand and investigate these issues in depth, so that as the managers understand the potential challenges or difficulties, they can set their expectations accurately and plan in advance to deal with these problems or challenges.

Employee Selection Process. One of the key issues of international strategic alliances in the context of HRM is the staffing process to be employed in the joint venture or alliances. Staffing can be crucial as people may be highly sensitive to the appointment of people to fill the different positions in the joint venture. For example, one very sensitive issue is about who should take the leadership position, and in case of conflicts, who has the main say to deal with the difficult decision making process. Besides, the leadership of key management positions is sensitive as each partner will definitely want to appoint their personnel to safeguard their respective interests and well beings in the strategic alliances. Not only is that, it is also crucial to understand if the personnel appointed understand the cross cultural different and able to lead the people from diverse background, social cultural settings or mindset toward achievement of the goals set forwards in the international strategic alliances. In many joint ventures, the operations fail badly due to the fact that people from one side do not want to obey the order sincerely from the management, whom is appointed from the other partner. It is also not something uncommon that the key leader appointed simply unable to lead the diverse workforce, and had made deadly wrong decisions in managing the people.

Reward System. Apart from that, another common problem faced in international is about the promotional process in the alliances. For this issue, it tends to arise when the parent companies send certain personnel from the parent companies to work in the joint venture. As the career path design and the HRM system or practices in the parent companies may be distinctively different from that of the system employed in the joint venture, these personnel may face harder promotional issues in the newly formed strategic alliances. Besides, people may not be willing to try out new things, or to face the risk of uncertain career path or promotional opportunities when they are asked to join the new venture. Thus, overall, it is crucial to understand that the differences between promotional opportunities of the concerning promotional system or career path designed for the employees may be working against the senior management intention to send the relevant or best people to spearhead the joint venture. The system to attract good staffs to the new joint venture is critical and impactful towards affecting if experienced staffs are willing to take up the risks to participate in a new business venture under the international strategic alliance. It is crucial for the firm to understand how the reward system differ from the parents companies to that of the new joint venture. It can be reasonably expected that people may need time to get accustomed to the new rewards system and to make sense of that system. Besides, there are also questions if the reward system is relevant and effective in managing workforce. If the reward system is not designed properly, people simply may not able to work effectively (Ming, 2002), or to adopt different attitudes to gaming the reward system for personal benefits.

Performance Management System. Similar to the reward system, the performance management system in the newly formed joint venture between two companies in the international context may not be effective or accurate in managing the workforce. For example, it is definitely not easy to decide which companies’ performance management system to be used in the newly formed joint venture. Besides, it is also challenging to decide which companies’ performance appraisal or management system to be adopted in the new venture, and if these policies, practices or procedure will require adjustment or amendment to fit the local context. Negotiation between the two parents companies may be a long process. However, it is reasonable also to expect that if the agreed upon performance management system can effectively guide and lead the employee performance in the newly formed corporations. In this issue, the different cultural settings, or workforce mindset, assumptions, expectations and educational background may be great challenges to be handled (Thang et. al., 2007). In fact, it is also reasonable and mind boggling to ask if there really exist any effective or great performance management system to manage people of different cultural, experiences, educational or social background (Matveev et. al., 2004).

Employees’ Loyalty. Not only is that, there are also issues of employees loyalty in the newly formed joint venture under the theme of international strategic alliances. As people may be transferred from the parent companies to the new joint venture, it is uncertain if the staffs working under the new joint venture are loyal to the new company. Besides, it is also issues if the people from different companies can work together effectively, with trustful relationships among the many staffs in the new venture. This is important as the degree of trust will affect how people interact. For example, without trust within the people, people may not able to work effective for common goals, to share ideas, to support each other and to work in a team for better performance and attainment of certain organizational objectives. When trust does not present, conflicts between people can be more serious and frequent, and when that happen, people no longer able to work effective, or simply to concentrate on the work, but instead engage in detrimental or non-productive activities to deal with the tricky situations or non trustworthy staffs from the other parent companies.

Decision Making Process. When two different entity, particularly those with different corporate culture or corporate values, meet together, there is bound to have huge problems in the decision making process of the newly formed joint venture. For example, people from different corporations may have very different rules or practices in decision making process, as they are guided by different cultural factors of values previously. People are likely to get stunned when they found that the people from other side of the partner tend to have very different ideas, and judgmental rulers in the decision making process’ particularly one that is contradicting or opposing to their current beliefs or practices. Thus conflicts management within the organization between the staffs are crucial and indeed, not to be ignored. There must be proper ways to solve the conflicts between people in the organization, and how to utilize the different ideas, and the advantages offered by the diversity of workforce for better achievement and performance in the newly formed company. In fact, as we had discussed above, the decision to choose who is the key person that can make the ultimate decisions are crucial to the success of any joint venture. The practices or policies must be fair, and take the interests of both parties involved in the international strategic alliances into account before any materials decision is to be made.

Cross cultural communication. As discussed before, cultural differences between people in the context of international strategic alliances is the key barrier preventing effective or successful joint venture between many firms from the west to firms in the east. In fact, the culture between different regions of the world is so obvious that researchers have developed different framework to characterize the different cultural dimensions between people around the world. According to Hofstede (2003), cultural differences can be analyzed from four key dimensions, such as high or low power distance, individualism or collectivism culture, either masculinity or femininity, and lastly, either high or low uncertainty avoidance. All these will certainly affect the effectiveness of cross cultural communication, as people may not see eyes to eyes or able to understand the intended meanings to be conveyed by the counterparty of different cultural background (Harvey et. al., 2002). In fact, in many of the instances, people may simply not able to realize they the way they behave or communicate had already offended the other with different cultural beliefs or assumptions. Thus, it is important for management to understand the difficulties of communication within the joint venture, and to understand if the information technologies or communication channels available in the joint venture is effective and relevant. There are also challenges to which how the management can set up best practices to aid the accurate communication process between people from different cultural or social background. In event that the people are not able to speak a same language (Matveev et. al., 2004), the challenges in the strategic alliances is even more critical.

Unfamiliarity or cultural shocks. Depending on the location of the joint venture, there is bound to have unfamiliarity or cultural shocks of certain people in the new environment (Awang et. al., 2010). For example, when people working in the UK is sent to take up managerial expatriate roles in the new company in China, these expatriates will certainly faced some degree of unfamiliarity and challenges to adapt to the new business or workplace environment. Thus, it is important for the senior management to understand that such issues of unfamiliarity can be great impendent to proper performance from these employees, which definitely need certain time frame to suit the new business landscape or workplace (Dunbar et. al., 1990). The learning curve of these expatriates can be steep (Hogan et. al., 1990). Thus, it is crucial for HRM personnel to develop effective training and development program to assist these expatriate to become more culturally fit in the different environment (Caudron, 1991).

Conclusion
Overall, this paper had discussed the how the competition landscape in business environment around the world had evolved. Today, businesses are competing in a network manner, where companies are required to partner with other strategic partners for mutual benefits in the every challenging marketplace. This gave rise to the issues of international strategic alliances. As the competition is becoming more global, and the process of globalization is not expected to be reversible, international strategic alliances are not something that can be ignored by business managers or academicians. In fact, this article had also discussed extensively on how HRM are important in the context of international strategic alliances. In the first part of the writing, it is argued that human resources management is crucial for the success and superior performance of the joint venture. This is not hard to understand as people is the moving forces that work together in a team under a joint venture between firms from different culture or nations, towards achievement of the predefined company or cooperation objectives. In the second part, the challenges, problems, common issues as well as the difficulties faced by managers in international strategic alliances are discussed. All these are critical as it provide accurate awareness and expectation for managers to ponder upon before they enter into any strategic alliances across nations or culture.

References & Bibliography
Awang, F., & Roach-Duncan, J. (2010). Cultural differences and their effects on conflict resolution in business settings. Cultural Differences and Conflict Resolution, 27-26.

Berrell, M., Wright, P., & Hoa, T. T. V. (1999). The influence of culture on managerial behaviour. The Journal of Management Development, 18(7), 578-589.

Caudron, S. (1991). Training ensures success overseas. Personnel Journal. 70(12), 27-30.

Dessler, G. (2011) Human Resource Management ,12th edition,   Prentice Hall,

Dunbar, E., & Katcher, A. (1990). Preparing managers for foreign assignments. Training & Development Journal, 44(9), 45-47.

Dyer, L., & Holder, G. W. (1988). A strategic perspective of HRM. In L. Dyer & G.W. Holder (Eds.), Human Resource Management: Evolving Roles and Responsibilities. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs.

Fisher, G. B., & Hartel, E. J. (2003). Cross-cultural effectiveness of Western expatriate – Thai client interactions: lessons learned for IHRM Research and Theory. Cross Cultural Management, 10(4), 4-26.

Harvey, M. G., & Griffith, D. A. (2002). Developing effective intercultural relationships: the importance of communication strategies. Thunderbird International Business Review, 44(5), 455-476.

Hofstede, G. (1993). Cultural constraints in management theories. The Executive, 7(1), 81-93.

Hogan, G. W., & Goodson, J. R. (1990). The key to expatriate success. Training and Development Journal, 44(1), 50-52.

Li, X., and Putterill, M. (2007). Strategy implications of business culture differences between Japan and China. Business Strategy Series, 8(2), 148-154.

Martinsons, M. G., & Ma, D. (2009). Sub-cultural differences in information ethics across China: focus on Chinese Management Generation Gaps. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 10, 816-833.

Matveev, A. V., & Nelson, P. E. (2004). Cross cultural communication competence and multicultural team performance. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 4(2), 253-270.

Ming, W. (2002). Strategic Human Resource Management. Academy of Chongqing Institute of Commerce: Beijing.

Ramalu, S. S., Rose, R. C., Uli, J., & Kumar, N. (2010).Personality and cross cultural adjustment among expatriate assignees in Malaysia. International Business Research, 3(4), 96-101.

Siljanen, T. & Lamsa, A. M. (2009). The changing nature of expatriation: exploring cross-cultural adaptation through narrativity. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 20(7), 1468-1486.

Stening, B. W. (1994). Expatriate management: lessons from the British in India. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 5(2), 385-404.

Thang, L. C., Rowley, C., Quang, T., & Warner, M. (2007). To what extent can management practices be transferred between countries?: The case of human resource management in Vietnam. Journal of World Business, 42(1), 113.



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6 Effective Styles of Leadership

By BMA June 2, 2016 Leadership
Leadership strategy illustrated by businessman playing chess game.Leadership involves guiding a particular group of people towards a common goal. Each organization and individual may use different styles of leadership at different times.

The style of leadership used should draw the best out of the employees. Leadership is more about the needs of the organization rather than the needs of individuals.

Here are 6 leadership styles and when to apply each.

Participative

Participative leadership is where the leader works hard for buy-in by seeking employee input. The leader encourages and involves the employees in management decision making, also ensuring they know their decisions have been heard and considered. Sometimes, the employees are rewarded for their team effort.

This style works best in a steady environment where employees are working together, and the staff has credibility and experience. It is less efficient in crisis or fast-paced situation where there is little time for meetings. The employees must be highly coordinated.

If an organization requires significant internal change, participative leadership is the best style. Workers play a role in the process of minimizing conflicts within the organization.

Affiliative

If the organization needs to bring about a feeling of belonging or bonding to the organization, an affiliative style is more suitable. It is meant to prevent conflict by creating harmony between teammates. It would translate to: people come first.

The style works best when there has been a trauma or any other stress associated with management. It is also effective when the performance of the employees is inadequate. Affiliative leadership complements other leadership styles.

Pacesetting

With pacesetting, the leader models self-direction and excellence. He or she expects employees to do the same. The leader sets a high standard and employees follow the example. The workers managed need to be a team of experts that require little or no coordination. The employees must be highly competent and motivated.

The style is least effective where workloads are heavy and assistance is required from outside parties. Pace-setting can stifle innovation and overwhelm team members.

Authoritative

Authoritative leadership focuses on end goals. The leader drives the employees towards a common vision leaving it up to each to attain. The authoritative style means “Come with me.” It requires the leader to be very firm but fair to the employees. The workers receive feedback on goal attainment as a way of motivation.

The leader should be credible, offering a clear direction and the standards needed. If the leader lacks credibility, the employees will not buy in to in his/her vision. The employees need to be sufficiently developed to require only limited guidance.

Coaching

Coaching is where the leader works on developing individuals with the aim of improving their performance. It is meant to develop the employees’ goals as well as those of the organization. The manager has a development role. Employee motivation comes from providing workers who perform well with greater opportunities.

The style works best for developing employees who need to acquire new skills. They shouldn’t be defiant or unwilling to learn. The leader, on the other hand, has to be an expert and proficient. The style should be applied with caution. Employee self-confidence can suffer, especially if they perceive their leader as micromanaging.

Directive

A directive style is about a manager setting clear requirements for the team. The leader closely controls employees by disciplining them or through the threat of discipline. It works best in times of crisis where deviations are risky. The employees need to be experienced since the style does not support learning and development well. Just like coaching, experienced employees might resent a lack of autonomy.

Adjusting Your Leadership Style

Each organization and leader has to be able to adapt leadership style depending on the situation. Successful leaders adjust to the circumstances, capitalizing on the relative strengths of each style.

CONTEMPORARY AND GENERAL MANAGERIAL ISSUES HIGH PERFORMANCE WORKING (HPW) PRACTICES

Introduction

In the recent decades, the business landscape around the world is becoming highly competitive, and dynamic in nature. Corporations, big and small, have no much choice but to become high performance organizations in the ever competitive business environment. Consistent with such trends and needs, companies are forced to become more performance oriented (Adams-Bloom, 2009). There are many theories and ideas on how to become a high performance corporation or organization, and one of these theories are through implementation of high performance work practices in organization (Etchegaray, 2011). In this article, the various examples and discussions on high performance work practices as well as its importance to organizational success, growth and performance in the competitive marketplace will be discussed. It will be argued that organizations, particularly manufacturing firms, must take the opportunity to adopt High Performance Working (HPW) practices in order to become more successful companies in the future.

Defining High Performance Work

Depending on the perceptions of the researchers or authors, the word ‘performance’ can be defined from various perspectives. In this article, a more comprehensive definition for high performance work practices will be adopted. Here, high performance work practices are referred to those work practices that can be implemented to significantly enhance organizational performance. However, it is also worth to mention that the general popular definition of high performance work practices is often referred to as a set of complementary practices that cover three of the following areas: (a) significant employee involvement practices, (b) the effective human resources practices, and (c) reward management practices (Connolly et. al., 2007). All of these practices in these areas are crucial for organizational performance, as it is not hard to observe that these practices ultimately affect the employees’ performance, commitment and motivation. When people are managed properly and allowed or leaded to perform at their best, to expect a high performance work organization is not something unreasonable.

Literature Review

‘Best-Fit’ versus ‘Best-Practices’

The theories, ideas and arguments about human resources and strategy are complex. In the field of strategic human resources management, there are various perspectives on how organizational success and performance can be achieved. Often, this lead to different school of thought in terms of best human resources management policies. One of the popular perspective on effective human resources management practices or policies are the ‘best-fit’ perspective. According to such perspective, it is argued that the many policies or practices in a firm should be designed in a way mutually supportive and internally consistent with the broad organization strategies, mission and vision. For example, when the human resources management policies are aligned properly to the organization strategies, the firm can attain competitive advantage as the organizational system and policies in the organization are supporting the implementation of intended strategies of that organization in the competitive marketplace (Kaarsemaker et. al., 2006). From another perspective, another perspective, namely the ‘best practices’ perspective suggest that there are certain human resources policies (which include the practices on reward system, employees affairs and many others), that when rightly implemented, can lead to motivated and committed workforce, which in turn will lead the organization towards better performance and success (Gittell et. al., 2010).

As can be seen above, both the argument, either the ‘best-fit’ or ‘best-practices’ are logical and make sense. Depending on the context, it is not hard to find the supporting cases to support the respective arguments. No matter how the arguments are structured, both the perspectives seek to explain the ways in which effective human resources practices and policies can be structured to superior organizational performance. However, there are distinctive differences between the two different ideas. According to the ‘best-fit’ perspective, the formulation of human resources policies and system should firstly consider the organizational strategy. It is highly important for the human resources strategies to match the intended strategies to be implemented, or the strategic directions of a particular organization. It is only after the human resources policies and system are linked to the organizational strategies, high performance is possible. Such a view emphasize on the importance of organizational strategies, because the strategic directions outlined by a firm will be influential towards the best policies and system to be implemented in a firm. In other words, business strategies will drive the other aspect of organization policies as well as human behaviors in a firm.

From another perspective, the ‘best-practices’ view argued that there are certain best practices that must be incorporated into the organization policies, for example, to the human resources management reward system to ensure effective policies being implemented for better organizational performances. Under such a view, organizational strategies are not being emphasized, in the formulation of best practices in organization. This is because when the best practices are being adopted, the talented people in the organization will be motivated and induced to perform at their best (Bae et. al., 2011), and ultimately formulating the relevant organizational strategies for the firm to compete in the complex and dynamic business environment. Ultimately, such a condition will contribute to the attainment of competitive advantages by the firm. Instead of ensuring the mutually supportive and fit between human resources practices to the organization strategies, the mutually compatibility of the various human resources practices are discussed instead (Young et. al., 2010). For examples, the many human resources management practices, such as employee selection, training and development, employment compensation, reward or punishment system, industrial relations, as well as performance management and appraisal system, must be congruent and consistent. When all of these practices are consistent and effective, people can be motivated and become more committed to perform at their best for organizational success and performance in the future.

At first glance, both the theories are contradictory in nature. However, common sense would inform us that both of the views are valid in the real business environment. Depending on the situations, different view may hold true and more viable to contribute to organizational performance. For example, when the management is very certain about the future and the corresponding organizational strategies to be implemented, the ‘best-fit’ view is relevant for the organization. However, when the business environment is too dynamic for any viable long term fixed strategies to be formulated, the ‘best practices’ may be more viable. Both perspectives can be conflict as well. Under the ‘Best Fit view, it can be assumed that the best human resources policies should change according to the organizational strategy. However, under the ‘Best Practices’ view, the respective human resources practices should be universal in nature, as the changes in organizational strategies should not change the already effectively implemented best practices in the organization. Anyway, it can be also viewed that both the ideas can be combined. In many instances, the human resources policies should not conflict with the overall organizational strategy, while at the similar time, should adhere to the best practices discovered by researchers or known to the practitioners. In deeper investigation, it can also be found that no matter which perspective it is, it is argued that congruency is important. Under the ‘Best-Fit’ perspective, both the organizational strategies and human resources policies should be congruence; while under the ‘Best-Practices’ perspective all the human resources practices should be consistent with each others. Thus, it can be induced that in the formulation of best and effective human resources system, policies and practices, the internally consistency and congruency of the various elements of organization strategies and system are crucial.

The Best Performance Work Practices

Under the theoretical framework of Best Performance Work Practices, the best human resources management practices can be separated into three areas, namely: (a) high involvement, (b) human resources practices, and (c) reward and commitment. In the following paragraphs, these areas will be discussed in greater depth.

High involvement. High degree of employee involvement is often perceived as good human resources practices, as employee involvement will enhance the employee commitment towards the job, as well as may well result in greater employees satisfaction (Camps et. al., 2009). Besides, high degree of employee involvement will also often enhance the trust between employees and management, through sincere and constructive communication process. In the era whereby the business environment is so dynamic in nature, high degree of employee involvement is often critical to the success of an organization as it will also empower the employees when they are highly involved in the decision making and implementation process in the organization (Wei et. al., 2010). Not only is that, if the human resources practices are properly implemented, high degree of employees involvement will definitely improve employee’s motivation in workplace. In order to implement the human resources practices for high degree of employee involvement in an organization, several human resources practices can be applied. For example, it is always good practices to circulate important information, such as organizational strategy and performance in a timely and open manner to the employees; having a staff suggestion scheme to collect feedback from the staffs; implementation of total quality management system; cultivating or training up self-development or self-directed team; encourage communication across functional teams; or to adopt the continuous improvement practices in workplace (Wood et. al., 2011).

Human resources practices. In the context of human resources practices, the widely discussed issues are about practices implemented or designed to develop human capital in the organization, in order to enhance the skills, competencies or the attitudes and behaviors of the people working in the organization. All these practices are closely related to the training and development function of the organization. It cannot be denied that developments of the employees are crucial because as the employees have become more competent, more capable and able to perform in a superior manner, the organizational performance will surely be enhanced (Bayo-Moriones et. al., 2010). For example, when the employees are trained to become more customers centric and adopt a better attitudes and mindset in serving customers, the services quality of the organization will be improved. As the customer service quality is enhanced, the organization performance, be it from the reputation or profitability perspective, can sooner or later be increased. Thus, it is very crucial to ensure that employees are well-trained and competent in delivering the proper services to fulfill customers’ needs, expectations and requirements. There are many human resources practices that can be implemented to enhance employees’ competencies as discussed above. For example, employee performance appraisal should be designed in a way to shape the intended employees behaviors and mindset (Zhang et. al., 2009). If the company require service oriented employees, management should appraise the service quality provided by the employees to the customers. When this is done, then it is possible for the management to shape the relevant desired behaviors among the workforce. Besides, having formal feedback session is also critically important. It is important practices to obtain constant feedback from the customers, and to ensure that the employees are informed on the customer’s perception on their services and attitudes. With such practices, employees will be guided by the customers to provide better services to fulfill the customers’ needs and requirements, which is a very important element to ensure better organizational performance in the future. Apart from that, the feedback session between employees with the management team is also very important; as such feedback session will provide the medium and opportunities for each others to understand each other’s expectations and opinions.

In fact, there are also arguments that one of the most crucial and important human resources practices is to have stringent employee selection and recruitment practices (Messersmith et. al., 2010). It is argued that for the organization to perform well, it is important to put the right people at the right place in the right time. Besides, it is also commented that by putting the right people in the right position is the essential art of leadership, as the right candidates will be able to perform the job in a satisfactory manner, with minimal supervision. This will effectively reduce the burdens on the management or leader in the organization. Apart from that, it is also very crucial to have best practices on training and development program in the organization, to enhance the employees’ skills, behaviors and competency under the dynamic business environment. Some other best practices in the context of human resources include: best practices on job design, workforce diversity, programs for continuous development, mentoring system in the organization, as well as any other sort of business models or practices to assist the workforce to perform at their best.

Reward and commitment. Reward system is one of the very important elements in terms of human resource management, as it will ultimately affect how workforce behave, and hence the competitiveness of the organization (Guthrie, 2009). There are many types of reward system. Generally, rewards can be separated into monetary reward or non-monetary rewards. Monetary reward will include salaries, bonuses, stock option, and performance related compensation or profit sharing scheme. In contrast, non-monetary rewards, often very powerful and effective in nature, can include recognition of good works by the employees, employees’ benefits and entitlement, as well as other sort of facilities provided to workforce in workplace. The best practices or effective reward structure is critical, as irrelevant or ineffective reward system will definitely affect the employees behaviors and hence their performance. For example, when employees are rewarded for meeting as much as new prospects, the employees may as well meet as much people as possible to be rewarded, instead of closing the deal, which is a more important and impactful event for the organization.

Apart from that, Pfeffer’s list of seven Human Resources practices for attaining competitive advantage via people management is also often cited ‘best practice’ theory. According to Pfeffer’s list, the seven best human resources practices include: employment security, selective hiring, self-managed team, high compensation contingent on corporate performance, extensive and comprehensive training, reduction of status differences and lastly, sharing of ideas and resources. However, as discussed before, some researchers perceive that best practices are too simplistic, and a common set of best practices can hardly be effective in human management across all types of organization. Thus, under the best-fit point of view, the best-practices are suffering from the following issues: (1) the human practices under the best-practices view may not be aligned with the workforce interests, or even consistent with the social norms or certain legal requirements in certain nations; (2) the best practices view is too simple guidelines, as the business landscape and the organization settings can be more complex (for example, to attain competitive advantage may not be necessary or can be done via those traditional strategy of innovation, cost reduction or quality enhancement); and (3) the best-practices view focus too much on enhancing existing competitive advantage, rather than to be responsive to ongoing situational changes.

Examples of Organizations Adopting High Performance Work Practices

In this section, several organizations, known to have adopted high performance work practices, which have been achieving remarkable organization success and performance, will be discussed. In order to illustrate the importance of High Performance Work Practices in the country, four organizations will be presented; whereby two of the cases will be from the services oriented industry, while another two companies selected are from the manufacturing industry. These companies will be discussed in the following paragraphs.

Aspect Capital. Aspect Capital is a financial services provider firm located in UK. There are a total of approximately 70 employees in the company. In UK, the company is famous for its ability to generate high level of returns on investment in the hedge fund category (McIntosh, 2006). The investment strategies employed by the firm is through quantitative investment techniques (Davis, 2008). The key reasons enabling the company able to achieve such a high performing status is through effective management of people and technology. For example, from the employee involvement perspective, the company has a people culture, which is implemented through a ‘cultural plan’. The company also has effective human resources practices, particularly in the job scope design and performance appraisal. The company has effective practices that demand employees to go all round in training. The company has a comprehensive training and development system, whereby employees are put under on the job training and to undergo job rotation to familiarize with the other areas in the operations of the company. The performance appraisal is also comprehensive. For example, the company appraises the employees against nine attributes, which are designed specifically to be consistent with the attributes the company demands off the workers. In fact, the nine attributes are used to shape the organization culture intended by the management. Besides, the nine attributes is designed to counter the hedge fund industry tendency to use only high pay to attract smart people. Besides, the company is also having unique reward system, which is the Quarterly Individual Bonus, or more specifically named as QUIB. Under the system, both financial and non-financial rewards are provided. For example, besides providing good pay to the employees, the company also recognizes the outstanding employees in meeting.

Bacardi & Martini UK. Bacardi-Martini UK is a famous drinks manufacturer (Mason, 2001). The company is one of the famous market leaders in the beverage segment, producing ‘ready to drink’ products. Accordingly, the company achieves great success through managing change as well as adoption of innovation (Maling, 2009). Besides, the company able manages the people effectively due to its value-based and people culture. There are many effective practices employed by the company. For example, the management consciously removes the communication barriers between senior and shop floor workforce, so that to enhance the trust and communication effectiveness between people in the organization. Besides, the company also has a value-based principles or guidance in the organization to guide and reward the employees. In many instances, the employees are expected to exercise some degree of maturity on decision making, with those organizational values as guidance on how to behave in the dynamic business environment. The organizational values are also used for recruitment purposes, whereby candidates are access if they able to cope with these values, before being selected to join the company. Not only that, the training programs are also tailored specifically, as all the materials are incorporated with the organizational values. Not only is that, the company also establish a profiling system that coordinate the recruitment, progression, training and career improvement of the employees in the organization. Overall, all the many human resources related practices are designed in a mutually supportive and internally consistent manner.

Timpson. Timpson is yet another great example on how best practices can enable organizational success in the dynamic and competitive business environment. It is a good example, to proof that even for business operating under the old economy, such as high street shoes repair and key cutting, one that Timpson is operating in, can still achieve extraordinary success through high performance work practices. Started with its humble beginning, Timpson transform itself from a family business into multi-product high street shop (Moules, 2007), through a people oriented strategy for excellent customer satisfaction and organizational performance. Timpson adopt the upside down management philosophies, in order to create strong leadership, for employees’ empowerment as well as outstanding customers’ services (Graham, 2009). In order to engage employees, the company employ company newsletter to recognize those outstanding employees; while at the same time create the internal competition between stores under the company. Besides, in house trainings are also provided for the employees. Not only is that, the company also has a strict performance related pay structure, to reward the workforce fairly and accordingly (Bridge, 2008).

WL Gore.  WL Gore is the Gore-Tax manufacturer with approximately 400 employees. The company is famous for innovation of the globally used high performance fabrics; that are used in several industries, including industrial, fashion, leisure, electronics as well as medical related segment (Chubb, 2008). The company has a strong organizational culture, and with that organizational culture, the employees are managed effectively. In order to engage the workforce, the company has been utilizing autonomous team as well as adoption of kaizen improvement system. From another perspective, the company is also adopting many types so continuous improvement methods in order to define and enhance the best manufacturing as well as human resources related practices in the organization. Most important, in the performance oriented firm, the employees rewards and compensation is arranged to be 100% related to performance so that particular employees.

Business Performance and Other Factors

It is also worth to mention that the discussion presented above, on High Performance Work Practices may be simplistic in nature. In reality, there are also many other factors affecting the organization performance (Frenkel et. al., 2010). For example, the discussions above largely ignore the environmental or the external forces that may affect the performance of an organization. For instance, in the external environment, as according to the PESTLE framework, possible factors affecting the organizations including political, economic, social cultural, legal, technological and environmental factors. From a different perspective, as outlined by the famous Porter Five Forces framework, the five forces possibly affecting the organizational performance include rivalry among existing competitors, bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threats of new entrants, and threats of substitute products. Thus, it can be seen that the analyses presented in section above are largely concentrated on the internal perspective of a firm. In fact, from the internal perspectives, other factors possibly affecting the performance of a firm include the marketing, financial management, strategic as well as operational management policies in the firm (McBride, 2008). Thus, it is crucial to understand that the determinants affecting organizational performance are a highly complicated one. Although human resources related best practices are one of the very important elements not to be ignored by the management for superior corporations’ performance, the other aspect that may affect organizational performance, as discussed above, should also never be neglected by the management.

Conclusion

As a concluding remark, it can be confidently commented that this essay has already demonstrate the importance of high performance work practices to organizational success and performance. It is shown that many academic researchers have been proofing or finding strong relations between organizational success and performance to the adoption of high performance work practices (Boxall et. al., 2007). Several examples are also provided. In many of the examples, it can be seen that the many high performance work practices can be implemented through a relevant and strong supporting organization culture, proper people management policies and practices, as well as the consistency of high performance work practices to the organizational goals and objectives. It can be see that the many factors of human resources practices should be linked to the performances of employees, which in turn determine the organizational performances. The many high performance work practices can be categorized as the reward practices, human resources practices as well as the practices to engage employees. All these indicate that the high performance work practices, once found and adopted, will be able to bring the company to greater heights. As shown in the cases above, different companies have different high performance work practices, depending on the organizational business nature as well as the management focus. However, several effective human resources practices are universal. For example, comprehensive recruitment, reward system and performance appraisal are not something can be missed. It is very crucial to select the best candidates, and to ensure the newly employed worker able to fit into the organization. Besides, it is also important to ensure fair and performance based reward system, so that employees will work in a more effective manner. All of these are high performance work practices worth researched by management for them to adopt in their respective organization, in the path to become a truly high performing organization in the every competitive and challenging business environment today.

References & Bibliography

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