International Human Resource Management (HRM) Assignment

Running head: IHRM 0
International Human Resource management

IHRM 1
Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................................2
Background analysis of China:.....................................................................................................................2
International Human resource management:.............................................................................................2
Job Design:..................................................................................................................................................2
Organisational structure and culture of Singapore and China:....................................................................3
Hofstede model on China and Singapore:...............................................................................................3
Staffing process:..........................................................................................................................................5
Recruitment:............................................................................................................................................5
Selection:.................................................................................................................................................5
Training and development:.....................................................................................................................6
Remuneration:.........................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion:..................................................................................................................................................7
References:..................................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction:
‘XYZ’ is the company that operates in fashion industry and a big manufacturer of fashionable
footwear for men and women. It is the firm that is very much established in Singapore and wants
to enter the new market of China in order in order to expand the business overseas. As the
company wants to send 10 of its employees to manage the operation in China’s subsidiary, it is
required to analyse the different trends of that country so that proper training can be given to the
expatriates. Examining the various aspects of international human resource management can help
the company to have successful operation overseas (Harzing and Pinnington, 2010).
Background analysis of China:
China is the country that falls under the category of ‘developing country’. It is considered as the
most populous country with approximate 1.404 billion people living there. Thus, it is a potential
market for the company to explore (Chen and Aryee, 2007). It is one of the members of WTO
and has largest trading power. The value of international trade of the county is around US$ 3.87
trillion in 2012. World’s second highest billionaires are from China only and thus the average
purchasing power of the people here is also good. Country has 56 ethnic groups and Han Chinese
is largest in number (Chen and Aryee, 2007). Detailed analysis of the country can be done by
using Hofstede analysis.
International Human resource management:
As ‘XYZ’ is the company that has to establish its operations in the new market thus it is required
by the company to make use of international human resource management. It is the concept that
deals with the ordinary human resource management practices such as recruitment, selection,
staffing etc (Brewster et al.2016). It has been analysed that international human resource
management helps the company to manage all the activities as per the culture and condition of
the overseas country (Harris, Brewster and Sparrow, 2003).

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Job Design:
Job design is about explaining the contents of the job. It is related to design of the tasks and the
responsibilities that are being some by the person hired on a particular job position. It is very
much related to the organisational structure and culture. This is because the culture of the
organisation determines that what tasks need to be done by the person in the company. The
hierarchal levels are also dependent on the culture of the particular organisations (Adler and
Gundersen, 2007). Below discussion clearly describes the cultural differences in Singapore and
China so that XYZ can take initiates to design their job accordingly.
Organisational structure and culture of Singapore and China:
Organisational structure and culture are the aspects that are very much related to each other. It
has been analysed that if a companies like ‘XYZ’ has to go overseas than it has to examine the
structure and cultural values of the Chinese organisation and have to change their own structure
as per the culture of China. As per the discussion of Hofstede model, it has been examined that
Singapore and China are somewhat similar in almost all the dimensions (Adler and Gundersen,
2007). Thus, it can be concluded that XYZ dies not need to make more changes in context of
their policies and stricture of the organisation.
As far as the organisational structure of the companies are considered, it has been analysed that
China is the country where the organisations are too much centralised and there is unequal
distribution of power which is accepted by all. The lower level employees are not considered as
the important part at the time of taking managerial decision and they follow what they are told by
their managers.
Singapore also shows somewhat similar characteristics in terms of organisation structure.
Centralisation of the organisations is very common and here also the employees who work at
lower level are not allowed to give their opinions in decision making (Schein, 2010). Mianzi is
the culture that has been followed in both the countries but ‘Guanxi’ is the cultural aspect of
Chinese people that is more important than the legal considerations in the country. This mean
making connection and this is the only way to conduct a successful business in China for the

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foreign companies. Any of the company that wants to porter in China then it has to understand
the important of Guanxi and have to follow the same.
Hofstede model on China and Singapore:
It is the model that helps in analysing the six cultural dimensions of the countries. This model is
used to compare the two countries (Hofstede, 2011).
Power distance: It is the extent to which the unequal distribution of power is being accepted by
the lower level of the employees. As far as the power distance index of the both the countries
have been analysed, China scored 80 and Singapore scores 74. This suggests there is slight
difference in the scores and both the countries have the nature of accepting the inequality of
power distribution amongst the people (De Mooij and Hofstede, 2010).
Individualism: This is the dimension that deals with interdependency of the members or the
people on each other (Dowling, 2008). China scores 20 in this and thus supports the culture of
collectivism in which they used to consider the interest of group. Singapore stands on the similar
position.
Masculinity:
Chins scores 66 in this dimension and thus it has a masculine society. This means that most of
the people in China are success oriented and can compromise with their personal life for the sake
of work. On the other hand, Singapore scores 48 that mean it is in the middle of the scale. People
have balanced nature between work and personal life.
Uncertainty avoidance:
It is the dimension where the society deals with the unknown situations (Armstrong and Taylor,
2014). China scores 30 in this dimension and thus it suggests that people in China are very
comfortable with the unknown situations. On the other hand, Singapore scores 8 in this context.
The people in Singapore are highly abided by the rules and regulations.
Long term orientation: It is the dimension in which the preferable approach of the society can be
measured. As far as China is considered, it scores 87 in this context and this means the Chinese
people are long term oriented and also believes in pragmatism (Bond, 2010). Singapore scores 72

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which is also a very high score. The Singapore people are also very much pragmatic and believe
in long term investment.
Indulgence: it is the dimension that refers to the extent to which the people try to control their
desires and needs. Weak control is called indulgence and strong control is called as restraint.
China is the restraint society as it scores 24 that is very low in context of indulgence.
Singaporeans score 46 in this dimension which is a very intermediate score.
Staffing process:
Staffing is the function of human resource management in which the management of the
company have to recruit and select the employees for the company as per the job requirements
(Collings, Scullion and Morley, 2007). It is not limited to hiring of the person but it also includes
activities like induction, training, termination, promotion etc. retention of the employees is also
one of the major activities of staffing function or process. In today’s era, human resource of the
company can also provide a competitive advantage to the firm over other competitors and thus it
is required by the company to make intelligent decision at the time of staffing people. In
international context, XYZ the company has to make the balance between the national and
international culture and also have to management workforce diversity.
Recruitment:
Recruitment is the positive practice that includes advertising of the job vacancy in the
organisation. It is the process by which more and more applicants are attracted towards the job
availability in the company. As per this case, it is required by the company to recruit people from
inside the company as well as from outside the company (Boxall and Purcell, 2011). Thus
external and internal, both types of recruitment are necessary to be conducted. The internal
recruitment can be done by posting the job vacancy on the online portal of the company and the
external recruitment can be done by making use of social platforms. As the company is operating
in China thus it has to develop workforce diversity. For this, the company should advertise about
the job in Singapore as well as in China. Recruiting people from both the sides help the company
to integrate the host country culture with the parent county culture easily.

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Selection:
Selections confided as the negative process. This is because; most of the applicants who applied
for the job get rejected in this process (Harzing and Pinnington, 2010). This is the process after
recruitment where the final candidates who are capable and whose profile matches with the job
description are selected. A process starts with screening of the resumes and follows with
telephonic round of interview. After shortlisting the people from telephonic round, they need to
appear for personal interviews and then the final selection should be done.
XYZ is the company who has to select the candidates for China. In order to select the people
from Singapore, other than the job skills, the communication and learning skills of the individual
should also needs to be judged. In selection process at China, the company has to look for the
candidates who have the capability to adapt themselves with people from Singapore.
Training and development:
Training and development is the process that is to be done to train the employees so that they can
achieve their individual as well as aligned organisational goals. In this case, the discussion is
about expatriate training (Aguinis and Kraiger, 2009). This training is given to the expatriate so
that they can develop the capability to adapt things in the foreign country. It is very compulsory
to train the employees before sending them to the new country in order to save them from the
situation of cultural shock. Some of the different types of training that should be given to
expatriate are:
Cross cultural training: This is the training that helps the expatriates to know about the culture of
the foreign country so that when they reach their, they can be familiar with the culture and can
adopt it easily (Min, Magnini and Singal, 2013).
Language training: This is also an important type of training as the expatriates who do not have
idea about the foreign country language may find it difficult to communicate. Thus, gibing
language training to the expatriate is very necessary.
Experimental training: It is also one of the most important training as it allows the expatriate to
have small trips to the foreign country where they have to stay for long (Storey, 2007). This
helps them to practically experience everything about the foreign land. This facilitates the
expatriates to settle down at the place easily (Reiche, Mendenhall and Stahl, 2016).

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Remuneration:
Remuneration refers to the monetary income and other benefits of the people. Expatriates have to
be given remuneration that facilitates them to maintain their status and fulfil their living at the
international place (Zhou, et al. 2010). Some of the inclusion of expatriate remuneration
includes:
Base salary: This is the basic salary amount that should be equal to the employees who are at the
similar position in the parent country. This is because it is the amount that should be fixed as per
the position.
Hardship premium: It is the premium amount that needs to be given to the expatriate in order to
take the foreign assignments (Boxall and Purcell, 2011).
Allowances:
Different types if allowances are need to be paid for different concerns.
 Cost of living: it is the allowance that has been paid as per the difference between the
expenditure at the place of headquarters and at the foreign place (Warneke and Schneider,
2011).
 Housing allowances: This needs to be paid so that the expatriate can maintain that living
standard as home country.
 Travel allowances: This is for the travelling purpose for the expatriate (Scullion, Collings
and Gunnigle, 2007).
 Relocation allowances: It is the allowance that has been given as the expatriate is moving
away from his home.
Conclusion:
The report concludes that international human resource management is the function of the
organisation that allows the company to take decision over some of the employee related issues
at international level. In this case, XYZ is the company that wants to enter the China market and
thus the cultural and organisational analysis of the country has been done to plan the strategies of

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staffing. Hofstede model is used to analyse the country with regard to 6 dimensions. The overall
discussion suggests that Expatriates have to make some adjustments as per the host country
culture to balance the differences.
References:
Adler, N.J. and Gundersen, A., 2007. International dimensions of organizational behavior.
Cengage Learning.
Aguinis, H. and Kraiger, K., 2009. Benefits of training and development for individuals and
teams, organizations, and society. Annual review of psychology, 60, pp.451-474.\
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Bond, M.H. ed., 2010. The Oxford handbook of Chinese psychology. Oxford Library of
Psychology.
Boxall, P. and Purcell, J., 2011. Strategy and human resource management. Palgrave Macmillan.

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Brewster, C., Houldsworth, E., Sparrow, P. and Vernon, G., 2016. International human resource
management. Kogan Page Publishers.
Chen, Z.X. and Aryee, S., 2007. Delegation and employee work outcomes: An examination of
the cultural context of mediating processes in China. Academy of Management Journal, 50(1),
pp.226-238.
Collings, D.G., Scullion, H. and Morley, M.J., 2007. Changing patterns of global staffing in the
multinational enterprise: Challenges to the conventional expatriate assignment and emerging
alternatives. Journal of World Business, 42(2), pp.198-213.
De Mooij, M. and Hofstede, G., 2010. The Hofstede model: Applications to global branding and
advertising strategy and research. International Journal of Advertising, 29(1), pp.85-110.
Dowling, P., 2008. International human resource management: Managing people in a
multinational context. Cengage Learning.
Harris, H., Brewster, C. and Sparrow, P., 2003. International human resource management.
CIPD Publishing.
Harzing, A.W. and Pinnington, A. eds., 2010. International human resource management. Sage.
Hofstede, G., 2011. Dimensionalizing cultures: The Hofstede model in context. Online readings
in psychology and culture, 2(1), p.8.
Min, H., P. Magnini, V. and Singal, M., 2013. Perceived corporate training investment as a
driver of expatriate adjustment. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management, 25(5), pp.740-759.
Reiche, B.S., Mendenhall, M.E. and Stahl, G.K. eds., 2016. Readings and cases in international
human resource management. Taylor & Francis.
Schein, E.H., 2010. Organizational culture and leadership(Vol. 2). John Wiley & Sons.
Scullion, H., Collings, D.G. and Gunnigle, P., 2007. International human resource management
in the 21st century: emerging themes and contemporary debates. Human Resource management
journal, 17(4), pp.309-319.

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Storey, J., 2007. Human resource management: A critical text. Cengage Learning EMEA.
Warneke, D. and Schneider, M., 2011. Expatriate compensation packages: what do employees
prefer?. Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, 18(2), pp.236-256.
Zhou, E.I., Lu, Z., Li, X., Li, T., Papola, T.S., Pais, J. and Sahu, P.P., 2010. Remuneration
differences in the emerging economies of China and India. International Journal of
Psychology, 45(5), pp.360-370.