International Human Resource Management

Running head: INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
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1INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Human resource management can be defined as practice of recruiting, appointing,
positioning and managing the employees and professionals of the organization. The human
resource management department of an organization is responsible as well as accountable for
creating, putting into effect and looking after the policies that govern the employees as well as
the relationship between the employees and the organization. Human Resource Management can
simply be referred to as Human Resource. The human resource management teams consider the
employees of an organization as assets, therefore, often referring them as human capital.
Therefore, according to the principles of HRM, the goal of the team is to utilize the human
capital by making effective use of the employees, reducing risk and maximizing return on
investment over them. The respective paper is an essay of intense introspection of international
human resource management concepts and theories and also a criticism on the utility and
significance of human resource management in the international context.
International human resource management can be defined as a set of activities that are
executed with the objective of managing organizational human resources at international
platform or level in order to achieve organizational objectives or business goals and also achieve
competitive advantage over competitors at international level (Rees and Smith 2017).
International HRM is an utmost necessity for international business. An international business
must acquire, motivate, retain and effectively utilize the services of people both at corporate
level as well as foreign workplaces. To broadly define what international human resource
management is can be stated as the process of procuring, allocation and effective utilization of
human resources in an international business. There is a wide margin of difference between
domestic human resource management and international human resource management. Domestic
human resource management needs comparatively less activities in the HR department when

2INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
compared to the international HRM. Tasks such as international recruitment, selection, providing
with international training and development programs, appraisal and dismissal of an employee
are done by the international human resource management with plethora of additional duties and
responsibilities, such as global skills management and expatriate management, whereas, the
domestic human resource management teams work on same tasks but in a limited arena (Story et
al. 2014). One of the most important points of difference between the two perspectives is that the
involvement of risk exposure which is more in international human resource management and
less in domestic human resource management. There are certain problems which the
international businesses face in terms of human resource management, such as diversity issues
among the employees, international recruitment processes and maintenance of international
employees according to their needs and requisites (Cavusgil et al. 2014). Therefore, such
problems are exclusive for the international HRM and not for the domestic HRM. Therefore, it
has to be understood that international HRM has a considerable magnitude of significance in the
international business arena. There is an increasing amount of external influence that works in
the human resource department of international business, such as trans-national socio-cultural
and socio-political dynamics, international politics, regional and global political dynamics
(Budhwar 2016). These mentioned factors are significantly responsible for the functioning,
progression as well as regression of the international HRM of a particular international or
multinational company.
International human resource management can be classified or categorized into different
models, theories, perspectives and approaches according to its significance and importance in
various international contexts. Certain customary and principle theories are stated hereafter.

3INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
One of the most important models of International human resource management is
multicultural model (Cascio 2012). The multicultural model in the International HRM, as the
name suggests, gives emphasis to diversity and multicultural values among the employees within
the organization. The diversity of culture and environment is an important issue in international
human resource development team of any enterprise that runs trans-nationally and
internationally. Ethnic and cultural differences are must to be studied effectively by the human
resource professionals before planning out policies, strategies and regulations of human resource
in an international business. Under the multicultural approach of international human resource
management, a few approaches are needed to be kept in mind. For instance, a clear
understanding of collective identity and individual identity should be kept. Individualism vs
Collectivism is an integral part of conflict in an international workplace. Individualism is
considered to be a national cultural attribute that allows people to look at and through them,
introspect their personality synchronized and synergized with the socio-cultural environment
whereas collectivism enables people to get a collective identity, protection and belonging
towards a particular community. In order to form an egalitarian environment within an
international organization, the HRM should focus on how can they synchronize and synergize
the identity issues and approaches with the ethnically, racially and nationally diverse employees
within the workplace to carve out the maximum potential from them which would lead to a good
performance all over throughout the organization. As far as cultural dynamics are concerned,
certain societies behave in certain patterns with people from different socio-economic or
economic background. Third world countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar
are some examples of the nations where there is a difference in blue collar and white collar jobs.
Therefore, to deal with the employees in such situations, it is the responsibility of the