International Human Resource Management

This report undertakes a critical review of the literature on a selected area of international human resource management. Additionally it also aims to provide recommendations on policies/practices which should be developed by organizations to respond to issues which have been identified as being of critical importance in the management of employees across international operations.

Running Head: INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
International Human Resource Management
Student’s Name
University Name
Author’s Note

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................3
2. Review of Literature....................................................................................................................3
2.1 Global mobility as a staffing plan point.................................................................................3
2.1.1 Employee Movement......................................................................................................4
2.2 Technology and data as great differentiator for global mobility...........................................5
2.3 Perlmutter’s staffing approaches............................................................................................6
2.3.1 Perlmutter’s approaches versus Globalization................................................................7
2.4 Recruitment and Selection of expatriates...............................................................................8
2.5 Importance of recruitment and selection of local employees................................................9
2.6 Recruitment policies across countries..................................................................................10
3. Conclusion.................................................................................................................................12
4. Recommendations......................................................................................................................13
Reference List................................................................................................................................14

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1. Introduction
This report undertakes a critical review of the literature on a selected area of international
human resource management. Additionally it also aims to provide recommendations on
policies/practices which should be developed by organizations to respond to issues which have
been identified as being of critical importance in the management of employees across
international operations. Hence it can be argued that thorough understanding of a contemporary
issue of importance in IHRM; the global companies can develop a crucial ad adept workforce.
2. Review of Literature
2.1 Global mobility as a staffing plan point
The primary element of the talent strategy of any organization is the global mobility. The
key features of global mobility are attracting the potential candidates, retention of staff, and
development of diverse leaders and so on. However, Kang and Shen (2016), argues that the
companies themselves are making the global mobility a difficult affair. The operational
inefficiencies are making the global mobility a difficult affair. The operational inefficiencies are
making it difficult to get approval of the employee’s mobility. For evidence, Guo, Rammal and
Dowling (2016), advocates that the issues that hinder global mobility are the lack of software,
which can help in easy projection of the costs and assessment of the impact of a move. Then,
Cascio (2015), further argues that the companies also face difficulty in physically moving the
human resources to a different location. The employees who are shifted to different location have
to face a situation where they have to call various people to gather work related information
which they would require for their personal moves.

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In this context, Tarique, Briscoe and Schuler (2015), opines that if the companies want
they can make the process of global mobility easier for the work team like HR teams, payroll
teams, mobile employees, business unit leaders, finance teams and so on. As advocated by the
same researcher, this can be easily done by connecting the global mobility ecosystem of a
company as well as global work processes in intuitive software with potential support of the
staff. As advocated by Shen et al. (2017), in case of international assignments, the companies are
mobilizing great number of staff units for various reasons and different durations. Besides, Brunt
(2016), also argues in this context that with the innovation of the AI as well as automation, the
nature of work processes are also changing. Now, they observe that with the implementation of
AI and automation in the workplaces, larger number of staff might need opportunities of moving
in to the newer roles as well as locations. In researching for global mobility markets, researchers
like Friberg (2016), identifies that there is ample opportunity of developing an appropriate talent
mobility suite for the future business projects. This is why, it can be argues that researchers like
Parízek (2017), correctly interprets global mobility as a great enabler of agility in the
organizations. There are several software that helps in bringing about this agility through
unleashing of the global workforce, cost planning as well as engagement of the employees
during transition as well as managing the currently employed mobility infrastructure as well as
processes.
2.1.1 Employee Movement
Employee movement is a significant step towards realizing the major aspects of global
mobility like agility. In this context, the opinions of researchers like Lozano, Meardi and Martín-
Artiles (2015), can be argued. They argue that as the first step towards moving the employees for
a company is running scenarios regarding the move, as in determining the cost of this movement,

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determination of the exact policies that should be implemented in certain instances and the exact
location where they are to be moved. In the next step, all these fixations have to be approved by
relevant budget holders.
After the fixations, Rozkwitalska (2017), the primary need is that the company should be
helping the employees to accomplish their personal needs for the movement. This is something
that is not regarded by many organizations with precision. The last step of successful transiting
of the employees is the successful management of a series of processes which includes storage of
documents, generation of payroll instructions, analyzing data on the locations, tracking of
immigrations and analyzing the success rates of such immigration.
2.2 Technology and data as great differentiator for global mobility.
In many transnational organizations, global mobility has been historically perceived as a
transactional as well as logistical function. As such there has been market domination of the
logistics companies, generally, the former shipping as well as real estate agencies who managed
transactional aspects of the relocations.
As identified by Nasurdin, Ahmad and Tan (2016), the workforce is changing at a fast
pace owing to the new demographics of workers, increasingly interdependent global
organizations and technological advances which are redefining the jobs as well as locations of
the companies. Noe et al. (2017), also defines that organizations are adopting global mobility for
developing agility of businesses, attracting as well as retaining the employees and creating
adaptable as well as diverse work teams against the sweeps of constant change. In this context,
Derous and De Fruyt (2016), defines that development of mobility software suite is critical for
the unification of the data, processes as well as partners for converting agility in to a reality.

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Again, it is also worth mentioning that historically, the global mobility groups have had limited
access to information regarding the mobile employees. Hence, difficulties arose in terms of
understanding how much is the expenses, where the employees are being positioned at specific
time slots as well as the compliance risks that the employees need to incur as an impact of the
tax or the immigration regulations. As per Waxin et al. (2018), none of the global organizations
had leveraged information for forecasting the impact of the mobility experiences on, for
evidence, the diversity or leadership potential, or calculation of the ROI of mobility experiences
or suggesting a neighborhood in alignment with the preferences of the employees and proximity
of the office location.
In fact global mobility is also impacted by the lack of workplace diversity. There is a
correlation between the experiences encountered by the employees in their offices and the
leadership potential that they has, inherently. As per Razak et al. (2018), if companies want
more diverse leadership, they must consider how to get mobility opportunities to more women.
2.3 Perlmutter’s staffing approaches
The Perlmutter’s staffing approaches incorporates three major typologies based on their
international orientation. The first approach is Ethnocentrism which is a typology based on the
parent country. The foreign markets which allow the scope for disposition of the excess
productions are perceived as secondary. In this context, the underlying assumption is that the
foreign markets are not different from the domestic penetrations which pave the way for one on
one adaptation of all major strategies (Collings, McDonnell & McCarter, 2015). This proposition
holds that the HRM department employees in the parent country are appointed and groomed for

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occupying the primary positions of the secondary markets. Perlmutter’s polycentric typology
helps in close examination as well as differentiation of the individual aspects of the individual
markets. There is a separate set of management strategies for each foreign market. Modification
of products for suiting the needs of the local markets is a tactical issue, which incorporates
factors like price as well as promotions that needs to be decided locally. The primary position is
occupied by the locally selected as well as trained employees. However, the geocentric approach
emphasizes that the whole world is a single market. This approach aims at identifying the
individual segments within the market. There are uniform policies for all approaching all
customer segments in the market that leads to a situation of high level of comparability between
products and/or services and strategic implementation worldwide. In this context, Bakhruet al.
(2016), opines that for the purpose of staffing that rule that is followed is that the best employee
in the market, irrespective of their country of origin, is targeted for serving the customers, all
over the world. Finally, the regiocentric approach allocates foreign markets in clusters of
homogenous markets. Similar to the polycentric approach, the approach of regiocentrism
emphasizes on comparable situations in regional markets for reaching market penetration
equipped with a standardized product portfolio and nullifies the specific market adjustments. The
regional employees are holding key positions whereby they serve markets with homogenous
behavioral patterns and culture, which suits the employees.
2.3.1 Perlmutter’s approaches versus Globalization
The approaches of Perlmutter are remarkable in the context of clustering the
multinational enterprises. However, since globalizations have had the best of world trade,
considering the ERPG framework cannot be considered to be valid any more. The ways adopted
by the multinational corporations to enlarge their business on an international level should not be

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dependent on the source from the employees have originated for engaging them in the key
positions, based on the applicable strategy. On the contrary, Cascio and Boudreau (2016), opines
that the ethnocentric approach would be better suited with the localized employed occupying the
primary positions. In fact, the emergence of the locally placed employees pave the opportunity
for the establishing autarkic representations who are still driven by the company but have
knowledge of local market (Malul, Shoham & Uddin, 2016). In orders to extract the best from
the local employees there should be affordance to promote them to managerial posts.
Nevertheless, Lakshman, Lakshman and Estay (2017), holds that reduction in the number of
expats assigned, is generally accompanied by improvements in the cost situations. According to
experts like, Guo, Rammal and Dowling (2016), geocentrism is most applicable as an
internationalization strategy. Independency of markets to be penetrated, allow companies to have
an enlarged global view. When the companies are driven by a polycentric approach, they can be
perceived, as opined by Cascio (2015), to be in the pre-stage of developing and entering in to a
more geocentric mode that will equip the organization with a better global view. In this context,
Parízek (2017), is of the view that geocentrism cannot be followed as a rational strategy because
of the market limitations that would hinder large scale growth after market penetration.
Perlmutter had a wide view during the time of the typology invention, which is still valid as a
framework. However the changing market conditions and the changing human resource
dependencies require thinking out of the box to combine all additional factors successfully.
2.4 Recruitment and Selection of expatriates
The selection as well as recruitment of the expatriates is another big issue in management
of international human resources. In the context of the international assignments, the main issue
that is faced by the companies is to select the right employee for the assignment. Although,

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Lozano, Meardi and Martín-Artiles (2015), suggests that there is no criteria for an ideal
expatriate so that the process of the selection of the expatriates can be fostered, other researchers
like Rozkwitalska (2017), argues that that there are actually various reference criteria that can be
followed at the time of the selection of the expatriates. It is mostly considered by many authors
that along with valorization of the international experience of the expatriates and their ability to
communicate, the personality issues as well as their mode of perception are also to be considered
in the context of successful recruitment of the expatriates. At the same time, researchers like
Nasurdin, Ahmad and Tan (2016), opines that the process of recruitment and selection must be
precise upon the basis of competency in order to combat the expect periods who are not having
knowledge regarding new opportunities in the market. The same authors for that suggest that
expatriates having company specific abilities are able to drive in competitive advantage. Such
advantages abilities are the entrance abilities which allow the organization to remain competitive
in the Global markets by dint of their human resources, products and/or services.
Researchers like Noe et al. (2017), also are you about the importance of the cultural aspect that is
incorporated by the individual employees. The management needs to consider and evaluate the
cultural differences between the origin countries and the country of operation. This is because of
the fact that differentiations might not only affect the mission performance of the organization
but also influence the decision of the individual employee regarding acceptance of international
challenges.
2.5 Importance of recruitment and selection of local employees
When an organization pertains to the policy of recruiting more local staff compared to
expatriates, we can enjoy a host of benefits including enhanced velocity of project impact,

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growth of sustainable skills for attaining local knowledge as well as development of
opportunities for the local population. Researches like Derous and De Fruyt (2016), argue that
their fears around that localization using steam where organizations are still waiting upon
employing expatriates in the leading positions. There are other advantages of employing local
people also. Employment of workers gives an application to the customers that the organization
is investing for local community development. This gives an additional bonus to the organization
as the customers will be more likely to support the business of the organization, according to the
views of (Waxin et al. 2018). Razak et al. (2018), also put in that this will provide valuable word
of mouth publicity to the organization in the local business environment. Collings, D. G.,
McDonnell and McCarter (2015), additionally provides that employment opportunities provided
to local candidates will provide unique opportunities for in person interviews. This will in turn
create the scope for handy local references. Consequently, Bakhru et al. (2016), argues that the
quality of the finalized employees will be much higher if they are employed through local
references and local in person interviews. In fact Cascio and Boudreau (2016), local employment
will result in a lower turnover rate, in the end. The factor spin that the local employees will
consider their proximity to the workplace, as benefit since they will not be burnt out buy a long
commute. The employees will also be able to enjoy an easy time management strategy and will
also maintain a proper work life balance.
Lastly, Malul, Shoham and Uddin (2016), argues that hiring local employees will give the
chance of staying at the top in the local talent network. Employee referrals will more likely help
the company to land higher quality leads.
2.6 Recruitment policies across countries

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In most cases, the small and emerging companies in Australia as also in many parts of Europe
and America employs techniques of internal recruitment. In most cases of internal recruiting, the
cost of recruitment is dramatically reduced. This can be possible due to the advertisements that
can be done by announcements gives opportunity of word of mouth publicity, opportunity of
sending direct company emails of flyers and so on. Internal recruitment gives the Organisation,
the opportunity of recruiting the best employee and the recruiters are well aware of the skills of
the Employees because of which the training costs can be reduced.
In developing countries like India, China and other countries in Africa as well as America make
use of employment agencies. These Agencies pool the job applicants and cross reference them
with the job openings in their respective domains. This makes it easier for the organizations to
conduct the selection process. The recruitment agencies mainly employ the strategies like
arranging job fairs and publishing of online and offline advertisements. However Lakshman,
Lakshman and Estay (2017), argues that there is no assurance that the recruitment agencies will
get hold of the right candidates for the Organization. That is why in many countries it is observed
that the recruitment agencies refund the fees that the take for recruitment on behalf of the
organization, if they are not able to provide significant and appropriate candidates to the
organization.
The strategy of attracting the candidates is a process that is followed in developed nations like
America, Canada and so on. In this way, the candidates directly upload the organization by
themselves. However Kang and Shen (2016), argues that by means of this process, the
organizations have to be proactive and in order to recruit the top talents, they have to get hold of
the candidate in the first meeting.

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3. Conclusion
This literature review immense importance to the process of global mobility for international
staffing. The operational inefficiencies are making it difficult to get approval of the employee’s
mobility. The employees who are shifted to different location have to face a situation where they
have to call various people to gather work related information which they would require for their
personal moves. In the context of Employee Movement, it has been argued that the first step
towards moving the employees for a company is running scenarios regarding the move, as in
determining the cost of this movement, determination of the exact policies that should be
implemented in certain instances and the exact location where they are to be moved. The
workforces are changing at a fast pace owing to the new demographics of workers, increasingly
interdependent global organizations and technological advances which are redefining the jobs as
well as locations of the companies. However, it has also been depicted that none of the global
organizations had leveraged information for forecasting the impact of the mobility experiences.
This literature review also includes the Perlmutter’s staffing approaches in order to understand
international staffing. Perlmutter’s polycentric typology helps in close examination as well as
differentiation of the individual aspects of the individual markets. There is a separate set of
management strategies for each foreign market. Modification of products for suiting the needs of
the local markets is a tactical issue, which incorporates factors like price as well as promotions
that needs to be decided locally. The primary position is occupied by the locally selected as well
as trained employees. However, the geocentric approach emphasizes that the whole world is a
single market. This approach aims at identifying the individual segments within the market.
There are uniform policies for all approaching all customer segments in the market that leads to a

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situation of high level of comparability between products and/or services and strategic
implementation worldwide.
4. Recommendations
Analyzing the process of recruitment and selections, throughout this literature review, it
can be argued that the following steps can be suggested for finding the best fit in terms of
recruitment:
 Invest in an Applicant Tracking System
 Find Passive Candidates and Let Them Know You Want Them
 Create Job Posts That Reflect Your Company
 Develop a clear brand as employer
 Exploring the Niche job boards
 Conducting personal interviews for selection of local nationals

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Reference List
Bakhru, R. N., McWilliams, D. J., Wiebe, D. J., Spuhler, V. J., & Schweickert, W. D. (2016).
Intensive care unit structure variation and implications for early mobilization practices.
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Brunt, C. (2016). Recruitment. In Human Resource Management in International NGOs (pp. 35-
56). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Cascio, W. F. (2015). Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill.
Cascio, W. F., & Boudreau, J. W. (2016). The search for global competence: From international
HR to talent management. Journal of World Business, 51(1), 103-114.
Collings, D. G., McDonnell, A., & McCarter, A. (2015). Types of international assignees (pp.
259-274). The Routledge Companion to International Human Resource Management.
Derous, E., & De Fruyt, F. (2016). Developments in recruitment and selection research.
International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 24(1), 1-3.
Friberg, J. H. (2016). The rise and implications of temporary staffing as a migration industry in
Norway.
Guo, Y., Rammal, H. G., & Dowling, P. J. (2016). Global talent management and staffing in
MNEs: An introduction to the edited volume of international business and management.
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Kang, H., & Shen, J. (2016). Global talent management: international staffing policies and
practices of South Korean multinationals in China. In Global Talent Management and
Staffing in MNEs (pp. 25-48). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Lakshman, S., Lakshman, C., & Estay, C. (2017). The relationship between MNCs’ strategies
and executive staffing. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 25(2), 233-250.
Lozano, M., Meardi, G., & Martín-Artiles, A. (2015). International Recruitment of Health
Workers: British Lessons for Europe? Emerging Concerns and Future Research
Recommendations. International Journal of Health Services, 45(2), 306-319.
Malul, M., Shoham, A., & Uddin, M. (2016). Linguistic gender marking gap and female staffing
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Nasurdin, A. M., Ahmad, N. H., & Tan, C. L. (2016). THE ROLE OF STAFFING AND
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Parízek, M. (2017). Control, soft information, and the politics of international organizations
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Razak, A. A., Abdullah, S., Illa, E. D. A. S., Jennings, T., Light, E., Martinuzzi, M., &
Tourmouzis, K. (2018). 15 Assessing the challenges in nurse staffing and nurse
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Policies and practices for multinational enterprises. Routledge.
Waxin, M. F., Lindsay, V., Belkhodja, O., & Zhao, F. (2018). Workforce localization in the
UAE: recruitment and selection challenges and practices in private and public
organizations. The Journal of Developing Areas, 52(4), 99-113.