International HRM Strategies for Ambank's Global Expansion

This report provides a detailed analysis of international human resource management (IHRM) practices for Ambank, a Malaysian financial services organization planning to expand internationally. It begins with an executive summary and introduction, providing background on Ambank and its existing HRM functions. The report then reviews current HRM practices, including recruitment, selection, retention, training, development, and performance management, identifying areas for improvement. It emphasizes the importance of HRM in addressing challenges such as employee turnover and the need for talent management. The report also examines leadership theories, suggesting the contingency theory and transformational leadership as suitable approaches. It discusses behavioral dimensions required in a foreign context, including challenges, talent acquisition strategies, and cultural integration. Finally, it concludes with recommendations for Ambank's IHRM strategies, offering insights into best practices for global expansion and talent management.

Running head: INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
International Human Resource Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
This research report gives a detailed analysis of international human resource management
practices. The organization Ambank from Malaysia is going to enter international market
with its financial services. Thus, to guide the organization with HRM practices, different
theories and practices related to human resource practices have been analysed in the report.
To go forward with same, first the existing human resource practices of the organization have
been analysed and on the basis of the analysis, new practices have been presented in the
report. Among different leadership approaches, contingency theory has been suggested as the
most suitable leadership approach along with transformational leadership to the organization.
On the basis of overall analysis, a set to recommendation has been developed in relation to
international HRM practices.

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Table of Content
2. Introduction............................................................................................................................3
3. Application of theory into practice........................................................................................4
a). Reviewing the existing HRM practices of the organization.............................................4
i). Reviewing the existing HRM practices of Ambank......................................................4
ii) Analysing the importance of HRM and its practices in Ambank in relation to focus on
how it helps to overcome the issues for better performance..............................................6
b). Reviewing leadership theories..........................................................................................8
i). critically reviewing any two theories of leadership.......................................................8
ii). Assessing the suitability of one of the leadership theory...........................................10
c). Discussing the behavioural dimensions that would be required in the management of
human resource in the foreign context of AmBank.............................................................12
i). Key challenges that I may face in the international environment...............................12
ii) Strategies to attract and recruit local talents................................................................14
iii) Integrating cultural differences that results out of internationalization......................16
iv). Reviewing and critically synthesizing the various influences on behaviour in
organisations....................................................................................................................17
d. Analysis of best practices in IHRM.................................................................................18
4. Conclusion and Recommendation........................................................................................19
Reference..................................................................................................................................21

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2. Introduction
This research report provides a detailed analysis of international human resource
management functions of the organisation. Ambank is a large banking organization in
Malaysia whose core business products are retail banking, wholesale banking, Islamic
banking, life and all sort of general insurance. The organisation has divided its services into
four respective categories such as Personal Banking, E-banking and AmBank Group. It is
noted that Ambank is known to be one of the leading Malaysian financial services and the
organization has been running the operation over 43 years with its rich expertise. The
organization has large contribution to economic development of Malaysia. The organization
has more than three million customers. AmBank runs its operation with its workforce
strength of 10,000 employees (ambank.com 2020).
AmBank organisation provides a greater range of both traditional and Islamic
financial solutions and services. This includes wholesale banking, retail banking, investment
banking and financial schemes. The major vision of AmBank is to develop the relationship
and advisors and long-term partners to consumers. It has been identified that business that
Ambank’s businesses are fundamentally centred on leveraging domestic growth
opportunities. However, the organization is determined to expand its business in international
market.
Even though the organization developed a large workforce capacity but its human
resources are hired and assigned on the basis of the department the organisation provides. To
provide customers a hassle-free service, the organization has developed respective customer
service department such as customer service charter, whistle-blower protection team,
customer service for insurance team and for e-banking. Presently, Ambank in Malaysia has
hierarchical structure and thereby, the employees are grouped with every employee having

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one clear supervisor. For example, for the customer service department in sales, there is one
supervisor, while for insurance department, there is one supervisor. This research report
provides a detailed presentation and analysis of the human resource management strategies
that are required for the expansion in the international market. AmBank is considered to be
expanding in Asian market with its e-retail banking services. Thus, on the basis of existing
human resource management practices of Ambank, a detailed review has been performed
which would help to develop and shape multinational strategies.
3. Application of theory into practice
a). Reviewing the existing HRM practices of the organization
i). Reviewing the existing HRM practices of Ambank
As AmBank provides a large variety of banking services, existing human resource
functions of the organization are widely complex. The organisation is performing across
Malaysia only, it hires people from domestic market environment and thereby, the
recruitment and selection process is aligned with the industry standards rules and norm. The
organization has more than 10,000 employees working across the brunches in Malaysia. As
put forward by Brewster, Vernon, Sparrow and Houldsworth (2016), increasing complex and
volatile business environment characterised by globalisation, liberalisation and
transformational invasion have significantly created greater challenges to the organisation.
Recruitment and Selection:
Existing HRM practices of Ambank is based on a pre-defined and clear outplay of
recruitment and selection practice. It has been observed that Ambank follows well-defined
recruitment and selection but there is hardly a bank which follows the pattern of recruiting
people through employee referrals. Ambank recruits people through employee referral but as
there is a constant the changes in the market environment and financial services, the

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organisation started following a pre-defined policy of hiring and recruiting people.
Nonetheless, Bratton and Gold (2017) argued that due to the globalisation and liberalisation
trends, most of the organisations in the banking sector tend to follow the global trends in
recruiting and selection. Thereby, most of the large banking firms are relying on the global
expertise and thereby, banks should follow the practice of hiring people from the global
environment. Moreover, global expertise would help the brand to go global.
Poor retention policy:
On the contrary, it has also been identified that even though the banks tend to hire
people through a predefined policy but it has poor retention policy meaning that employees
that leave the organization are not asked to stay or they are not held with employee benefits
strategies. The major problem is that bank employees in the earlier times tend to face
challenges such as they often leave the organization because of the increasing work pressure
and they are not stopped or held by the employer. As put forward by Alfes et al. (2013),
experienced candidates in the banking sector are highly valuable expertise required for
performing the operation in the international market. Moreover, the banking organizations are
facing stiff pressure in relation to changing needs and services and thereby, the banking
organisations are in the need of flexible talents.
Training and Development:
Training and development is one of the significant aspects in business function
especially in a banking sector as banking needs are constantly changing. As put forward by
Albrecht et al. (2015), training and development practice help and guides employees to fulfil
skill and talent gap. At AmBank provides periodical training program to its employees. It can
be mentioned that training can provide tangible outcome and intangible results with respect to

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self-esteem, high morale and satisfaction of employee because of the acquisition of additional
knowledge and skills.
Performance management practices:
According to Kianto, Sáenz and Aramburu (2017), performance management is one
of the most significant elements of human resource management practices. Employee
performance undoubtedly influences the performance of employees and it significantly
motivates employee performance. However, Ambank when it comes to employee
performance management, follows a periodical approach. At the time of measuring employee
performance, the organisation relies on employee feedback method in which rating is done on
the basis of performance and other elements observed by colleagues and peer in the
workplace. As employee retention strategy is a significant challenge in the banking sector, it
is highly important for banking organizations to focus on performance management practice.
In order to measure the performance, the organization needs to develop suitable performance
matrix for performance management.
Promotion and Career development opportunities: As put forward by Kianto,
Sáenz and Aramburu (2017), high employee turnover rate in the banking sector is
significantly caused by lack of promotion and career development opportunities. Especially,
the people who are working in the organization for a long period should receive suitable
career development and promotional opportunities (Marescaux, De Winne and Sels 2013).
However, at Ambank promotion and career development opportunities are majorly provided
for the senior executives and the people working in the general category or service staff have
limited career growth opportunities.

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ii) Analysing the importance of HRM and its practices in Ambank in relation to focus
on how it helps to overcome the issues for better performance
It has been identified that an increasing number of businesses across the globe are looking for
outsourcing services of Human Resource. The organizations are focusing on HRM to move
forward strategic implementation of employees and measurable effect of employee programs
on business. As put forward by Alfes et al. (2013), successful organizations should be more
adaptive, resilient and customer centric and quick to change direction. In this context,
Caligiuri (2014) mentioned that HR professionals need to enhance the system for
performance development, career succession planning as well as employee development.
Thus, it can be mentioned that Ambank faces a tough competition in relation to service
development and delivery and on the contrary, changing market environment has been an
another challenge.
Consequently, Ambank is in the need of a suitable HRM practices that helps the
organisation to address its issue of high employee turnover, performance management and
training & development. It is noted that as organizations across the globe tend to face
growing challenges because of the globalisation, several organizations seek competitive
advantages at all cost and looking for more innovative ways of performing the business
through HRM practices. On the contrary, Jimenez‐Jimenez and Sanz‐Valle (2013) mentioned
that there has been an ongoing intellectual discussion or the debate on the importance of
Human Resource Management asset in the industrial workplace. While conventionally, some
organizations and even the employees may view HR as the most systematising or policy arm
of executive management, it can be fairly a small percentage of what HR stands for in any
organisation. As the results, people who have this notion often seen human resource staff as
just mere gatekeepers having little or no interest about the employee issue. Discussing the

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importance of human resource can be a vague approach but thereby, the importance of HRM
can be stated with the following points.
Challenge of sustainability
Due to changing environmental dynamics and market needs create serious threat to
the banking organisation like Ambank in Malaysia. Today, sustainability is a major challenge
to corporates because being sustainable is referred to being able to survive and succeed in a
dynamic competitive environment. As put forward by Prieto and Pérez-Santana (2014),
sustainability is kind of a driving force which is reshaping the business world and it is most
likely to continue to do so. It can be mentioned that in order to gain competitive advantages
and become successful in such dynamic landscape, human resource management of the
organisation must have to come up with the new ideas to drive innovation in the business
process, management practices and services. Thus, it can be added that idea of supporting
sustainability is most likely to be flat unless organisation’s workforce puts them into action.
Supervision of talent management process:
Supervising talent is one of the most leading functions falling under the HR department.
Thus, with the help of suitable human resource management planning and supervision,
AmBank can address the challenge of its growing rate of employee turnover, performance
management and training and development program.
The global challenge:
Due to changing market trends and globalisation, the organization Ambank in
Malaysia is not immune to globalisation challenge in which effective HRM practices are the
resolution. As the role of HR professionals continue to increase in values, more effective
functional skills and greater leadership expectations are centred upon the individuals in the
profession. It can be mentioned that through the human resource practice, the organization

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can fulfil the gap of having a combination of linguistics engineering and marketing
knowledge which is not easily available. Nonetheless, the HR professionals must have to pay
a significant role in dealing with the changes and enhance the specifications.
b). Reviewing leadership theories
i). critically reviewing any two theories of leadership
If a business wishes to expand in international market, the first thing it should do is,
reshape its HRM practices for international market environment. Multinational organisations
tend to form flexible and global practices to deal with the human resource needs of global
environment. However, when it comes to shaping and developing HRM needs, leadership is
something which cannot be overlooked. It can be mentioned that leadership theories tend to
explain how and why certain people can become leaders and such theories often pay attention
to the characteristics of leaders. As put forward by Dinh et al. (2014), since the interest in the
psychology of leadership has increased over the last ten decades, different leadership theories
have been launched to elaborate why certain people can become leaders, but when it
addressing the HRM issues in the organisation, trait and behavioural theories of leadership
significantly gain the attention.
Trait theory
As put forward by Parris and Peachey (2013), trait theories make the assumption that
people tend to inherit some particular qualities and traits that help them to become the
leaders. This means that trait theories can help to identify a particular personality or the
behavioural characteristics that are shared by leaders. It can be mentioned for instance that
traits are like extroversion, self-confidence and certain level of confidence that is potentially
linked to great leaders. In this context, Antonakis and House (2014) commented that it is
difficult to identify the kind of traits that individuals hold because many people are having

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personality traits but they never seek out positions of leadership but there are people who lack
major key traits associated with effective leadership style. Considering this particular
discrepancy, it can be mentioned that as banking organizations like Ambank identifies leaders
on the basis of their skills and talents, it is challenging for the organization to choose the
leaders. Thus, there have been an increasing number of debates and series of arguments with
respect to the implementation of trait theory. Antonakis and Robert (2013) commented that
by linking some particular qualities with leadership, it is just an action of limiting the scope
and one does have to think of the people who possess some qualities butt they are not leaders.
Contingency theory: As put forward by Price, and Weiss, (2013), contingency theory
can certainly things to the next level and proposes leaders to take significant actions on the
basis of some particular variables instead of just looking at the situations as a whole.
Contingency leaders should take all the variables that influence the situation into the account
before selecting a series of actions. In this context, McCleskey (2014) mentioned the fact that
effective leadership is all about bringing the right balance between the needs, behaviour and
the context. It can be also be mentioned that effective leaders often focus on significant needs
and then analyse the situations to fix the behaviour accordingly. Thus, it can be mentioned
that if the organization Ambank incorporates contingency leadership theory, success is most
likely to depend upon some variables like leadership style, qualities of followers and
moreover the aspects of situations. For example, if the leaders have to persuade its employees
in relation to change, it first note the fact that whether the organisation has a flexible and
friendly working culture.
ii). Assessing the suitability of one of the leadership theory
The above two theories give a clear picture that trait theory is fundamentally based on
the personal behavioural characteristics and traits. For example, if it is found that an
individual is having a tremendous level of visionary skill along with intelligence, outcome