HR Report: Cross-Cultural Competence and Global Business Strategy

This report analyzes the HR-related issues faced by Crown Northampton Shoes Ltd, a company expanding its business globally into China, Vietnam, and Ethiopia. The introduction defines cross-cultural competence and its importance. The main body explores various HRM challenges, including compliance, change management, and training, particularly in the context of Hofstede's cultural dimensions (individualism vs. collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity vs. femininity, power distance, and long-term vs. short-term orientation). The report identifies challenges like managing cultural differences, communication barriers, and opportunities such as access to diverse talent and knowledge sharing. It highlights real-world scenarios, such as communication difficulties with Chinese executives due to language barriers, and concludes with recommendations for addressing these issues. The report emphasizes the importance of understanding cultural nuances to ensure successful global expansion and effective employee relations. The report focuses on the importance of HRM practices, including employee relations, leadership, and training, in navigating the complexities of a diverse workforce. The report draws on various sources and models to analyze and evaluate the challenges, opportunities and recommendations for the company. The report uses a range of sources to support its arguments and analysis.

HR-related issues

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
RECOMMONDATIONS................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Developing cross cultural competence is an activity that considers methods and processes
offered to evolve cross cultural competence that directs to the acceptance and understanding of
the features of one’s own culture improves a positive attitude to other cultural units and its
participants and maximises the capability to acknowledge and interact with them. To a wide
level, all conceptions and theories of cross culture competence rely extensively on some core
aspects like motivation, knowledge, social norms and others (Ulrich, 2016). The organisations
take to develop globally in order to increase the threat of their commerce, diversity assortment of
the commerce to make numerous sources of profits and earn precious perception in context of
foreign cultures. For the completion of this assessment, Crown Northampton shoes Ltd is the
company which is considered. This venture was incorporated on 1928 and is headquartered in
Northampton, England. It operates its business in apparel and fashion sector with the help of
within number of 50 employees. This written document will considered information about
changes and issues which are faced by the field of HR, potential opportunities and threats
regarding organisation and model of cross culture.
MAIN BODY
Human resource management is the practice of administrating individual to accomplish
better execution. It is the area in which people are performing to accomplish the business
objective, seniors support them by devising plan and strategies, leader motivate people by
providing and offering support to them. In term of making change and development in the
business there are diverse kind of issues like compliance with laws and regulations, management
change, leadership development, workers training and development, accepting the innovation
and workplace diversity etc. There are number of ideas and thoughts are made by diverse authors
in context of cross culture like Hall. Hofstede and Trompenaars (Maheshwari and Vohra, 2015).
In the due to course of working in HR division for the organisation, the management of the firm
has realised that the venture is scheduling to obtain its primary phase in the global ground and
has not previous experience of commerce development crosswise the borders. The venture
decided to expand its business in to nations like China, Vietnam and Ethiopia. The five cultural
proportions may pose several confronts as well as current with potential chances as far as theory
of irritated cultural administrated is disturbed. Therefore, contrast of cultural proportions of the
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domestic nations with that of China, Vietnam and Ethiopia is a significant aspect that will
facilitate to expand a significant appreciative of the dissimilarity and resemblances that lie in
among cultural proportions. In context of respective venture, the administration can consider
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions concept which is urbanized by Geert Hofstede to comprehend the
differences in civilization across countries and to distinguish the manners that commerce is
completed crosswise different cultures.
Individualism vs collectivism is one of the traits of this model which described that
individual more often than not tend of defend their own attention, rather than assessment about
the attention of environment team and sets (Moskalenko, 2018). When collectivism culture is
engaged by the firm in to consideration then it is seen that individual lean to care more about
their families as well as defend attention of the environmental teams. In such a context, UK can
be classified as a nation where unusual culture is considered where as China, Vietnam and
Ethiopia can be segmented as nations where collectivisms civilization is chased Individual in the
collective community live within a very protect atmosphere of powerfully combined teams and
in arrival for their faithfulness to the business venture, they suppose social safety.
Uncertainty avoidance- The tendency of specific civilizations to evade amorphous issues
or painful circumstances is the attribute of a hesitation avoidance instructive measurement.
Nations with such a learning measurement house individual who abstain from adopting new
commodities easier manner. They would favour to remain put and earn precious information
towards knowledge of previous clients of the commodity so as to be capable to create a
knowledgeable determination. Hofstede has found out Ethiopia as the nation with highest
concentration of indecision evasion characters when evaluated the nations such as China,
Vietnam and UK.
Masculinity vs femininity- Masculine culture is the one that is highly controlled through
rivalry and complex male attributes. In this kind of dimension, individual always strive for
accomplishing success and interested progress and recognition as an outcome of
accomplishment, although that earnings forfeiting superiority of life. UK can be connected with
a male familiarized nation (Olander and et. al., 2015). As far as community is disturbed,
individual care regarding superiority of life, individual standards and demonstrating
understanding regarding others, in its place of just philosophy about development. Vietnam is as
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a nation with feminine culture dimension in compare to China and Ethiopia at 66 and 65 in a
male society.
Power distance- It indicates to the level to which determination devising ability or control
is allotted between individual In Nations with comparatively higher diversification in power
reserve, ordinary individual are mainly controlled by people who have the pronouncement
making power. However, as far as establishment of UK is disquieted, it is greatly autonomous
and even inferior degree workers have an efficient position in the organisational judgment
making activity (Pournader, Tabassi and Baloh, 2015). In context of China, Vietnam and
Ethiopia are nations linked with high power distance difference, in which individual to inferior
stages in the organisational hierarchy are not included in the determination making activity.
Long term vs short term orientation- Nations with long period direction are related with
individuals who lean to with for results of the effectives made through them and concurrently
straight their concentration regarding setting up relationship with the establishment stakeholders
so as to be capable to accomplish advantageous in the extensive run. As far as nations with short
term orientation are disquieted, individual are infrequently seen waiting for results of their
effectiveness and suppose their demands to be met with instant consequence.
Along with this there are several contemporary issues in HRM can be faced by the
management of respective company during the time of making expansion in business like
employees relations, mobility of labour, leadership and management, management training and
professional management of workers. In Crown Northampton shoes Ltd, when the company will
operate its business in nations like China, Vietnam and Ethiopia then the main issue can be
management training which can be faced by the HRM function of the venture As during the time
of expansion the venture will provide its workers so that they can perform well in the situation of
business development in different nations (Angrave and et. al., 2016). Along with they also face
issues in the leadership and management for which they should consider effective plan of action
that will assist in making effective administration with the business environment of different
countries. Employees relations is one of the key issue which can be faced by the organisation in
extending situation as when company operate in severe nation then it hire local people of the
country and there will be number of people who belong from different cultures, regions and
many more. This will create an instant and direct impact over the employees’ relationship. In
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order to deal with this confront, the venture should frame diversity related and other effective
policies which assist in making good employees relation within the business establishment.
Challenges
Expanding and exploring the business of the respective venture at global scale and that
too in nations with a totally diverse civilization may front certain issues for Crown Northampton
shoes Ltd. They are as:
Difficulty in managing individual- It is the key issue and problem which can be faced by the
administration of respective venture during the time of operating business at international level
as well as within certain nations. It has been analysed that administrators identify it very complex
to appreciate cultural differences that survives within a company and also fail to find out
discrepancy in anticipations of workers going from diverse civilizations (Wallo and Kock, 2018).
Consequently, administrators tend to execute the similar method to administrate culturally
diverse workers and therefore, facades criticizing approaches from their assistants. Furthermore,
the height of confidence of workers regarding the organization ability of their administrators is
decreased. So, it is a big confront for administrators to accept their management tool in context
of manage employees from diverse educational measurement and fulfil or meet the desires of
workers so as to reinforce the loyal relation among them.
Adopting an effective style of communication- It has to be set in mentality that English is the
ordinary talking which is used in communication in majority of the nations across the globe.
During the time of expanding business in China, Vietnam and Ethiopia, Crown Northampton
shoes Ltd can face this issue regarding organisational communication. Administrators suffer
challenges in administrating individuals in those nations where English is not used as primary
language as workers within the company provide more favourite to their restricted languages in
nations like China and other where they mostly talk in Chinese. So, the respective venture face
complexities when expressing their operation and vision as well as positioning execution
demands to their workers, who are relaxing with their inhabitant and local languages.
Opportunities
At the time of global expansion and operate business in other nation apart them home
country, there are some opportunities that can make use of when administrating individual from
different cultures (Hewett and et. al., 2018). The description of them as under in context of
Crown Northampton shoes Ltd:
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Access to diversified pool of talents- It is impending that an organisation which is making plan
to expand its business internationally will always need the assistance of the domestic nation
employees, exactly as the last show a deeper extent of information towards circumstances in
their nations as well as explained to the diverse educational factors. They might acquire
exclusive set of abilities that might not be present in domestic nation’s workers. Such ability sets
often prove to be a turning point for a company like Crown Northampton shoes Ltd to fill the
current ability gap but also permits them to alleviate external as well as internal atmospheric
problems adequately and appropriately.
Effective knowledge sharing- As per tactical point of view, the organisations which expand
their business at global scale to be a comparatively unexplored zone, can earn valuable
knowledge towards invalidate improvement and concern that knowledge in order to accomplish
significant rivalry benefits in host nations towards competitive ventures (Solnet, Kralj and Baum,
2015). The information collected on the global platform will obviously help SME to modify and
alter their strategic positioning, as well as integrating technical innovation, in context of
stimulating business development.
Actual circumstances
As working in the venture, it is identify that majority of the aforesaid issues and
opportunities are totally reliable to actual situations that the UK based organisation will meet,
when extending and expanding their business operations in nations such as China, Vietnam and
Ethiopia. Having completed a brief examination of the diverse educational magnitudes, it can be
analysed that confronts that have been defined impose a convinced degree of outcomes on the
firm. For instance, it has been perceived relatively often that administrators supported to UK
have complexities in communicating with Chinese executive cause of language barrier. This is
precisely as Chinese administratives are preferred their local language and feel more comfy in
their inhabitant language, rather than in English. As Crown Northampton shoes Ltd is
preparation to increase its operations in China, administrators might suffer complexities in
acknowledging Chinese or even English language when interacted and verbal in a Chinese
inflection (Gutierrez-Gutierrez, Barrales-Molina and Kaynak, 2018). Along with this they also
confuse the Chinese workers when positioning their execution needs in English. However, in
context of Vietnam and Ethiopia where English is ordinarily spoken, the confront is going to be
comparatively easy.
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As far as accepting an appropriate means of message is disquieted, this can establish to be
big confront for the firm. Ethiopia and Vietnam choose a certain form of communiqué cause to
survival of a communalist culture. All the three nations choose in-person announcement rather
than virtual communication. Including the aforesaid fact, establishing a instant communication
connection, instead of practical mode of contact like, Skype and video conferencing as and when
needed, can facade to be a big confront for the UK supported to organisation. As per as
opportunities are disquieted, the firm can importantly advantage through getting access to
culturally different group of talents and filling the aptitude gap that presents in their venture
(Dahlbom and et. al., 2019). Their ability sets and information can be effectively used in context
of diminishing the exterior and interior atmospheric issues that may escalate when the
establishment is in development and growth stage. From a challenging point of view, it can be
determined that small organisations like Crown Northampton shoes Ltd similar to the one within
works can also study from commerce with inclusive ecological challenges and henceforth,
pertain the information in their tactical determination manufacture activity.
CONCLUSION
To summarise, it can be analysed that cross cultural administration offers far shares of
confronts and chances to organisations. It should be the basic and primary criteria of the UK
based venture to grip development options with both hands and at the same time, design plan of
actions to tackle upcoming issues and complexities. Hence, the following part will set onwards
certain suggestions that have been believed effective for situations of the business enterprise,
assisting them to get entry in to these marketplaces productively and then maintain the
development rate of the commerce.
RECOMMONDATIONS
Although in the original phase of growth, emigrant administrators can still be employed who
would ne mainly accountable for supervising the activity of development, however in the long
term, the establishment should use host nation workers and offer them with effective training in
order to assist them to provide as future administrators of the organisation. The enterprise should
be aware with the fact that the host nations refer face to face announcement and that
administrators at the top of the hierarchy performing in the headquarters should often visit to the
offices in China, Vietnam and Ethiopia on a turning basis in order to conduct direct meeting with
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the restricted workers. By doing so, they would be respecting the civilization of the domestic
nation and at the same time, will be capable to gain loyalty of their workforce. Local
administrators should be hired who would serve as a conciliator and be mainly accountable for
delivering the organisational objectives to restricted workers.
Along with this, the management of respective firm should increase the free run of
information among workers as this would assist the administration to earn worthy perception
about dissimilar civilisations. This in turn would permit the firm to relate the information when
framing key plan of actions in order to assure the development and progress of the organisation’s
business activities and operations.
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REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Ulrich, D., 2016. HR at a crossroads. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 54(2), pp.148-
164.
Maheshwari, S. and Vohra, V., 2015. Identifying critical HR practices impacting employee
perception and commitment during organizational change. Journal of Organizational
Change Management.
Moskalenko, A.A., 2018. Methodological characteristics of the use of strategic analysis in HR-
related decision-making. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 17(4), pp.1-7.
Olander, H. and et. al., 2015. HR‐related Knowledge Protection and Innovation Performance:
The Moderating Effect of Trust. Knowledge and process management, 22(3), pp.220-
233.
Pournader, M., Tabassi, A.A. and Baloh, P., 2015. A three-step design science approach to
develop a novel human resource-planning framework in projects: the cases of
construction projects in USA, Europe, and Iran. International journal of project
management, 33(2), pp.419-434.
Angrave, D. and et. al., 2016. HR and analytics: why HR is set to fail the big data
challenge. Human Resource Management Journal, 26(1), pp.1-11.
Wallo, A. and Kock, H., 2018. HR outsourcing in small and medium-sized
enterprises. Personnel Review.
Hewett, R. and et. al., 2018. Attribution theories in human resource management research: A
review and research agenda. The International Journal of Human Resource
Management, 29(1), pp.87-126.
Solnet, D., Kralj, A. and Baum, T., 2015. 360 degrees of pressure: The changing role of the HR
professional in the hospitality industry. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism
Research, 39(2), pp.271-292.
Dahlbom, P. and et. al., 2019. Big data and HR analytics in the digital era. Baltic Journal of
Management.
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Gutierrez-Gutierrez, L.J., Barrales-Molina, V. and Kaynak, H., 2018. The role of human
resource-related quality management practices in new product
development. International Journal of Operations & Production Management.
Online
Crown Northampton shoes Ltd. 2020. [Online]. Available Through: <
https://www.linkedin.com/company/crown-northampton-shoes>.
COUNTRY COMPARISON. 2020. [Online]. Available Through: < https://www.hofstede-
insights.com/country-comparison/vietnam/#:~:text=Uncertainty%20Avoidance&text=Vietnam
%20scores%2030%20on%20this,norm%20is%20more%20easily%20tolerated.>.
WHAT ABOUT CHINA?. 2020. [Online]. Available Through: < https://www.hofstede-
insights.com/country/china/>.
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