International HRM Practices Report: M&S Market Entry and Staffing

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of international HRM practices, focusing on Marks and Spencer (M&S) as a case study. It explores various market entry strategies such as franchising and mergers, outlining their advantages and disadvantages. The report also details international staffing strategies, including ethnocentric, polycentric, regiocentric, and geocentric approaches, with examples of how M&S implements them. Furthermore, it examines different training programs adopted by M&S to enhance employee skills, and discusses the concept of culture shock and its impact on expatriate performance. The report concludes with recommendations and a summary of key findings, offering valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities of managing human resources in a globalized business environment. The report is designed to provide a detailed overview of international HRM strategies and their practical application within a major international company.

International HRM Practice

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
a. Different strategies for entering into global market................................................................1
b. Presenting International staffing strategies for M&S..............................................................2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
a. Describing different training programs adopted by M&S.......................................................5
b. Culture shock and how it affect an expatriate's performance.................................................6
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
International HRM practices are those activities whose main aim is to manage
organizational human resource at global level in order to achieve aims of a company and gain
high competitive advantages. The chosen company for this report is Marks and Spencer (M&S)
which is one of the leading brand in UK and provides best quality of products to their customers
at reasonable rates and the company also wanted to expanded globally by using franchising and
merging.
This report will present 2 different strategies such as franchising and merging with their
pros and cons to enter in global market and identify some training programs adopted by M&S.
The present study also describes some international staffing strategies such as ethnocentric,
polycentric, regiocentric and geocentric. It also describes some training programs that will also
help to improve the abilities of an employees. Further report will describe the meaning of
cultural shock and how it affects the performance of expatriate.
TASK 1
a. Different strategies for entering into global market
Introduction: This section of the report will describe two different strategies which HR
can use to enter into new market with their advantages and disadvantages so that it will help to
lead a business towards success.
Main Body: There are many market entry methods such that merger and acquisition,
franchising, direct exporting etc. M&S can adopt different strategies to enter into new market
and some of them are as mentioned below:
Franchising: It is the rapid market expansion market entry strategy that can be used by
the company and it works well for those firm who have repeatable business model so that they
can easily transferred into other market. In this type of strategy, the firm where it wants to
implemented, then it has a franchisor license and know how procedure, their intellectual property
and have a right to sell its branded products to a franchisee (Iddy and Alon, 2019). Even there are
two notice which should be used such that the business model which M&S uses should be very
unique and strong recognition. Further, it can be used internationally and the firm have to creates
future competition.
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 Advantages: if the company chooses this then it will help to minimize the risk of
business failure and products and services will also have already established market
(Naatu and Alon, 2019).
 Disadvantages: The requirement of initial costing is higher in this method.
 Sometimes, the company may also face challenges related to cultural difference and
compliances challenges as well.
Mergers: One of the simplest and cost effective market entry strategy in which the
company has to merge with another country. Further, during merger, two companies come
together and they both play their role and provides the product as per need (Sui and Peculea,
2016). In this method, the firm should choose that company which has strong brand recognition
and good customer base, this is done to for a single entity and it also acquire high market ratio in
international market.
Advantages: the method helps to reduce the competition and as a result, it helps to open new
territories. Also helps in expanding the customer base for cross selling opportunities.
Disadvantages: It may also affect the strength of a brand because due to ill-timed merger, it can
quickly diminish the strength of both the firms (Zhang and et.al., 2015).
Conclusion:
From the above, it has been concluded that M&S can use two different strategies such that
Merger and Franchising in order to enter into new market and the section also concluded some
advantages and disadvantages that helps to choose best out of them.
b. Presenting International staffing strategies for M&S
Introduction: In this section of the report, will describe some international staffing
strategy that helps to manages the unique set of employees and further it will depict some
strategies of M&S which are used in two different countries.
Main Body International staffing strategies help M&S how to manage the employees who
are in different countries and the quoted firm also uses different staffing strategies for each and
every country. There are four main type of strategies such that ethnocentric, polycentric,
regiocentric and geocentric.
Staffing sources:
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Parent country national: when the company of a country recruits the employees form
their own country such that M&S recruit employees from UK.
Host country national: when the company of a country run their business in another
country and also recruits employees from that one. Such that the second country is host country.
Third country national: it means that the citizen of one country employed by the
company from another who are work in third country. For instance, when M&S recruit
employees from India and Europe.
Some of the staffing strategies are as mentioned below:
Ethnocentric: In this strategy, the company's HR policy are aligned to the parent country
such that the company hire the management that is also belongs to same nationality. For
instance, Marks and Spencer UK headquarter have established the policies related to labour,
safety as well as consumption and those policies are also applied in other countries such as India
and Europe and regional operation such that within UK only (Different types of international
staffing strategies, 2018).
Advantages:
 it is the alignment of interest and perspective of the home office with all foreign
auxiliary.
 There is no language barrier and cultural barrier such that easy communication is done.
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 Employees are also easily transferable from one place to another.
Disadvantages:
 Hiring exile is most costlier as compared to hiring local.
 It is old fashioned approach and generally not used.
Polycentric: It is one of the best approach, where HR strategies are designed as per the
need in a particular region that may not be aligned to parent country. In this, the host country i.e.
UK, nationals are employed in foreign while on the other side, parent country govern the
strategies at a headquarters (Rickley, 2019). For instance, M&S is in UK and it operated its unit
in Europe as well and in this situation, there are more employment and career advancement
opportunities for the local population to go other country as well to show their talent. According
to this approach, Marks and Spencer in India are obliged to follow strategies made by Marks and
Spencer of UK.
Advantages:
 Employer are free to recruit candidates from any place.
 The company may have diverse pool of talented employees. Help to gain high competitive advantages.
Disadvantages:
 the base of host country's employees is loss and it affect the performance of host country
in negative way.
Regiocentric: It is one of the most common strategy that is also used by HR of M&S
such that people are recruited with a view to serve throughout the particular region, instead of
one specific country (Cooke and et.al., 2019). For instance, M&S also operated in different unit
such that India, Europe but its marketing head is in UK and it also manages all marketing efforts
for Europe, India, Australia etc.
Advantages:
 Less cost is incurred in hiring employees of the host country. The Managers work well in nearby countries.
Disadvantages:
 There may be a communication barrier due to different languages.
 If Manger are selected from a particular region, may lack of international experience.
Conclusion
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From the above, it has been concluded that there are different international staffing
strategies which may be used by the Marks and Spencer. From above section it has been
concluded that regiocentric approach is best among because it requires less cost to incurred as
compared to others.
TASK 2
a. Describing different training programs adopted by M&S
Introduction
Training is one of major key aspect for every company because it raises the working
performance of the employees. In the same way, this section describes the importance of training
and the programs that is adopted by the quoted firm as well.
Main Body
Training refers to the process of a learning a sequence of a programmed behaviour and it
is one of the major key element of HRM. It is quite important because it helps to bring the
positive change regarding the knowledge, skills and attitudes of an employees. Overall, through
training an employee can improve their skills and also add the existing level of a knowledge that
helps to perform better in the working area (Miles and et.al., 2016).
There are different training programs that is adopted by the Marks and Spencer to
develop their staff through international assignments such that:
Onboarding training: This type of training is developed by the department leaders and
they mainly focus on attaining the goals and connect them with overall company's objectives.
Such that its international assignment is to expand the business globally by using advance
technology. Thus, during this type of training, the topics are generally address such as employee
needs and also provide the employees of the quoted firm with easy access to information and
provide skills that are needed to do their jobs efficiently.
Technical Skills development training: In international assignments such as connect
people through technology i.e. online store, HR of the company also provide technical skill
development training which includes data analysis, content writing, coding, programming and
social media management etc. (Abrams and et.al., 2017). In this training, the employee is
generally raise their technical skills so that the company can easily deal with other countries. The
key component of training are technical skills, adoption of new technologies etc.
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Mandatory training: Company's international assignment is to link people at global
level through a technology and in this type of training programs, M&S provide some basic
training session to their new employees from first day such that health and care safety, online
training and sexual harassment training so that they will raise their working performance and
attain the objectives of the company.
Conclusion
from the above, it has been concluded that training is one of the most essential part of a
company because it develops the skill among employees so that they will perform better and
attain the objectives of the company. Further it has been concluded that the quoted firm also uses
different training programs that help to develop many skills through international assignment.
b. Culture shock and how it affects an expatriate's performance
Introduction
in this section, the report will describe the deep meaning of culture shock and also
describe how it affect an expatriate performance on an international assignment.
Main Body
Culture plays an important role in every business such that if the company have positive
working culture that it creates positive impression upon the employees and on the other side,
Culture shock is that experience which a person may have when one moves to a cultural
environment that is completely different from own. Apart from this, it is also a personal
disorientation in which a person may feel low when that experiencing an unfamiliar way of a life
due to come from some other country (Presbitero, 2016). In the same way, the employees of
Marks and Spencer also have culture shock and the main cause of cultural shock is such that it
involves an individual in some foreign environment. Firm's international assignment is to expand
its business at global level through a technology but it also affected from culture shock.
In addition to this, in cultural shock person may experience negative because of moving
one place to another along with the difference of a cultures such as different rituals, ceremonies
etc. It has been analysed that cultural shock also affects the expatriate performance in negative
way only if the working culture of company is negative. On the other side, Marks and Spencer
have diverse workforce then it will become easy for the expatriate to adjust in that work place. It
is also realised that HRM practices generally includes training, compensation, performance
management and solve the cross- cultural issues and in the same way, the HR of the company
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also provides the cultural awareness training and provide foreign training sessions as well, this
will help to remove the cultural shock among employee and they can easily adjust with the
current working culture of the company (Gunn, 2017). Apart from this, it has been also evaluated
that the cultural shock affect the expatriate is negative way such that the people will not easily
adjust in new working place and as a result their performance also got affected. Apart from this,
for starting this international assignment, at initial stage, they need extra efforts to make them
comfortable in the working area which creates negative impact upon business as well as
themselves.
Conclusion
From the above, it has been concluded that culture shock affects the performance of
expatriate in negative way. The section also concluded that the if the person did not know about
any other culture than it creates negative outcome and they also feel negative experience from
this situation and on the other side, if the company have positive working culture with diverse
workforce, then it affects in positive way.
RECOMMENDATIONS
It is recommended to the company, to provide best international training session to their
employees so that they improve the working performance of the employees. In addition to this,
the training session generally link with an innovation and support to maximizing the profit of the
company. Apart from this, the company should also manage cultural shock and for this the
company should create awareness about different cultures and also hire diverse workforce as
well. This will help to decreases the cultural differences and also leads a business towards a
success.
CONCLUSION
By summing up above report it has been concluded that international human resource
management plays an effective role in every business. In the same way, Marks and Spencer also
uses Franchising and Mergers as a market entry strategy that helps to enter into new market.
Further, report concluded different staffing strategies, with their limitation and benefits that helps
M&S how to manage the employees who are in different countries. In addition to this, report
provide the importance of training and concluded many training programs that are used by Marks
and Spencer to raise the employees’ performance. Lastly, it concluded how culture shock can
affect the expatriate performance on an international assignment.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Abrams, R. C. and et.al., 2017. A training program to enhance recognition of depression in
nursing homes, assisted living, and other long-term care settings: Description and
evaluation. Gerontology & geriatrics education.38(3). pp.325-345.
Cooke, F. L. and et.al., 2019. How far has international HRM travelled? A systematic review of
literature on multinational corporations (2000–2014). Human Resource Management
Review. 29(1). pp.59-75.
Gunn, S., 2017. Globalisation, education and culture shock. Taylor & Francis.
Iddy, J. J. and Alon, I., 2019. Knowledge management in franchising: a research agenda. Journal
of Knowledge Management.
Miles, E. and et.al., 2016. Does self-control improve with practice? Evidence from a six-week
training program. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.145(8). p.1075.
Naatu, F. and Alon, I., 2019. Social franchising: A bibliometric and theoretical review. Journal
of Promotion Management, pp.1-26.
Presbitero, A., 2016. Culture shock and reverse culture shock: The moderating role of cultural
intelligence in international students’ adaptation. International Journal of Intercultural
Relations. 53. pp.28-38.
Rickley, M., 2019. Cultural generalists and cultural specialists: Examining international
experience portfolios of subsidiary executives in multinational firms. Journal of
Management.45(2). pp.384-416.
Sui, Y. and Peculea, A. D., 2016. Financial risk identification and control of cross border merger
and acquisition enterprises. The Audit Financiar journal.14(144).
Zhang, J. and et.al., 2015. The effect of leadership style on talent retention during merger and
acquisition integration: Evidence from China. The International Journal of Human
Resource Management.26(7). pp.1021-1050.
Online
Different types of international staffing strategies. 2018. [Online]. Available through:
<https://bluemarblepayroll.com/international-hr-staffing-strategies/>.
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