International Business Essay: Managing Cultural Shock in HRM

This essay delves into the challenges of cultural shock within the context of international business, particularly focusing on human resource management (HRM) in multinational organizations. It highlights the increasing diversity of workforces, composed of employees from various social and cultural backgrounds, and acknowledges the potential advantages of such diversity while also addressing associated disadvantages. The essay identifies cultural shock as a primary issue, describing the disorientation and isolation experienced by employees in culturally distinct environments. It then explores proactive measures that HRM can implement to mitigate cultural shock, including training programs to educate existing employees, careful candidate screening during recruitment to assess cultural compatibility, and effective induction programs for new hires. The essay emphasizes the importance of these strategies in fostering a more inclusive and productive work environment, ultimately aiming to enhance organizational productivity by effectively managing cultural differences within a diverse workforce.

Running head: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
International business
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In the international business of the multinational organizations, employees are being
selected from different social backgrounds. Thus, the workforce is much diverse and being
represented by different social backgrounds. Though, several reports have given the opinion
about the advantages of diverse workforce and how they can be prove beneficial for the
organizations. However, there are certain disadvantages are also present which should be
considered by the human resource managers in driving the international business (Briscoe,
Schuler & Tarique 2012). This essay will discuss about the issues that can be generated in the
international human resource management and the measures that should be initiated in order to
prevent them.
One of the key issues that can get generated in the international human resource
management is the cultural shock. Cultural shock refers to the sense of disorientation by the
employees when they are being employed in an area culturally distinctive from him. The
employees tend to feel isolated in the workplace which is culturally distinctive from their own
(Kovaleski, 2013). Eventually, it leads to the reduction in the productivity of the employees.
They feel uncomfortable in coordinating with the employees being culturally different. Thus, the
mutual cooperation and coordination among the employees get affected. In the case of the
multinational organizations, operation facilities of them are being located in various countries
around the world. Thus, in this case, they comprise of the employees coming from different
locations and social backgrounds. These employees feel isolated in the organizations as well as
the existing employees from the home country also feels uncomfortable in dealing with them.
Due to all these reasons, multinational organizations initiate various schemes in order to
avoid the cultural shock of the employees as much as possible. This is prime reason for the
human resource managers in the multinational organizations to look after the cultural aspect of

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the diverse employees in managing the human resources in the organization (Martin, 2010).
There are various initiatives being taken by the human resource managers in order to prevent the
effect of cultural shock. These include initiation of the training program for the existing
employees in the organization. The training program will enable the employees in gaining an
understanding about the benefits of the diversity in the workforce. This will help them in
accepting the inflow of diverse culture in the organization, which further enables the
organization in enhancing the coordination between the home and host countries employees.
Moreover, the role of the human resource manager to prevent the cultural shock starts
from the time of selection and recruiting (Martin, 2010). This is due to the reason that it the
responsibility of the human resource manager to screen the candidate properly in order to
determine their own cultural aspect and the extent to which they can match with the existing
organizational culture. At the time of the recruitment, human resource manager should also
portray the existing organizational culture to the new candidates in order to make them
comfortable with the culture where they will work (Martin, 2010). Thus, it will help the selected
employees to be ready and equipped to work in the new organizational culture.
Another measure that can be taken by the human resource manager in order to reduce the
cultural shock is to initiate effective induction program for the newly appointed employees.
Effective designing of the induction program for the newly appointed employees will help to
make the employees being comfortable with the existing organizational culture. Induction
program should be designed in such way that the newly employed employees will have the entire
knowledge about the organizational environment where they have to work. Moreover, effective
induction program will also enable the newly selected employees to interact with the existing
employees. This will in turn reduce the probable gap between the new and existing employees

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(McFarlin & Sweeny, 2011). Thus, the cultural shock being perceived by the newly selected
employees will get reduced if they can feel comfortable with the existing employees in the
organization.
Thus, it can be concluded that it is quite obvious that the multinational organizations
having diversified workforce will face the issues of cultural differences and cultural shock. Thus,
effective measures being discussed here in this essay will help the human resource managers to
effectively manage the issues of cultural shock with the newly employed employees. It can be
expected that, the more effective will be the measures of the human resource manager in
preventing the cultural issue in the organizations, the more will be the enhancement of the
organizational productivity.

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Reference
Briscoe, D., Schuler, R. & Tarique, I. (2012). Global HRM: International Human Resource
Management (4th Edition). New York, NY: Routledge [extract is pp. 281-285]
Kovaleski, A. (2013). Managing Culture Shock for Employees in International Business
Settings. Retrieved from http://www.researchgate.net/publication/236610956 [extract is
pp. 3-8]
Martin, J. (2010). Key concepts in Human Resource Management. Retrieved from
http://www.mylibrary.com?ID=328899 [extract is pp. 120-123]
McFarlin, B. & Sweeny, P. (2011). International Management: strategic opportunities and
cultural challenges. London, United Kingdom: Routledge [extract is pp. 415-17]