International HRM Report: Australia and Singapore Comparison

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of International Human Resource Management (IHRM), focusing on a comparative study between Australia and Singapore. It begins with an introduction to the multinational retail corporation, On Cheong, and highlights the significance of IHRM in achieving organizational objectives. The report then offers country introductions, detailing the cultural, religious, linguistic, and social aspects of both Australia and Singapore. It delves into Hofstede's cultural dimensions, comparing individualism, power distance, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, and indulgence between the two countries. The report further examines staffing processes, including geocentric staffing strategies, and explores various selection tools used in IHRM. It also covers training and development, specifically cross-cultural training for expatriates, and discusses expatriate compensation. The analysis provides valuable insights into managing human resources across different cultural contexts, making it a useful resource for students and professionals in the field of IHRM.

HRM
International human resource management
Student’s name
8/2/2019

International human resource management 1
Introduction-
On Cheong is one of the well-known multinational retail corporations, which is one of
the trusted heritage brand and the most reputable jewelers in Singapore. It is one of the one –stop
jewellery shop with the numerous and the great variety of products and the services. This well-
known company houses a team of jewellery designers and artisans who are capable of producing
the jewellery masterpieces for the ultimate customers. Along with this, it is also seen that in
April 2012, hence, all these parts are the unwavering commitment in order to create more
opportunities and helps in brining value to the customers, employees and communities
worldwide (Chmiel, Fraccaroli, & Sverke, 2017).
International human resource management majorly highlights about the set of various
actions, which mainly aims at running the administrative human resource at global level to attain
the organizational objective and works over for achieving the competitive benefit over the
opponents at state as well as global level too. International human resource management mainly
comprises of HRM function such as recruitment, selection, training and development (Collings,
Wood, & Szamosi, 2018). Lastly, the performance evaluation is done at the global level. Hence,
it is seen that IHRM mainly manages the employees who belongs to many nations; it also
manages the additional activities such as expatriate administration. However, above all IHRM is
heavily affected by the external factors such as culture distance and institutional factors (Delery,
& Roumpi, 2017).
Country’s Introduction
In terms of Australia history, it is the zone and individuals of the commonwealth of
Australia with its preceding indigenous and colonial societies. If we talk about the Australian,
local culture is carries the western culture, which is derived primarily from Britain but it, is also
influenced by the unique geography of the Australian continent. It is also seen that the people of
Australia are outgoing than compared to the other culture (Rickard, 2017).
Regarding religion aspect highlights that it is the predominantly the Christian nation
where about 52% of Australians are Christians. Other than this, people of Australia are allowed

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to practice any religious conviction they choose, as long as they are not breaching any law set by
the Australian government. Hence, this highlights that Australia demonstrate its cultural diversity
and having all the facilities and places of worship and much more (Tan, 2017).
Language- In terms of Australian context their not specific or any official language is
assigned, but their majority of people or the population speaks in English. According to the
calculated data, around 73% of people speak in English. Other than this, people out their also
speaks other language such as Mandarin, Arabic and Greek and much more.
Gender roles and statues- Australia in today’s time still has gender stereotypes and
expectations that streams from the cultural experience and the media. One of the interesting
aspects of Australian gender roles are they are majorly affected by the religion. Factors, which
are important to be considered, and indoctrinating gender roles are educations, family life and by
the Australian law (Rickard, 2017).
In terms of family background, it is seen at around 84% of Australian born people turn
themselves into family for help. In contract, it is also seen that 58%of the newly migrants who
are having fewer family members they also turned into family when in need. Hence, from all the
data it is seen that the Australia people are family oriented and works together when in need of
help (Tan, 2017).
Other than these, fooding aspect of Australia highlights that it is a multicultural society.
Hence, it has an great quantity of garden-fresh food all year around. Moreover, specialty
restaurants with the wide variety of cuisines such as Chinese, French, African, Greek, Mexican
and many Australian chefs are renowned worldwide with the synthesis cuisine which helps in
bringing together the European cooking styles and Asian flavors (Tan, 2017).
Lastly, in terms of sports and leisure activities, Australia’s most common past time is
spending much time at beach. Many families live nearby the coastline. So as sports, swimming is
one of the fastest growing sport and became the fast integral part of the people’s life. Other than
this, beautiful hikes and walk, cycling and running is also popular sports. Moreover, joining
sports club is also one of the great ways to interact with new people and the most popular sports
include rugby and cricket (Roberts, 2019).

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Hofstede cultural dimensions-
(source: Minkov, 2018).
Individualism v/s collectivism- In terms of Australia, the graph majorly highlights that
the Australia scores 90 percent of individualist culture. The aspects highlights that the hope is
that in individuals look to them and their close family members. In this, it is seen that employees
are expected to be self- reliant and display initiative. Nevertheless, in case of Singapore, it is
more collectivist country, in which people look after each other in exchange of trustworthiness. It
is seen that form of announcement is indirect and open conflicts are avoided. Here, respectability
and calmness is mandatory to maintain (Andrijauskienė, & Dumčiuvienė, 2017).
Low v/s high power distance- In terms of power distance, Australia scores low as
compared to Singapore. As Australian organization, organizational structure is established for
convenience, managers and executives who mainly rely on workers and groups. In terms of
communication aspect, it is informal, direct and participative. But in terms of Singapore, power
distance score is high in which control is centralized and executives mainly rely on the bosses
and on rules which they set. There is also informal communication, but the information flow is
selective (Deresky, 2017).

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Masculinity v/s femininity- In terms of Australia, there is a high score over masculinity
in which the entire society is driven by the rivalry, accomplishments and victory. As Australian
are delighted of their future success and attainments in life and along with this, they also offers
the hiring and promotions decisions in workplace. However, in Singapore, feminine side is more
than masculine. Therefore, it highlights that softer culture, modest and humbleness is seen.
Conflicts are mainly avoided at workstations. Lastly, community support and respect for the
individual is seen in Singapore (Minkov, 2018).
Low v/s high uncertainty avoidance- Australia in this context scores immediate results,
in this part the ambiguity that brings the anxiety and the different culture are highlighted here.
So, in this Australian are good at avoiding uncertain situation, which arises in the organization.
However, in Singapore context, the score is very low on this particular dimension, in this;
Singapore people follow many rules because of the high power distanced index (Andrijauskienė,
& Dumčiuvienė, 2017).
Long v/s short-term orientation- This dimension mainly highlights about the culture of
the country and Australian in this context scores 21% which highlights that they follow
normative culture. People who belong to such society had a great concern with establishing the
truth, they exhibit the great respect to the tradition, and they relatively in a very small quantity
save for the upcoming future and majorly aiming at achieving the rapid results. However,
Singapore in this context, they score 72%, which states that they support long-term investment
such as perseverance, slow results, ordering relationships by status and much more (Saleem, &
Larimo, 2017).
Indulgence v/s restrain- In terms of Australia, it is considered as the indulgent country ,
in which they generally exhibits the enthusiasm to understand the urge and desires and mainly
focuses on enjoying life and having fun. Hence, such positive attitude and optimism generate the
higher degree of leisure time than saving. However, in terms of Singapore, they score 46%,
which states that they believe more on restrain which shows that people of Singapore having an
ability to control their desire and impulse (Andrijauskienė, & Dumčiuvienė, 2017).

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Staffing process
Staffing highlights the process of acquiring, developing and retaining the efficient
workforce with the sufficient quality and the quantity in order to create the positive impact over
the organization success and that particular success aspect helps in maintaining the
organizational effectiveness.
International staffing strategies mainly highlights about the hiring, recruitment and
selection of the employees. According to shifting of employees from Singapore to Australia,
Company will choose geocentric staffing strategy, which majorly highlights about the looking
for the best people regardless of any nationality (Dipboye, 2017). This type of strategy enables
the firm to make the best use of the human resource or the employees. Moreover, this strategy
also helps in building the strong, unifying, and informal management networks. However, there
is also setting up of expensive training programmes so that the employees can perform much
better than usual. Therefore, this type of strategy sees the willingness inside the employees to
learn and adapt the newer and the different experience and ideas so that at large scale they should
benefit themselves as well as the organization (McNulty, & Vance, 2017).
Selection tools
International human resource selection tools are a defined series or the steps while hiring
the employees. The tools may be the screening, background check; ability test, personality test,
drug testing and lastly the skill assessment are the various selection tools on which the
employees are selected for the particular job.
Preliminary screening majorly highlights about the employment application or the CV’s
to determine whether the applied candidate meet the required qualifications for the job or not.
Hence, it carries the entire information about the candidate, his/her past experience, salary
aspects and much more. On this particular basis, the selection of the particular candidate is done
at a very first stage.
Ability and personality test- ability test majorly performed from oral and qualitative
skills to perceptual speed. As mental ability test helps the organization to measure the
candidates’ potential such as math test as this helps in to analyze the persons working ability.

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And personality test helps in accessing traits, characteristics of individual workers like weather
he/she is extrovert or introvert, open to experience or not, knows how to be emotionally stable
and much more.
Background check- this is conducted when the company finally selects the candidate. In
this, the company does the background check or the background investigation of the candidate.
In this the focus is on candidates criminal history, any fraud done or not, earlier job status and
doings. Hence, this aspect helps the organization to know more about the employee and further
to make the wise decision in respect of that employee and organization (Dipboye, 2017).
Training and development
In terms of training and development or cross- culture training states about the planned
involvement to increase the understandings and abilities of the expatriates to work effectively
and to achieve the goals, which were made for the host country. The process of training and
development of international assignees are –
 Firstly, the identification of global assignment for which the training and developing
aspects is needed. This aspect mainly comprises of technical, functional, developmental
or strategic. In this, the training will be giving for the development of the host country.
 Then the second step highlights about the conduct of a cross-cultural training and
development analysis in which it is conducted at three main levels, one of organizational
level, another is at individual level in which person needs special training and third is
assignment level in which cross culture knowledge and skills is given to complete the
particular assignment.
 Third step highlights about the establishment of goals and measures in which detailed and
measureable training goals are developed so that the appropriate outcomes are evaluated.
Other than this, short term training goals also generates cognitive, affective and
behavioral changes.
 Fourth step highlights about the delivering of specific, stated goal, methods to deliver and
the sessions of training are developed. Then lastly, fifth step highlights about the
evaluation process in which the pre training session’s effects and post training effects are

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evaluated and further the strategies are evaluated and further decisions are made to
establish the set goals (Sloman, 2017).
Expatriate compensation
Expatriate compensation majorly highlights about the remuneration or the compensation
package, which is planned by the organization to achieve the staffing set objectives and
maintaining the mobility of the staff (McNulty, & Brewster, 2018).
Balance sheet approach is also known as home based approach, which is mostly applied by
the organization. As it helps in providing the international employees with the expatriate
compensation, which is, totally equals to the cost difference in between the global tasks and the
same task at the home nation of the specific individual or the company, which is doing it (Kim,
et al, 2018). Hence, this approach mainly is based on certain assumptions in order to protect the
international assignees from the major cost difference between their home and the host countries.
(Kim, et al, 2018).
Conclusion
From the above report, we can conclude that international human resource management
is one of the most important factor, which helps in expatiates to perform better than usual
because within the international human resource aspect it includes staffing strategies, recruitment
strategies, selection strategies, training and development aspects are considered and lastly the
remuneration aspects are considered. This process not only helps the employees or the assignee
who is been assigned for handling the international business but also through the training and
development strategies helps them to work efficiently and step ahead towards success.

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