HRMT20025 - International Human Resource Management Essay Analysis

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of International Human Resource Management (IHRM). It begins with an introduction to the challenges of managing a diverse workforce in international businesses, emphasizing the role of HR managers in navigating cultural differences. The essay then delves into Hofstede's cultural dimensions, including power distance, individualism versus collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term versus short-term orientation, explaining their significance in shaping organizational culture and impacting employee behavior. The discussion extends to the influence of these dimensions on expatriate management and the importance of adapting HRM practices to different cultural contexts. The essay concludes by highlighting the critical role of effective IHRM in achieving organizational success, offering insights into cross-cultural communication, and the need for organizations to understand and leverage cultural diversity for competitive advantage. The essay utilizes academic sources to support its arguments.

Running head: INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
International Human Resource Management
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author’s note

1INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Introduction
International businesses are consist of more diverse and multi-levelled in terms of
culture. Workforce of these global business come from different countries and cities and carry
their wide diversity of culture along with them. This gives rise to the responsibility of HR
manager who can manages these wide diversity and mold it towards the success of the
origination. The difficulties of an HR manager rises with the increase in the diversity in the
organizational culture. To deal with the increasing competition of the market, it becomes
necessary for an HR manager to learn the different dimensions of these cross cultural diversity so
that he can deal with it (Sadiah Zafar, Hashm & Naz, 2017).
Discussion
Today’s international business is facing huge mobility of human resource from national
and international boundaries. The international organizations are facing the challenge of
managing the human resource which are culturally different and diversified. The diversification
can be seen on the basis of caste, culture, demography such as gender and age, national and
international factors, language, educational qualification etc. organizations of one country
follows its own style of managing the task force concerning the culture, and working
environment of the company. The increase in the cultural diversity in the human behavioural
aspect increases the need for improving the cross cultural management capabilities of the human
resource management team. The development of cross cultural management capabilities
(Favaretto et al., 2016).
Hofstede cultural dimensions are used to guide the large and global human resource
management. A human resource manager of an a global or international company works with

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people of different countries. The presence of cultural differences can be a hurdle for the
organizational success as they create barriers to interactions and behavioural aspect of the
employees. The presence of these cross-cultural barriers can demotivate employees and creates
distance among them. A human resource managers have to understand first the differences
among the varieties of culture. Hofstede helps in understanding these differences (Waters &
Christensen, 2017). Four of the Hofstede dimensions are that I find significant to human
resources management are discussed below:
Power distance index ( high versus low) – The dimension of the power distance index
explains about the presence of inequality within an organizational culture. It helps in developing
a PDI score to determine the degree of acceptance among different organization. The
organization culture which has high PDI score shows that the people understands their position
within an organization and understand what they can contribute with that level of authority. The
difference in the hierarchical positions and distribution of power is not affected by the
employee’s personal values and beliefs. It helps to promote the existence of a centralized system
among different level of workers in doing their respective task. On the other hand, the low PDI
all superiors and subordinates are equal (Block & Walter, 2017).
Individualism versus collectivism – This concept is important as it helped a manager to
understand the interpersonal and moral connection among employees. The strong and healthy
relations among employees provides unity in the organization. Any kind of threat can be
converted to opportunities if all the employees are working together towards achieving a primary
target of the organization. This is known as collectivism. On the other hand, individualism
promotes self-development and not taking responsibility for others action. Both aspects is
important in its place. In large organization like international organization, the group efforts can

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be promoted by forming different teams, taskforce etc. under collectivism approach. While in
case of individualism, people try to achieve their individual targets and try to improve their
individual performance (Milosevic, 2019). However, the HR manager should focus on methods
and process that how the individual efforts can be promoted towards achieving organizational
goals. In collectivism, he should make efforts that people maintain professionalism and do not
socialize much and everyone takes responsibility of their own task and do not depend much on
others (Hofstede, 2011).
Uncertainty Avoidance Index – this dimension helps in learning the degree at which an
employee feel uncomfortable and fearful by the uncertain situations and ambiguity. Uncertainties
cannot be controlled, they will arise time to time. It is the employees of the organization who
should boost their morale and prepare themselves to deal with the uncertainties. HR managers
can help the employees to attain required training and skills so that they do not feel
inconvenience in dealing with these unknown challenges (Khatri, 2009).
Long versus short term orientation- it helps in determining the focus of the workforce
either on the basis of short term goal or long term goal. The society provides resistance to
changes and prefers to conduct activities on the basis of old traditions and values. This type of
culture in an organization can create problems for international companies whose business goal
is to achieve higher turnover with higher market share. The culture which accepts change and
innovation without creating any resistance and welcomes newer rules and regulations for
achieving long term goal is the effective culture. HR manager should focus on long term
orientation of the culture of the organization as it will create more opportunities and helps in
increasing the growth and sustainability of the organization while the short term orientation

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focusses more on existing principles and regulations instead focusing on future (Abubakari,
Wang & Paa-Grant, 2018).
Apart from these there are certain dimensions which also impact the organizational
culture which are, future orientation, human orientation, and performance orientation. These are
three dimensions which are also very significant in the HRM. Performance orientation measures
the level of performance of the organization. This can evaluate whether there are sufficient
motivation to the employees to continue their work and improve their performance. The future
orientation helps to study the planning and dedication of the society, which would show the level
of preparedness that how much they are ready for future challenges. Human orientation helps to
study the degree of unity and the level of care among employees. It focusses on the presence of
human emotions and relations within an organizations which is equally important in a
contemporary international organization (Irawan, 2017).
The organizational culture plays a significant role in achieving success. Members of the
organization feel themselves a part of the organization if they are living in a strong cultured
organization. HRM plays a vital role in managing the structure of the organization. The human
resource managers try to reduce the level of conflicts which arises by the cross-cultural
communication. The practice of reducing the demerits of the cross-cultural communication is not
only important for international organization but it has its own advantages in the Local
organization. The rapid developments have changed the culture of an organization. The process
have become more technology and knowledge based (Al-Sarayrah et al., 2016).
The factors which determines expatriates human resource management. The international
organizations provide space for the international assignees who respect diversity and have the
capability of adapting themselves in the foreign culture smoothly. The dimension of collectivism

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can help expatriates to learn the culture is they socialize with their co-workers, they can improve
the professional relation with them. The expatriates are generally sent to an international
subsidiary or appointed in an international organization in the hope that the cross cultural
difference on the basis of knowledge and educational orientation can help the organization in
opening new ways for the future development and innovation. In this way the knowledge
orientation of the expatriates can generate a longer perspective for the organization and create a
positive impact on the process of attainment of organizational goal. Apart from the individualism
vs collectivism and long term vs. short term orientation, power distance is significant dimension
which impacts the HRM either in case of expatriates or host country national. The expatriates
can find difficulty in understanding the new positions in the global organization while the foreign
national can find it easy accepting the realities of their organizational position. Effective HRM
will help the expatriates to understand the new environment and adapt easily in it (Reiche, Lee &
Quintanilla, 2018). Different programs of new joiners’ orientation and on job trainings can be
used to reduce the cross-cultural conflicts and demerits. The last dimension is the uncertainty
avoidance index. This dimension helps the all categories employees whether expatriates or host
country nationals to deal with the unknown challenges that may arise in future. The expatriates
may find lack of confidence while dealing with these uncertain situations but HR manager
should follow and conduct certain steps to provide them confidence and reduce their level of fear
(Jiang, Gollan & Brooks, 2017).
Conclusion
International organisations need a human resource management which can manages
different processes concerning human resource at an international level. Effective HRM will help
to gain competitive advantage over different competition in the market whether at national or

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international level. Hofstede’s different dimensions can help guide a HR manager how to
manage the cultural diversity of an international organization. The project concludes that each
dimension of Hofstede’s cultural element can impact the organizational cultural in a certain
ways. There is a need of complete understanding of each dimension so that a HR manager can
apply this knowledge to his organization.
References
Abubakari, Z., Wang, M., & Paa-Grant, R. (2018, August). Hofstede-GLOBE inspired cultural
dimensions: a review and application in international business research and cross-cultural
strategy. In Proceedings of the 2018 International Conference on Information
Management & Management Science (pp. 83-88).
Al-Sarayrah, S., Tarhini, A., Obeidat, B. Y., Al-Salti, Z., & Kattoua, T. (2016). The effect of
culture on strategic human resource management practices: A theoretical perspective.
International Journal of Business Management and Economic Research, 7(4), 704-716.
Block, J. H., & Walter, S. G. (2017). Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and modes of entry into
entrepreneurship. In Exploring the Entrepreneurial Society. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Favaretto, R. M., Dihl, L., Barreto, R., & Musse, S. R. (2016, September). Using group
behaviors to detect hofstede cultural dimensions. In 2016 IEEE International Conference
on Image Processing (ICIP) (pp. 2936-2940). IEEE.
Hofstede, G. (2011). Dimensionalizing cultures: The Hofstede model in context. Online
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Irawan, D. A. (2017). Expatriates Perceptions toward Hofstede’s Indonesia Cultural Dimensions.
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Jiang, Z., Gollan, P. J., & Brooks, G. (2017). Relationships between organizational justice,
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Khatri, N. (2009). Consequences of power distance orientation in organisations. Vision, 13(1), 1-
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Reiche, B. S., Lee, Y. T., & Quintanilla, J. (2018). Cultural perspectives on comparative HRM.
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