Abstract The primary focus of this paper is to examine how the increased demand for global corporate strategic consistency and flexibility redefines the roles of the corporate human resource function and its venues of influence. In particular, we analyse possible causal linkages among strategic international HR management, strategic leadership of corporate top management team (i.e. TMT), and alternative global assignment options. As globalization significantly changes not only the operating boundaries but also the symbolic context of the global organization, we argue that corporate HR function can play more influential roles in global organizations than it has in the past. Keywords global strategic human resource management; strategic perspective in corporate HR issues; inpatriation; political aspects of SGHRM Introduction
The globalization of business activities in multinational corporations (MNCs) has created an increased pressure to link intemational human resource management (i.e. IHRM) policies and practices with the firm-level outcomes (Chadwick and Cappelli, 1999).
The increasing demands for modification of control and co-ordination mechanisms in global organizations have distinctly imposed a commensurate need for structural changes within the headquarters human resource function of the MNCs (Roth and Ricks, 1994).
The Essay on Human Resource Management And Human Resource Development
Human resource management (HRM) is the umbrella under which all other human resource activities are found. Some of the major activities under the umbrella are: benefits and compensation, health safety and security, human resource planning, staffing, equal employment opportunity, and human resource development (HRD) (Werner, DeSimone, 2012). Byars and Rue (2011) define HRM as, “Activities designed ...
Therefore, the focal point of the corporate human resource (i.e. HR) function in global organizations appears to be moving toward the need to design a supporting infrastructure for managers to manage competently the complex and competing demands for network co-ordination (i.e. consistency and efficiency) and differentiated responsiveness (i.e. flexibility and effectiveness) in global markets (Harvey et aL, 1999a).
In addition, as these structural changes also entail heightened decentralization of global operations, the corporate HR function faces the complex issues associated with how to design flexible global assignments and leadership development systems (Ricks et aL, 1990).
Recent research findings suggest that developing competent global managers is an issue of the firm-level strategic relevance because global assignments and leadership are increasingly becoming the primary means of differentiating the global strategic thrust of the organization (Wieserma and Bantel, 1992).
Thus, global assignments to develop global leaders represent one of the major areas of the corporate HR management involvement in corporate strategy formulation and implementation processes (Taylor Milorad M. Novicevic, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin – La Crosse. Michael Harvey, Dean and Hearin Chair of Global Business School of Business Administration, University of Mississippi, University MS, USA (e-mail: ).
The International Joumal of Human Re.murce Matiagement
ISSN 0958-5192 prinl/ISSN 1466-4399 online © 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/09585190110083785
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The International Journal of Human Resource Management
and Beechler, 1993).
If global leadership is to become one of the central facets of developing global strategies, the role of the human resource function, department, and managers must be redefined in the context of this change. To address the growing strategic importance of leadership, companies like Gillette have implemented an international-trainee programme that expose candidates for global assignments to corporate planning and strategy development prior to their being transferred overseas. As a result, 85 per cent of Gillette’s global assignees come from the twenty-seven countries in which Gillette operates. Other MNCs, such as Coca-Cola, will not repatriate managers until there is solid evidence that they have had an impact on overseas performance and that they have developed a global mindset.
The Business plan on Entrepreneurial Leader Change Organization Leadership
... appropriate for the temperamental leaders in our organization. Leadership skills can be improved with coaching ... the recent state of corporate scandals, heightened market competition, and continuous global pressures on our ... with new standards or regulations. A strategic plan for change can be formulated ... of the dynamic complexity of organizations can lead managers to feel overwhelmed and under ...
The primary focus of this paper is to examine how the increased demand for global corporate strategic consistency and fiexibility redefines the roles of the corporate human resource function and its venues of infiuence. In particular, we analyse possible causal linkages among strategic international HR management, strategic leadership of corporate top management team (i.e. TMT), and alternative global assignment options.
As globalization significantly changes not only the operating boundaries but also the symbolic context of the global organization, we argue that corporate HR function can play more infiuential roles in global organizations than it has in the past. This increased influence stems from a new set of the corporate HR’s roles, characterized by blended political and strategic dimensions, which includes: the change agent of corporate culture; the TMT’s symbolic ‘communicator’ to other levels of the organization; senior managers’ mediator in development/career planning opportunities; and corporate TMT’s and particularly the CEO’s reliable internal informal adviser (Napier et al., 1995).
Therefore, it would appear that supplementing the traditional strategic perspective with the political infiuence perspective on the IHRM function in global organizations provides unique insights into the emerging portfolio of roles that the corporate HR can play in global organizations when the demands for strategic fiexibility and leadership development are salient.
In focusing on global leadership issues, we follow Napier’s (1996) recommendation that the framework of a three-dimensional matrix (i.e. strategy, HR management, organizational outcomes) should include a fourth element, that being the type or level of employee affected by the other three factors (Napier, 1996: 239).
The Review on Strategic Human Resource Management 4
... company plays in the strategic vision of an organization. It is the role of senior management that helps to actually ... conditions in our research, explicitly wrestling with the global universality vs local adaptability issue and experimenting ... management and corporate strategy. A number of authors have been working on approaches to the achievement of what is called Strategic Human Resource Management. ...
Napier particularly hypothesized that organizations that grow internally within the existing structure will use ‘transfers to promote managers to top management positions’ based on subjective selection criteria, whereas the firms that diversify and acquire other firms will tend to draw upon the ‘new’ insiders using objective selection criteria. However, as the corporate growth in the global context is increasingly becoming a mixed-mode growth, management-staffing processes has become political in nature, thus opening an opportunity for a new role for corporate HR infiuence and/or power.
Therefore, we will analyse the corporate HR roles within the combined strategic and political infiuence perspective (Ferris et al., 1995) by examining both the political and strategic forces driving global staffing and leadership development policies and practices. In particular, we will focus on the implicit infiuence of corporate HR on the design and implementation of global management staffing policies and practices to supply an adequate number of managers to implement the explicit corporate initiatives. In the first section of the paper, we examine a strategic perspective on corporate HR roles in global organizations. We address the problems of control and co-ordination faced by corporate TMT as the firm globalizes its activities. Also, we examine the role of global management staffing in integration of control and co-ordination in a decentralized global organization. In the second part of the paper, we explore the.
