How National Culture Shapes Hrm

1683 Words7 Pages
Critically discuss how national culture acts to shape HRM practices and, drawing on both theory and practice, consider how MNC’s can seek to address national cultural differences across their operations. Each nation state consists of a culture which has been shaped by history, legal, political and economic systems. People that belong to a communist society will have very different beliefs, values and customs to those who do not. This essay will focus on how national culture can be seen to shape HRM and how multi national corporations deal with cultural differences in their various countries and why it may be a competitive advantage to do so. Culture can be a difficult concept to define. It can be described as ‘a learned, shared, compelling, interrelated set of symbols whose meanings provide a set of orientations for members of a society’ (Terpstra & David 1991;6). Each nation’s distinctive culture will have an influence on the way organisations manage their workers. Corporate culture can be seen as a source of competitive advantage (Barney 1986, Ott 1989, Pfeffer 1994, Wilkins and Ouchi 1983), it is necessary a business understands the cultural laws, beliefs, values and attitudes in order to be successful. Management practices will be different in each nation due to the cultural differences. Not only does it shape management behaviour but it also ‘shapes everything’ (Hickson and Pugh, 1995). It is important for managers operating in other countries to understand culture to make sure they know what HRM policies should be used. Culture will affect the employer employee relationship, employment practice and management style. Tayeb (2005) suggests that culture influences management practices informally through the ‘internalised socially acceptable norms of behaviour’ (2005:45) whereas institutional influence formally affects management through rules and
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