International HRM

Comment

Comment by David Collings on September 30, 2008 at 3:33am

Hi Cam,

For IHRM I think some key issues are:

1. the importance of Global talent management- simply being able to calibrate and effectively develop and deploy key talent on a global scale.
3. An emerging portfolio approcah toward international assignments- inlcuding short term assiignments, traditional international assignments, frequent business travel, global virtual teams etc. (as
alluded to in discussion below). This should be foused on using the best alternative in each situation.
3. MNEs also face a key challenge in emerging economies such as the BRICs and Eastern Europe more generally.
4. Global terrorism is a key challeng in certain contexts. Such as oil companies in Nigeria and the like.

They would be some key issues as I see it.

Dave

Comment by Cam Caldwell on September 27, 2008 at 5:51pm

Colleagues:

I am working with a group of students, preparing a paper for an international business conference on five critical issues in international HR related to high performance organizational systems.

Which five issues do you think I should address? I would value your opinion.

Cam Caldwell

Comment by Debra da Silva on September 2, 2008 at 8:59pm

Hi Wes, Thanks for the views. Funnily enough I was just using some of the work you did with Banai and then you turn up here online! Nice to meet you.

Comment by Wes Harry on August 30, 2008 at 2:54am

Hello,

May I contribute practitioner/ personal views/ information.?

I am a long term expat (almost 30 years in Asia and the Middle East). For the past two years I have been HRM Adviser to 2 Sovereign Wealth Funds and the Ministry of Finance of the South East Asian state where I commenced my fulltime expat management career 27 years ago (prior to that I had spent 3 years with an African trading company visiting subsidiaries from a London base and earlier than that had been a expat as a teenage schoolboy- 'expat brat'). Whereas at the beginning of my career I was employed to be 'in charge' (heading HRM in 2 airlines and 2 banks) recently I have been employed to guide and advise others (as HRM Adviser to a Gulf States oil sector and now with these SWFs and MoF). Partly this is due to age and experience but partly to there now being plenty of capable Host Country Nationals with the ability to manage most of the operational and local HRM but lacking the international, strategic and cross cultural expertise someone like me can bring. A foreigner can also carry out some of the 'dirty HRM jobs' which a HCN could not for community relationship reasons.

My impression is that young HRM practitioners entering the expat market do so for lifestyle reasons -so want to go to Dubai or Paris for social life rather than for the money or life experience which may have been the situation in the past.

Moshe Banai and I have written a few papers about the independent expats who move from employer to employer, managing their careers and being driven by a variety of motivators. I can look for the references for those if anyone would like.

Best regards,

Wes