A culturally synergetic approach to international Human Resource Management: implementing an integrated approach.

An integrated approach to IHRM tries to create a HRM system with substantial global integration combined with local differentiation. How to successfully implement such an integrated IHRM approach is the focus of this paper. The literature indicates three issues that need to be addressed: finding the balance between global integration and local responsiveness, understanding the cultural embeddedness of HRM practices and assessing the underlying power dynamics. Our suggestion is a culturally synergistic approach to IHRM. This approach is being presented by identifying the crucial steps in the decision making process and discussing guidelines on when and how to intervene.Human resource management; Resource management; Management; International; Integration; Decision making; Processes;

Many diversities for many customers: contextualizing diversity (management) in four service companies.

Diversity studies generally define diversity by referring to one or more employees' demographic traits such as gender, race, ethnicity, and age, and examine subsequently the effects of these differences onto a variety of organizational practices and outcomes (see Milliken & Martins, 1996 for a review). In recent years, however, a few diversity scholars have increasingly expressed dissatisfaction with this kind of approach. The major point of critique is that, while focusing on the effects of diversity, research has left the notion of diversity itself undertheorized (Nkomo & Cox, 1996). The unproblematized use of demographic traits as independent variables to operationalize diversity has de facto led to an understanding of diversity as a given, fixed individual or group essence (Litvin, 1997). The anchoring of diversity within the individual or the group bears two major related consequences, further limiting the current understanding of diversity. First, it defines diversity independently of the specific context under study, obscuring the active role organizations play in the production of specific understandings of diversity (Ely, 1995; Foldy, 2002). Second, by so doing, it conceals how specific understandings of diversity reflect organizational power relations (Zanoni & Janssens, 2004).Effects; Studies; Variables;

Reconsidering translation and language in an international business context: beyond an instrumental approach.

International;

Constructing the other: managerial rhetorics of diversity.

In this article, we examine how HR managers rhetorically construct diversity as discourses of Otherness. Our analysis relies on argument schemes developed by the classical rhetoric tradition. HR managers talk about diverse employees as visible, hearable and enjoyable Others, measure Otherness in terms of time, pace and rhythm, and evaluate the Other in terms of his/her compliance. While these discourses are varied and sometimes contradict the dominant (negative) Discourses of Otherness, they remain at the same time monolithic. The construction and valorisation of Otherness is predominantly deployed in function of reinforcing dominant managerial Discourses of discipline, compliance and control.Employment; Expected; Managers; Studies;

A knowledge perspective on HRM activities: what matters for HRM?.

This stuy discusses the HRM literature and models from a knowledge perspective relying on the distinction between component and architectural knowledge. Given this distinction, it examines the influence of HRM activities on client orientation, felt responsibility, psychological attachment and cooperative attitude, four main characteristics of a learning organisation.Knowledge;

Reviewing global career dimensions: towards a future research model.

Considering the changing nature of the career concept, we conduct a review of both recent career theory and research findings on global managers' careers. Relying on recent career theory, we first identify different individual and organizational dimensions that are characteristic for contemporary careers. Guided by these career dimensions, we examine the research findings of expatriate studies to assess their meaningfulness for global careers. While this review confirms the dimensions as identified from career theory, it also suggests the relevance of an additional organizational career dimension and a new domain of cultural career dimensions. The result of both reviews is a research model that approaches global careers at the intersection of individual, organizational and cultural domains.Theory; Managers; Studies; Model;

Fusion collaboration in global teams.

This essay introduces a new model for facilitating collaboration in global teams that leads to creatively realistic solutions to global problems. The conceptualization for the fusion model of global team collaboration draws on the culinary tradition of fusion cooking and current political theorizing about pluralistic societies. We describe how the fusion principle of coexistence facilitates information extraction and decision making, and we recommend formal interventions to counterbalance the unequal power relations among team members. We contrast the fusion model to models of collaboration based on principles of the dominant coalition and of integration/identity, pointing out why fusion should produce superior solutions to global problems.Model; Problems; Information; Decision; Decision making; Models; Principles;

Engaging with (diversity) management: An analysis of minority employees' agency.

This study analyses how minority employees engage with (diversity) management to construct their organizational identities and, by so doing, comply with, accommodate and/or resist managerial control. Differently from most studies of diversity as a discourse, which consider diversity discourses as direct forms of control, we approach diversity as an identity-regulating discourse, controlling minority employees indirectly by offering them specific organizational identities. Further, these identity-regulating discourses combine with the specific material structure of the organization, creating a particular mix of direct and indirect control. We analyze four minority employees' identities in two organizations, a technical drawing company and a hospital. We show that minority employees actively engage, as agents, with both types of control, which constrain them but also open up possibilities for resistance, and even forms of (micro-)emancipation. The paper contributes to the reconceptualization of diversity as an identity-regulating discourse and to the further theorization of identity regulation and emancipation.Agency; Companies; Control; Diversity; Emancipation; Employees; Management; Materiality; Open; Regulation; Resistance; Structure; Studies;

Designing a training and development policy: a knowledge creation perspective.

This study presents a training and development policy which facilitates the creation and sharing of new knowledge. The policy is based upon the principle of generating redundancies, related to core competences. At a first level, training is focused towards basic functional knowledge. At the second level, the programs are oriented towards improvement of the process system by stimulating internal process redundancies. The purpose of the training at the third level is to open the system and to facilitate innovation by developing external functional redundancies. The sharing of tacit knowledge is stimulated by emphasizing externalization and learning by doing.Knowledge;

Diversity management as identity regulation in the Post-Fordist productive space.

Management; Regulation; Research; Space;