HRM ASPECTS OF INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS

Executive Summary

This report is based on an educational company, New Oriental Education, Inc. The company is trying to decide which candidate is the most suitable person for the plant manager. In order to decide the candidate, the company has decided to focus on the organizational structure and cross-cultural barriers. It can be seen that both countries have different cultural backgrounds. It may be difficult for the company to retain in the business. This report has discussed all the necessary points that should be incorporated in this company. The barriers, challenges and issues are discussed. Moreover, the suitable strategies and structures are given to have a sustainable organization.

 

Table of Contents

1. Introduction. 4

2. Choosing Plant Manager 4

2.1 Choice of Plant Manager 4

2.2 Justifying Choice. 4

3. The Organizational Structure. 5

3.1 Recommending Organizational Structure. 5

3.2 Justification of Recommendation. 6

4 The Cultural Context 6

4.1 Recommendation of Cross-cultural Context 6

4.2 Justification. 7

5 The International Training, Development & Careers Context 7

5.1 Consideration of Training and Development 7

5.2 Reason. 7

6 The Staffing Context 8

6.1 Recommending Staffing Options. 8

6.2 Reasons. 8

7. Conclusion. 9

References. 10

 

 

 

1. Introduction

In this report, a company has been selected for a human resource management study. New Oriental Education, Inc. an Australian Company, has decided to expand its business to further Asian countries. The company has been considering all the differences. It has decided to expand its business in China. Both countries have their differences in different contexts. This report will evaluate all the differences for choosing a plan manager for the project.

2. Choosing Plant Manager

2.1 Choice of Plant Manager

Being a consultant, it is an important responsibility to choose a potential plant manager for any project. In this international business expansion, the HR executive is planning to decide a suitable plant manager for the project. The company has three candidates for the manager positions. Ahmed and Ogalo (2019) have stated that in order to consider the best candidate, the executive is required to identify the education, training skills, time management skill and leadership skills of the selected candidates. The organization should choose Shintaro Nakata. This candidate is eligible for the plant manager position as he has education skills as well as practical skills that will eventually help the company. For example, as the company is deciding to expand its business, it needs to consider the language barrier in both the countries. Shintaro has been working in Japan from his employment career. The company will be benefited if it chooses this candidate. Moreover, the candidate has been working in the former company for ten years. He knows the employees very well.

2.2 Justifying Choice

The company could face only one obstacle in this case. The candidate has not spoken well about this company. Irrespective of this, the candidate is the most eligible candidate among the three candidates. Almasri et al. (2018) have said that company always prefers a candidate who has a certain amount of experience. In this case, the candidate has been in this industry for ten years.

3. The Organizational Structure

3.1 Recommending Organizational Structure

The most important responsibility for an international business organization is to follow an organizational structure. Bandyopadhyay and Srivastava (2020) have opined that there are various organizational structures present in this business. Most companies face problems regarding the requirements and operations in organizational structure. There could also be a problem in staff duplicity. The company has decided to follow the international division structure.

Figure 1: International Division Organizational Structure

3.2 Justification of Recommendation

This division structure is included so that the company can run its initial business with less complicated structure. The organization has just recently bought this company. Bleijenbergh, van Mierlo and Bondarouk (2021) have suggested that the existing employees may be biased towards their previous way of working. This could lead them to develop bad things about the new company. In fact, the company does not want that. This division has both advantages and disadvantages. Here the top management of the company will be exposed to information about the company. The knowledge of foreign market is important for the company. This division of organizational structure will let the higher employees know about the foreign market. This exhibits a great benefit for the company. On the other, it can be seen that unity is strength. Here, the company will be working unitedly as a team. In this division, there is no discrimination among the employees. As a result, the international operations are performed by the employees as a team. Dekoulou and Trivellas (2017) have said that the main disadvantage of this division is that it requires different managers to work on a local base. However, the company has selected a local candidate as a plant manager so this disadvantage will not retain the company from gaining success.

4 The Cultural Context

4.1 Recommendation of Cross-cultural Context

The cultural aspect is important for consideration in any overseas business expansion. In this case, the company should implement a cross cultural approach. Most of the companies face a huge problem regarding their culture. Both countries have different cultural backgrounds. The company decided the business expansion on the basis of increased opportunity and huge demand. The forecast was made on this specific Chinese market. Diaz‐Carrion et al. (2018) has stated that the existing company already has a mature workforce which will help the company. However, the problem will arise when the cultural aspect of existing employees will differ from the employees who will not be from that local area. The company should choose Hansens four elements of culture to fight back the cultural conflict.

4.2 Justification

The cross-cultural approach represents four different standardizations. They are communication, behavior, feeling and thought. This approach aims to help any organization to improve the interactions between customers and employees or between the suppliers in the business. The educational company will describe and compare between the organizational behavior between the cultures and countries. This will help them to evaluate the situation.

5 The International Training, Development & Careers Context

5.1 Consideration of Training and Development

In order to do the overseas operations, a company needs to consider few training considerations. It is necessary for the employees to be aware of any organizational situation. The cross-cultural training may be quite difficult for any organization. In order to develop the growth, few training activities should be done on the employees. The New Oriental Education, Inc. should consider training for dealing with the challenges, diversified workforce, specific country, management practices and conducting negotiations. El Talla et al. (2018) have suggested that the management practices will require employees to give training to the employee to generate growth.

5.2 Reason

Training is one of the most important factors in an organization to enhance an employees skill. The existing employees are well aware of the organizational practices. However, the new employees who will join the company will have no experience in this organization. They need to be prepared for the assigned work. Moreover, the training will also improve the existing employees' skills. They will be trained to refresh their knowledge. The training can benefit the company through improvements in employees morale. Joy, Game and Toshniwal (2020) have stated that training provides job security and satisfaction to the employees. As a result, they will be more satisfied and they will contribute to the organizational success. A trained employee will need less supervision. So, his or her team leader will have to work less. Moreover, there will be less amount of time which is wasted. Efficiency and productivity in the organization will be increased through training. There will be qualitative work.

6 The Staffing Context

6.1 Recommending Staffing Options

In an overseas operation, most countries need to use staffing strategies. There are three different strategies that the respective company can use. The strategies are home-country national, third country national and host country national. Mayrhofer, Gooderham and Brewster (2019) have said that each strategy has its own advantages and disadvantages. In this regard, the New Oriental Education, Inc. should implement Host country national staffing strategy.

6.2 Reasons

Each company needs a staffing strategy for its international business operations. The host country nationals will help any company from facing language barrier issues. This issue is eliminated with the help of this strategy. Moreover, the host nationals understand their local rules better than any other foreign national. Mohan and Nair (2017) have opined that the most important advantage of this strategy is that it costs way less to hire an employee than any other strategy in this business. The expenses of moving and training will be way less if the company hires local people. It can be seen that the people from the host countries are way more productive than any other country. The challenges are quite less in this strategy. The company will face lesser issues to hire the local people. The existing employees of the company are also local. Moreover, they are mature employees of the company.in addition to this, the host countries employees know their laws and culture well enough to prevent any accident from happening. It can also be seen that the connections are pure in this strategy. Budhwar et al. (2018) have stated that most companies prefer to hire local people to influence the existing people in the company.

 

7. Conclusion

This report is based on human resource management. A company, New Oriental Education, Inc. has been selected to conduct this study. It can be seen that the company is decking to expand its business. The company has also decided to connect with the overseas business expansion. It has been aiming to expand its business in China. The given scenario has stated that the company has been considering deciding the project plant manager. It has three eligible candidates for this position. In this report, the candidates are evaluated so that the HR executive may decide who will be the plant manager in this project. This report has also discussed the important factors for choosing the right manager. The organizational structure, cross cultural barriers and training needs are also included in this report. This report gives an insight into the future of the company.

 

References

Journals

Ahmed, A. and Ogalo, H.S., 2019. From hrm to e-hrm: Contemporary developments from scholarly work. Annals of Contemporary Developments in Management & HR (ACDMHR)', Print ISSN, pp.2632-7686.

Almasri, A., El Talla, S.A., Abu-Naser, S.S. and Al Shobaki, M.J., 2018. The Organizational Structure and its Role in Applying the Information Technology Used In the Palestinian Universities-Comparative Study between Al-Azhar and the Islamic Universities.

Bandyopadhyay, C. and Srivastava, K.B., 2020. HR signals in the context of HRM-firm performance relationship: development of a conceptual framework. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management.

Bleijenbergh, I., van Mierlo, J. and Bondarouk, T., 2021. Closing the gap between scholarly knowledge and practice: Guidelines for HRM action research. Human resource management review, 31(2), p.100764.

Dekoulou, P. and Trivellas, P., 2017. Organizational structure, innovation performance and customer relationship value in the Greek advertising and media industry. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing.

Diaz‐Carrion, R., Lpez‐Fernndez, M. and Romero‐Fernandez, P.M., 2018. Developing a sustainable HRM system from a contextual perspective. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 25(6), pp.1143-1153.

El Talla, S.A., Al Shobaki, M.J., Abu-Naser, S.S. and Abu Amuna, Y.M., 2018. The Nature of the Organizational Structure in the Palestinian Governmental Universities-Al-Aqsa University as A Model.

Joy, S., Game, A.M. and Toshniwal, I.G., 2020. Applying Bourdieus capital-field-habitus framework to migrant careers: taking stock and adding a transnational perspective. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 31(20), pp.2541-2564.

Mayrhofer, W., Gooderham, P.N. and Brewster, C., 2019. Context and HRM: theory, evidence, and proposals. International Studies of Management & Organization, 49(4), pp.355-371.

Mohan, B. and Nair, L.R., 2017. Cross Cultural HRM Issue: Cheng Hi's Chinese Construction Company. SCMS Journal of Indian Management, 14(2), pp.98-104.

Online Articles

Budhwar, P., Pereira, V., Mellahi, K. and Singh, S.K., 2019. The state of HRM in the Middle East: Challenges and future research agenda. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 36(4), pp.905-933. Available at <https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10490-018-9587-7> [Accessed on: 23/04/2021]