write a essay
What does your nationality mean to you? Reflect on to what extent your identity is shaped by your nation/region of birth and how you relate to the common stereotypes about your nation/region. If your life has been marked by migration, reflect on how the intersection of multiple nations/regions influenced your identity (min. 200 words).
I was born in china
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L E C T U R E S L I D E S A R E N O T N O T E S
Lecture slides are designed to be visual aids for the live presentation.
Reading them cannot substitute for attending the lecture or listening to
recordings. Sometimes concepts and ideas presented are then critiqued
and challenged during lectures.
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P R O J E C T :
F U T U R E
Dr Helena Liu
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Week 8 HRM in a Global Context
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Last week in this subject, we examined
diversities and the backlash against them.
We explored feminist and anti-racist
challenges against inequality at work and
societies.
REVIEW
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REVIEW OF WEEK 6
WHAT DOES DIVERSITY MEAN?
Diversity management is understood in diverse ways in different
countries and in different organisations. In many organisations, it is
reduced to the idea of counting women.
IDENTITY IS SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED
What it means to be a man, woman, white, Black, etc. has changed
over time and across contexts. A sociological analysis looks at how these
cultural understandings of identity are shaped by power.
GENDERED AND RACIALISED ORGANISATIONS
Rather than focusing on individual and interpersonal actions, we can
examine the ways organisations are inherently gendered and racialised
to understand institutionalised patriarchy and white supremacy.
FEMINISMS, QUEERING AND ANTI-RACISM
Challenging the ideologies of patriarchy, heteronormativity and white
supremacy requires systemic interventions.
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D I V E R S I T Y
A N D
I N C L U S I O N
Dr Helena Liu
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Runs in Autumn sessions every year. See the subject description at:
https://handbook.uts.edu.au/subjects/details/21883.html
Photograph of the Civil Rights March on Washington, 28th August, 1963 courtesy of the
National Archives.
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MULTIPLE CHOICE
QUIZ REVIEW
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HRM IN A GLOBAL
CONTEXT
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AGENDA
HRM in a global context
What are the processes of international HRM?
What is cross-cultural management and how can
it be problematic?
Hofstedes cultural dimensions
Backdrop of imperialism
Decolonising HRM
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I N T E R N A T I O N A L H R M
P R O C E S S E S
S E C T I O N
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Organisations operating across nations need to bridge the divide
between being globally coherent with their human resource policies
and practices while being sensitive to local requirements.
(Harzing and Pinnington, 2014)
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A holistic approach advocates preparing
expatriates for native languages,
communication styles and cultural values.
Traditionally, organisations focussed on
technical skills and neglected the ways each
specific assignment context may demand a
particular combination of skills, abilities and
personalities.
PREPARATION
AND TRAINING
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PREPARATION
AND TRAINING
As international assignments are, fundamentally, social
encounters, the role of emotions cannot be ignored (Tan et al.,
2005).
In Boncori and Vines (2014) article, emotions (or lack thereof)
were vital aspects of communication and identity.
Coping with the psycho-emotional adjustment of an
international assignment also contributed to exhaustion and
burnout.
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C R O S S – C U L T U R A L
M A N A G E M E N T
S E C T I O N
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CROSS-CULTURAL
MANAGEMENT
Cross-cultural management is one of the areas in international
human resources most entrenched in imperialist ideology.
Cultural Frameworks
Although international human resource management argues for the
need for universal knowledge, the concepts, theories, models and the
scholars who inscribe them are typically Anglo-American (Banerjee and
Linstead, 2001; Kwek, 2003; Westwood, 2001). The purpose of such
frameworks is to provide simple, digestible overviews of non-Western
countries so that corporations (usually in the United States) can formulate
strategies for international expansion.
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CROSS-CULTURAL
MANAGEMENT
Unsurprisingly
Underlying this work is often the notion that managerial competencies
outside the West are inferior. For example, cross-cultural management
texts have argued that the Middle Eastern is said to prefer technocratic
managers who focus on sterile considerations such as efficiency,
productivity and output; India and Indonesia are frequently characterised
as deeply paternalistic, which is said to be due to the propensity for their
population to accept a passive and dependent role; the Japanese is
allegedly a highly formal country based on their feudalist traditions which
would suggest a limited capacity for leadership initiative among
professionals, and so on and so forth.
(Jack and Westwood, 2009)
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CULTURAL
ESSENTIALISM
Most cross-cultural theories assume that culture (sometimes
lumped in with nationality, ethnicity and race) is a deep-rooted
determinant of behaviour shared across an entire social group.
When I studied international HRM, it struck me that China was
described as an unitary culture that is collectivist and
Confucian but also backward, oppressive, corrupt and difficult
(Kwek, 2003). But what is Chinese culture and does it even
exist? (see Ang, 2014)
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Geert Hofstede (1928)
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In Cultures Consequences, Hofstede (1980,
p. 44) claimed to have uncover[ed] the
secrets of entire national cultures. Using
data from employee attitude surveys across
66 IBM subsidiaries, he created profiles for
each country.
CULTURAL
DIMENSIONS
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CULTURAL DIMENSIONS
Cultural
Dimensions
Individualism
vs
Collectivism
Power
Distance
Uncertainty
Avoidance
Masculinity
versus
Femininity
Long- vs
Short-Term
Orientation
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CULTURAL DIMENSIONS
Within Hofstedes framework, profiles for 15 of the
countries evaluated were extrapolated from fewer
than 200 survey responses. However, as Hofstede
assumed each country was culturally homogenous,
small sample sizes were deemed irrelevant to the
frameworks accuracy.
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I M P E R I A L I S M
S E C T I O N
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The European colonial project defined
other cultures and peoples from the
perspective of the West, dominating
through not just military power but the
imposition of European worldviews
(Chakrabarty, 1992).
IMPERIALISM
The three races according to the German
Meyers Konversations-Lexikon of 1885-90.
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Fundamental to European worldviews is the assumption that the
primitive, savage and unruly non-West is incapable of self-definition and
thus necessitates objective Western scientific classification.
(Said, 1978)
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Lord Cromer (18411917, right) instructed that Orientals could
not learn to walk on sidewalks, could not tell the truth, could
not use logic. Meanwhile, a missionary lamented that the
Hindu is inherently untruthful and lacks moral courage.
(Said, 1994, p.151)
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THINKING
SOCIOLOGICALLY
Most studies of expatriation assumes the default of a Western
professional who goes abroad. This assumption traditionally
overlooked family relations.
At the same time, we have ignored voices from the host
countries conducted outside the West. How their work and
lives are impacted by expatriates remain under-explored
(Abdelrehim et al., 2018; Boncori and Vine, 2014).
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D E C O L O N I S A T I O N
S E C T I O N
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DECOLONISING
HRM
The first decolonial intervention of management is to see the
strange in management theory and practice.
Overwhelming focus on functionalism.
What is not said (e.g., cultural control, the social construction of
identity, race and colonialism, etc.) offers important insights
into the function of management and organisations.
(Ruggunan, 2016)
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DECOLONISING
HRM
Colonial Double Consciousness
Management beyond the West needs to free itself from the
dominant Anglo-American idealisations of management
(Gantman, Yousfi and Alcadipani, 2015).
Speaking from his context of South Africa, Ruggunan (2016, p.
110) traces how the so-called management sciences normalised
racial categorisations and treated Black bodies as resources to
be controlled, disciplined and punished.
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DECOLONISING HRM
For whom do we do HRM and for what purpose?
Is it only to increase organisational and performance
efficiencies? Is it to increase the career mobility of
professionals (or of academics)? Or is it to maintain
the socio-political status quo?
By critically asking and answering these questions,
we may begin to identify and challenge the dominant
power structures in our society.
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WEEK 10
The Failings of HRM
Crisis, resistance and activism
Read the required readings, attend the
lecture and tutorial.
NEXT WEEK
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REFERENCES
DECOLONIAL THEORY
Banerjee, S.B. and Linstead, S. (2001), Globalization, multiculturalism and other fictions: Colonialism for the new
millennium?, Organization, 8(4), pp. 683722.
Bhambra, G.K., Gebrial, D. and Niancolu, K. (eds.) (2018), Decolonising the University. London: Pluto Press.
Chakrabarty, D. (1992), Postcoloniality and the artifice of history: Who speaks for Indian pasts?, Representations,
(37), pp. 126.
Gantman, E.R., Yousfi, H. and Alcadipani, R. (2015), Challenging Anglo-Saxon dominance in management and
organizational knowledge, Revista de Administrao de Empresas, 55(2), pp. 126129.
* Kwek, D. (2003), Decolonizing and re-presenting cultures consequences: A postcolonial critique of cross- cultural
studies in management, in Prasad, A. (ed.) Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Analysis: A Critical
Engagement. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 121146.
Ruggunan, S.D. (2016), Decolonising management studies: A love story, in Critical Management Studies in the
South African Context. Cape Town: Acta Commercii. pp. 103259. Available at:
http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/acom/v16n2/05.pdf.
Said, E.W. (1994), Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books.
Said, E.W. (1978), Orientalism. London: Penguin.
* = the required
readings of the
topic
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REFERENCES
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Abdelrehim, N., Ramnath, A., Smith, A., et al. (2018), Ambiguous decolonisation: A postcolonial reading of the IHRM
strategy of the Burmah Oil Company, Business History, pp. 129. doi:00076791.2018.1448384.
* Boncori, I. and Vine, T. (2014), Learning without thought is labour lost, thought without learning is perilous: The
importance of pre-departure training and emotions management for expatriates working in China, International
Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion, 6(2), pp. 155177.
Harzing, A.W. and Pinnington, A. (2014), International Human Resource Management. 4th edn. London: Sage.
Hofstede, G. (1980), Motivation, leadership, and organization: Do American theories apply abroad?, Organizational
Dynamics, 9(1), pp. 4263.
Hofstede, G. (2001), Cultures consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations across
Nations. 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Jack, G. and Westwood, R. (2009), International and Cross-Cultural Management Studies: A Postcolonial Reading.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Tan, J.A.C, Hrtel, C.E.J., Panipucci, D. and Strybosch, V.E. (2005), The effect of emotions in cross-cultural expatriate
experiences, Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, 12(2), p. 12.
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REFERENCES
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Westwood, R. (2001), Appropriating the Other in the discourses of comparative management, in Westwood, R. and
Linstead, S. (eds.) The Language of Organization. London: Sage, pp. 242283.
CULTURAL STUDIES AND HISTORY
Ang, I. (2014), Beyond Chinese groupism: Chinese Australians between assimilation, multiculturalism and diaspora,
Ethnic and Racial Studies, 37(7), pp. 11841196.
Hage, G. (1998), White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society. Hoboken: Taylor and
Francis.
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