Global standardization or national differentiation of HRM practices in multinational companies? A comparison of multinationals in five countries

Edwards, Tony; Sanchez-Mangas, Rocio; Jalette, Patrice; Lavelle, Jonathan; Minbaeva, Dana

Global standardization or national differentiation of HRM practices in multinational companies? A comparison of multinationals in five countries

journal contribution

posted on 2017-11-29, 12:11 authored by Tony EdwardsTony Edwards, Rocio Sanchez-Mangas, Patrice Jalette, Jonathan Lavelle, Dana Minbaeva

Drawing on a dataset constructed from a parallel series of nationally representative surveys of multinational companies (MNCs), we compare the performance management (PM) practices of MNCs in the UK, Ireland, Canada, Spain, Denmark and Norway. In each country we analyze data relating to MNCs from that country and of the foreign affiliates of US MNCs. We argue that there is evidence of standardization in the nature of practices across countries, particularly evident in the analysis of US MNCs. Standardization of practices among MNCs is also evident in the rather limited variation in practices between US and indigenous MNCs within each country. Moreover, even where there is evidence of variation across and within countries, this cannot be fully explained by adaptation to local institutional constraints but rather can be seen as the product of how distinct national contexts can promote the take-up of practices.

Funding

Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (the SSHRC Major Collaborative Research Initiatives, Initiatives on the New Economy and International Opportunities Fund), the Fonds quebecois de recherche sur la societe et la culture (Equipes and Regroupements strategiques), the Canada Research Chair on Globalization and Work, the Interuniversity Research Centre on Globalization and Work (CRIMT); Ireland’s Labour Relations Commission, the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, the University of Limerick Research Office; Spain’s Ministries of Education and Science (Ref. SEJ2007-03096, Award 01/0010/2006) and Science and Innovation (Ref: ECO2009-10287), the Directorate-General for Scientific Investigation of the Madrid region (Award 06/0009/2000), the BBVA Foundation (Ref. 216/06), the Autonomous University of Madrid/Banco Santander (Ref: CEAL-AL/2011-28), IESE Business School; the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (Awards RES-000-23-0305 and RES-062-23-2080); Danish Research Council for Independent Research (FSE) (Ref. 275-09-0146); and the European Commission’s International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (FP7 IRSES-GA-2008-230854 – INTREPID).

History

School

Loughborough University London

Published in

Journal of International Business Studies

Volume

47

Issue

8

Pages

997 - 1021

Citation

EDWARDS, T. ... et al, 2016. Global standardization or national differentiation of HRM practices in multinational companies? A comparison of multinationals in five countries. Journal of International Business Studies, 47 (8), pp. 997-1021.

Publisher

Palgrave Macmillan © Academy of International Business

Version

AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2016-04-24

Publication date

2016-06-24

Notes

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Journal of International Business Studies. The definitive publisher-authenticated version EDWARDS, T. ... et al, 2016. Global standardization or national differentiation of HRM practices in multinational companies? A comparison of multinationals in five countries. Journal of International Business Studies, 47 (8), pp. 997-1021; doi:10.1057/s41267-016-0003-6 is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-016-0003-6.