Host Country Analysis And International HRM Issues

Task

Host Country Analysis and International HRM Issues

• Choose an organisation.
• Provide a brief background of this organisation.
• Assume that this organisation is going to expand operations into a country of your choice. This country should not be the same one in which the organisation is currently located.
• Examine, in detail, the various HR issues the organisation will have to face in the foreign country. This examination will involve the topics discussed in the subject
• You need to explain the challenges faced in each HR area and you should also provide recommendations to deal with these challenges.

Rationale

This assessment fosters the development of communications, presentation, academic literacy, information literacy and critical thinking skills. Students will apply their learning in this subject to study a current issue in International HRM in depth, drawing on academic literature, critical reflection, and professional practice.  When preparing this Report, we hope that you will be able to:

• critically analyse international business activity in the context of current and emerging international HRM theory;
• explain the complexity of cross-cultural differences with respect to the integration of international business activity and international human resource management practice;
• reflect, contrast and critically evaluate the differences and similarities in human resource management practices among different cultures;
• examine and justify criteria for selecting, preparing, managing and repatriating international managers;
• compare and contrast approaches to international human resource management practice; and
• critically discuss emerging issues in international business and their human resource management implications.

INTRODUCTION

HRM (Human Resource Management) is observed as critical theories to make sure that the economic goals of the organisation are matched with the employee's commitment. Presently, the concept of IHRM (International Human Resource Management) has risen in organisational cultural discourse. It is an approach to understand the problems and issues of HRM arising due to cross-cultural differences from the internationalization of business (Welch & Björkman, 2015). 

This report will describe and analyse the present IHRM issues. To understand the issue in depth the report has chosen Coles Supermarket- an Australian based organisation that is planning to expand its business in Sri Lanka. This report will analyse the IHRM activities, the emerging issues in IHRM, explain the cross-cultural differences between Sri Lanka and Australia using Hofstede Model, HRM practices in Australia and Sri Lanka and finally make recommendations to improve. The report is concluded by giving a brief description.

OVERVIEW OF THE ORGANISATION

Coles has been delivering great value and excellent service to its customers by delivering the best quality grocery & home products. Wesfarmers have owned Coles Supermarket, long back in 1914. It employs more than 100,000 employees in over 762 stores across Australia (Coles, 2015). According to the statistics of 2014, Coles' market share was around 33.5% positioning it in the second rank, behind Woolworths with 39% (Roy Morgan Research, 2014). The main competitors of Coles in the Supermarket area are Aldi, Woolworths', Metcahs and other retailers as shown below (Pash, 2015).

IHRM ISSUES FACED BY ORGANISATION

Emergence of IHRM and its Activities

Emergence of IHRM

There is developing acknowledgement that, multinational firms obtain their source of advantages from their capability to make, transfer and incorporate knowledge cross-borders. The role of organisational context and subsidiary knowledge is progressively perceived, while knowledge management from worldwide has developed as a key factor for MNCs. This made human resource management to play a crucial role in the present knowledge management challenges. 

The increase in globalisation, internationalisation of business and worldwide competition have given rise to international human resource management. Recent research proposes that developing attention to execution issues in the rapidly expanding number of cross-border acquisitions, mergers and strategic alliances has further expanded the key significance of IHRM especially as there is a rapid growth of global business and strategic alliances, moving from markets that are mature, developed and formal markets to culturally distant, emerging and informal markets  (Dowling, Festing, & Engle, 2013).

Activities of IHRM

According to the context of present IHRM theories, activities similar to domestic HRM like industrial relations, Compensation, payroll and benefits, training, learning and development, performance management, staffing process and HRM planning are undertaken in an organisation (Tornikoski, 2010). However, according to Morgan, IHRM is based on utilisation, allocation and procurement process where the mentioned activities can be grouped into. He also portrays that the companies planning to expand its business internationally must involve country categories in their activities of HR. There are three types of categories of the country: home-country where the company is headquartered, host country where the company is planning to locate its subsidiary and other countries where the company is planning to shift due to finance and labour source. According to this nation 'category' it can be said, Coles is implementing the Host-country country, as it is opening its new subsidiary in Sri Lanka  (Dowling, Festing, & Engle, 2013).