International Human Resource Management Strategies for Multicultural Organizations

The increasingly global nature of construction has highlighted the importance of multiculturalism and the new challenges it brings to execution especially in the light of the dependency on international human resources for expertise and delivery of construction projects in a cost-effective and timely manner. Adopting an analytical approach, this chapter attempts to review international HRM strategies and outlook for multicultural organizations of the construction sector in the Zimbabwean context and also provides some deeper insights on the gaps and inadequacies and recommends possible ways of bridging the identified gaps in practice. In the process, the chapter also examines the cultural factors that influence communication and how communication can be made effective in multicultural environments. But the core of the chapter is to explore international human resource management strategies for multicultural organizations.

International Human Resource Management

Nowadays, internationalization is key for the survival of firms. Internationalization of a firm involves an internationalization of all the functional areas of the firm, of which international human resource management (IHRM) is one of the most relevant. In an international context, managers should make decisions about what human resource practices are best suited to the firm's international operations. Being aware of the differences between domestic and international human resource management will help readers and managers to establish operational mechanisms to deal with country differences in terms of industrial labor, culture, and firm practices. Therefore, after reading this chapter, readers should be able to deal with aspects like adaptation or standardization of HR practices, international staffing, and relevant issues around expatriation and repatriation.

Self-Initiated Expatriates

This chapter discusses the emergence of a new category of expatriates, namely self-initiated expatriates. In particular, the demand for self-initiated academic expatriates has increased tremendously over the years in tandem with the globalization of the higher education sector across the globe. Hence, this chapter aims to provide greater understanding about the nature and motivation for expatriation among this group of expatriates which will have significant impact on the international human resource management policies and practices. This chapter begins with explanation about the concept of expatriation and expatriate. This is followed by comparison between organizational expatriates and self-initiated expatriates. The underlying motivation behind self-initiated expatriation is discussed as well. Definitions of academic self-initiated expatriates and their motivation to expatriate were included as well in this chapter. This chapter conclude with findings of one case study conducted among 152 academic self-initiated expatriates employed in 20 public universities in Malaysia.

The effects of cultural intelligence and Vietnamese proficiency on expatriate adjustment in Vietnam

The expatriate adjustment has been receiving more and more academic attention due to its increasing importance in globalization. There are many antecedents and outcomes of cross-cultural adjustment of expatriates. This research explores the relationships among Vietnamese proficiency, four dimensions of cultural intelligence, and expatriate adjustment. The study was conducted with data from 379 expatriates living/lived in Vietnam. The results reveal that Vietnamese proficiency and metacognitive cultural intelligence affect general adjustment indirectly through work and interaction adjustment. Meanwhile, cognitive cultural intelligence only a general adjustment but not the other two facets. The researcher also gives practical implications for corporations, international human resource management practitioners, and individual expatriates.

Analysis of relevance between international HRM and industry demand: A review of scientific literature

This article attempts to analyze how the relevance of international human resource management and the demands of the world of work through an in-depth study of the evidence findings from the studies of global HR governance and employment experts. In short, we search the literature utilizing an online search. Our analysis involves coding, evaluating, interpreting systems under a phenomenological approach to obtain correct, valid, and reliable answers. So the results of our study can conclude that there is a relevance between international human resource management and the needs of the world of work between countries. The use of international-level human resources to achieve business targets without national borders is known as international human resource management. Thus this input is an addition to the parties involved in the world of international human resources management.