See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/324939843

Cross-Cultural Project on Human Resource Management: An Overview

Article · February 2018

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1183295

CITATIONS READS

0 8,959

1 author:

Rasheduzzaman Md
Shandong University
1 PUBLICATION   0 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Rasheduzzaman Md on 04 May 2018.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Int. j. sci. bus
Volume: 2, Issue: 2 ISSN 2520-4750 (Online) & ISSN 2521-3040 (Print)
Page: 101-114
2018 International Journal of Science and Business

Cross-Cultural Project on Human

Resource Management: An Overview
Jahangir Alam & Md. Rasheduzzaman

Abstract:

The globalization of business is increasing rapidly and the workforce is becoming

multicultural increasingly. Global workforces are managing has increased pressure on human
resource managers to identify and adapt to cultural differences, if it is ignored, it might result
in cross-cultural misunderstandings. The international project cannot achieve its goal without
human resources, and talented people who do the best can do in the right position give wings
to the company in the international competition. The aim of this study is to get a clear
concept of cross-cultural human resource management and to know how to manage the
harmonious working relationship between expatriates and local employees by analyzing
problems consist of the concept of cross-cultural human resource management. Problems
exist between expatriates and local employees, and how to manage cross-cultural human
resource management.

Key words: Cross culture, Human resource management, Cross cultural constraints,
Culture study, Training & development.

Introduction

When the world entered the 21st century, globalization of business has increased rapidly.
Global business is to run more effectively and successfully, It needs to face cross cultural
problems. Today‟s world is very competitive, communication is essential for the successful
performance of maneuvers daily.

Jahangir Alam, MSc in Project Management, Shandong University, Jinan, China.

Rasheduzzaman Md, MSc in Project Management, Shandong University, Jinan, China.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1183295

101 International Journal of Science and Business Published By

Email: editor@ijsab.com Website: ijsab.com
Int. j. sci. bus

Understanding cultural differences and overcoming language barriers are some of the
considerations employees of the organization should have while dealing with individuals of
different cultures. Interacting in a new culture involves discovering and understanding
differences, adjusting to new rules and developing competences that support to a person in
getting on in an unfamiliar environment (Hofstede, 1980; Johnson, Lenartowicz & Apud,
2006).Culture is the most important things to understand in international projects. Many
authors have interpreted the meaning of word culture differently; they have different opinion
concerning culture and one of the American anthropologists Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952)
have given more than 160 different definitions ofculture (Thomas, 2008), According to their
definitions, Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit of and for behavior acquired and
transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including
their embodiments in artifacts: the essential core of culture consists of traditional (I, e,
historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems
may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action; on the other as conditioning
elements of future action (Holden,2002,p.21).

According to (McClelland, 1973: 1-14) and (PMI-2013)Cross-culture means from one culture
to another culture. Cross-culture is a trend born by market globalization; company goes out of
their country to another country to do business, brings their own culture with the companies
to another culture.And Management is to use right people in the right way to do right things,
in another way, and management is to plan, lead, organize and control. Actually culture refers
to the complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, language, customs,
rituals, behavior, faith/religions, food, arts/drama/music and many other capabilities and
habits required by an individual as a member of society. When the company crosses the
border to do business with these culture and host country has same or different culture then
two countries mixing become a cross culture. So international project manager faces cultural
difficulty and manage the multicultural workforces.

International companies need to overcome this cross cultural challenges and promote the
business in the competitive market. When it comes to costs & benefits, human resource
management is critical for survival, performance and success of projects. Human resource

102 International Journal of Science and Business Published By

Email: editor@ijsab.com Website: ijsab.com
Int. j. sci. bus

management plays a vital role in management, because nothing can be done without human
resources, and talented people who do the best can do in the right position give wings to the
company in the international competition. In this study, will have a clear concept of cross
cultural human resource management and conceptual framework to overcome the cross
culture in the international projects by managing multinational workforces.

Objective of the Research

The main objective of this research is to identify the problem and difficulties of cross cultural
human resource management in the international business projects, and some solutions to
overcome multicultural problems and to success the multinational projects by achieving their
goals. In this context, to have a proper and clear idea about the cross cultural issue and study
covers the following aspects:
1. To define the cross cultural project human resource management.
2. To identify the problems may exist between expatriates and local employees in
international companies regarding Cross-cultural Human Resource Management.
3. Assigns some solution to manage the cross cultural human resource.

Significance of the Research

The key significance of this research is:
1. The cross cultural problem assessment result of this research can be used as a baseline to
compare the success of or impact of future improvement efforts in international projects.
2. This research work can help the international project to achieve their goals by managing
different cultural workforces.
3. It should be identified gaps in the existing problems for further refinement of cross
cultural problems.

Literature review:
International business needs to supply high skills workforces for managing their business,
overcoming cross cultural problems and then will gain the decisive competitive advantage
(World Economic Forum, 2010a). International enterprise perspective, Human Resource
Management plays the structure in an organization that is responsible for the entire decision-

103 International Journal of Science and Business Published By

Email: editor@ijsab.com Website: ijsab.com
Int. j. sci. bus

making, strategy implementation, principles, operations, practices, functions, activities and

processes related to the management of multicultural workforces (Society for Human
Resource Management, 2008). The ideas behind these principles, policies and practices of
managing people inorganizations differ with people from differing cultural backgrounds
requiring HRM tobe carefully examined and altered to match their organizational objectives
(Society forHuman Resource Management, 2007).

The human resource management of foreign subsidiaries or foreign joint ventures becomes
the keyto international human resource management for internationalbusiness projects.
Unfortunately, the parent company or expatriates have not done very well in this part of
management: when entering into a foreign country, the culture differences have shown in
every aspect of doing international business, ignoring culture differences has cost a lot for a
multinational enterprise, which leads to failure in competition. There are many types of
research, about international human resource management, which are close to this topic,
cross-cultural human resource management that is more specific under international human
resource management. Brewster (2002) argued that the majority of studies in International
human resource management have traditionally focused on expatriation: the cross-border
assignments of employees that last for a significant period of time. However, there are few
types of research talkingabout the harmonious working relationship between the expatriates
and local employees. Therefore, my topic is valuable to study.

Methods of the Research

The research will use data sources to collect information relevant to reaching the research
objectives. The information will collect from previous journals, thesis paper and publication
concerning cross cultural human resource management and this study will be a conceptual
framework for the future researcher to get data that will helpful in drawing conclusions and
giving recommendations on cross cultural human resource management for the international
enterprises.

104 International Journal of Science and Business Published By

Email: editor@ijsab.com Website: ijsab.com
Int. j. sci. bus

Discussion
In this Chapter, we will introduce related conceptsregarding cross-cultural human resource
management. These concepts will be helpful to understand the cross-cultural human resource
management deeply and comprehensively and further builds a clear picture of it. After the
concepts studying, we will apply the suggestion to analyze the cultural differences which can
be beneficial for starting up new business projects and manage the international workforces
to achieve its goals and compete in the competitive markets.

Human Resource Management

Human Resources Management (HRM) is the process of managing people in organizations in
a structured and thorough manner. It is both the “art and science”. It is an art, in the sense of
managing people by creative and innovative approaches and it is a science as well because of
the precision and rigorous application of the theory that is required. It plays an obvious role
in assuring employee satisfaction, improving performance, productivity to meet the objective
and success of any organisation. Human resource management is the functions performed in
organizations that facilities the most effective use of people to achieve organizational and
individual goals.

Human resource management refers to the practices and policies you need to carry out the
personnel aspects of your management job, specifically, acquiring, training, appraising,
rewarding, and providing a safe and fair environment for your company‟s employees.
Enterprises in different stages have different functions in human resource management
department, but in general, for most of the companies, the functions of human resource
management include:
a. Job analysis and design.
b. Staff recruitment and selection
c. Training and development
d. Performance assessments
e. Employee health and safety
f. Compensation management
g. Staff motivation
h. Labor relations management
105 International Journal of Science and Business Published By
Email: editor@ijsab.com Website: ijsab.com
Int. j. sci. bus

International Human Resource Management

The international human resource management requiresdifferent form and more than human
resource management. Therefore, the international human resource management refers to that
in the environment of global enterprises, multinational or international enterprises,
conducting the human resource management. Besides the normal functions that human
resource management includes, such as staff recruitment and selection, performance
assessment, compensation management, and employee health and safety, the international
human resource management will have more to do, which are not necessary for a domestic
environment, such as international taxations, international relocation and orientation,
administrative services for expatriates, host-government relations, and language translation
services, those make international human resource management more complicated to research
and manage (Dowlinget al. 2008). International human resource management needs to deal
with broad range of people and government of host country.

Differences between International HRM and Domestic HRM

In Human resource management perspective, have some differences between international
HRM and domestic HRM, which leads to successful management in both aspects.
Description in table-1
Table 1: Differences between IHRM and Domestic HRM
International HRM Domestic HRM
 Address a broad extent of HRM  Address a limited extent of HRM
activities activities
 HR issues relate to employees belonging  HR issues relate to employees
to more than one nation belonging to single nation
 Greater involvement of HR manager in  limited involvement of HR manager in
the personal life of employees the personal life of employees

 Greater exposure to risks in international  Limited risks in domestic assignments

assignments
 Managing several external factors such  Limited external factors to deal with.
as government regulations of host
country

106 International Journal of Science and Business Published By

Email: editor@ijsab.com Website: ijsab.com
Int. j. sci. bus

Factor of Cross cultural human resource management

Cross-cultural human resource management is the key part of cross-cultural management, It
is a sequence activities based on characters of culture differences of staff selections,
performance assessment, salaries management, and so forth, to enhance theeffectiveness and
efficiency of human resource allocation and application, in the background of cross-culture of
the enterprise.
The factors of cross-culture have a comprehensive, system-widely, process-throughout
impact on human resource management, it consists of three levels:
a. The home countries or nationals different cultures from both parts. The joint ventures and
multinational enterprises that are equipped with two different cultures from two different
countries are influenced by negative factors of cross-cultural behaviors. This is a cross-
culture macro level.
b. To the concept level, which is practical obviously in mergers, acquisitions, and corporate
restructuring enterprises, which is the parent companies cultural differences from both parts.
When two companies decide to hand-in-hand to be marriedto each other, the cultures of their
own, such as staff selection system, group work style, will become some points of dispute in
marriage life.
c. Individual cultural differences. This is a cross-cultural difference in the micro-level; old
and young, man and woman, higher and lower levels, etc., any different individuals have
cross-cultural differences (Chen ,Yu, 2006).

The importance of cross cultural project human resource management

Cross-cultural human resource management brings trust enhancement between people, brings
to improvement, if it is regarded as important. The trust between people is from effective
communications and understandings, which can pull people together, make the group a team;
after that, the employees feel at home in the company, feel like they are part of his/her
company, have a sense of belonging, therefore enhancing the loyalty of employees. But the
communications and understandings are coming from languages, value orientations, habits,
behaviors, etc.; unfortunately, those differ or even conflict in cross-cultural organizations and
groups. Values affect on the choice of models, means, and behaviours of people, and
therefore become certain preference. Different nations have different psychology, way of
thinking and behavior, religions, and context, which cause conflicts easily. Unfortunately,
107 International Journal of Science and Business Published By
Email: editor@ijsab.com Website: ijsab.com
Int. j. sci. bus

cross-cultural human resource management is the most vulnerable part of conflicts, because it
comes from different cultures plus human resources, both of them are changeable. Ignoring
the power of cultures, using management methods to improve employees‟ relations simply,
violating the psychological needs of employees will lead to some awful consequences, say,
decreasing functioning efficiency of organizations, costing more for operations, and creating
conflicts. (Keeley, 2001:17-18)

The features of cross-cultural human resource management

International companies are operating characteristics of internationalization and multinational
management staff attitude have a significant impact on cross-cultural human resource
management, forming features of diversity and transforming.
Diversity: The feature of diversity of cross-cultural human resource management refers to
the coexistence of variety of national cultures in human resource management of
multinational enterprises.
Transforming: The focus of cross-cultural human resource management is to keep changing.
From internationalization operations of enterprises perspective, in different stages of
international operations, human resource management has different tasks and goals.

Cross Cultural Constraint

Cross cultural skills require considerable time, training, teaching, experience, knowledge,
susceptibility and awareness. Lack and ignorance of such inter-cultural expertise result in
miscommunication and mismanagement, thereby having serious implication on business
service, project failure and increased competition in the global market. Also create triple
constraints like the following aspect;
 Miscommunication on scope

 Mismanagement on inter-cultural perspective

 Misunderstanding on exact form of deliverables

 Attitudes toward schedules result in missed deadlines, long delays

 Over budget projects

108 International Journal of Science and Business Published By

Email: editor@ijsab.com Website: ijsab.com
Int. j. sci. bus

Recommendations
In this part, Recommendations are going to be given in the theory perspective of view, such
as culture perspective to study, cross-cultural training to development efforts and expatriates
selection to success in competition. These recommendations may still be helpful to any
subsidiary or joint venture or international project.

Cultural Study
All international companies have to face cultural problems when going to a new country to
set up a subsidiary or a joint venture or business enterprise. Culture itself is not defined
different by more predominant or inferior, developed or developing, or even right or wrong;
instead, every culture is born in hundreds or thousands of years of history, it presents
people‟s thoughts, values, norms, habits, and behaviors. Therefore, in an international
company, all employees and managers from a foreign and the local country have to treat the
different culture right. To do this, we will discuss it from two perspectives: the foreign
expatriates‟ part, which represents the culture of where they come from, and the local
employees and managers‟ part, which represents the culture of their own country.

Foreign Expatriates:As an expatriate, he/she needs to prepare for the culture he/she will
face before going to the destination country. To learn a culture is so difficult for an expatriate
in alittle period, because there is no culture can be learnt from books or by an introduction on
a TV programs; even so, it doesn‟t mean that there is no need to get some facts and study the
destination culture for the expatriate. It is important that learning a culture for an expatriate
should be based on the respect for the new culture, and hold an equality to the both cultures;
onlythrough respect and equality, can the destination culture and the culture differences be
understood without prejudice, can the international company be in a no culture distance
working environment (Zhang, 2001).

Local employees and managers:The local employees and managers, who hold the
majorityof the labor numbers and his should respect the coming culture. Before the upcoming
of the foreign expatriate, the home managers can give the right direction to the employees
about the approaching culture; introduce some knowledge which should be noticed when

109 International Journal of Science and Business Published By

Email: editor@ijsab.com Website: ijsab.com
Int. j. sci. bus

behaving in the presence of the foreign expatriate. Of course, these actions done by local
managers are based on their knowledge and understandings about the approaching culture.

Levels of cultural study: Without cultural knowledge an international company cannot

success in competition, because international companies have to face a lot of customers who
are from different culture, if they don‟t have knowledge of different culture they cannot
handle the customer successfully. we will introduce some levels of cultural study below;
 Culture: Shared pattern of ideas, emotions and behavior, crossing national boundaries
 Cultural Knowledge: Familiarization with characteristics, history, values, of another
ethnic group
 Cultural Awareness: Developing sensitivity and understanding of another ethnic group
 Cultural Sensitivity: Knowledge that cultural differences and similarities exist without
judgment
 Cultural Competency: Development of skills and programs that allow individuals and
groups to function effectively and appropriately in diverse cultural interaction and
settings.

Cross Cultural Training and Development

Cross-cultural training is seen as the principal method of extruding cultural conflicts and
realizing effective cross-cultural management. It is seen as decreasing the cultural conflicts
the expatriate may face, so as to make the expatriate get used to the new environment and
work well without fears; to maintain a stable interpersonal relationship in the company, and
to strengthen the team spirit and solidity force in the company, etc. But in this thesis, the most
important goal is to decrease the creation potential of cultural conflicts between the foreign
expatriates and the local employees and managers. To realize this goal, a company canfollow
these directions:
a. Emphasis on both cultural training
b. Language training.
c. Training in global manners and the nuances of the virtual workplace culture.
d. Managing personal
e. and family life

110 International Journal of Science and Business Published By

Email: editor@ijsab.com Website: ijsab.com
Int. j. sci. bus

Selection of Expatriates
Expatriates selection play a very important role in the international company, a good
expatriate can be helpful for decreasing expenses for the company, bring much more profit
for the company and win in a competition in the competitive market. Still it is very difficult
to choose the right person to the right country to do the right job in international companies at
this time. But, there are few can be precisely the “right” one, at least the chosen one can do
better and better is good.
There are some criteria that are talked most: adaptability, professional ability, age,
experiences and language.Adaptability means the ability the expatriate has to adapt to the
new changing cultural environment. Professional ability means the working ability an
expatriate should have. Age and experiences is another criterion. Younger people can adapt
more easily to a new environment and learn a new culture faster, while elder people have
more experiences. Language should be no doubt listed, if the expatriate can understand the
local language, it must be the best situation that he/she can more easily communicate with
local employees and decrease many problems (Yan, 2004).

Framework for Effective Cross Cultural HRM

When dealing with cultural differences there is nothing more important than being friendly.
Some framework for effective cross cultural project human resource management in the
international enterprise;
 Learn: Try to learn differences of culture exist in the management
 Understand: use the cultural dimensions to know what differences to expect among the
people who are came from different cultures.
 Take advantages: build on the differences to identify and mitigate risks, increase the
level of innovation and quality of deliverables, find alternative approaches and achieve
objectives.
 Respect the differences: accept and show respect for different standpoints.

111 International Journal of Science and Business Published By

Email: editor@ijsab.com Website: ijsab.com
Int. j. sci. bus

Conclusion
When an international company comes to abroad or cross the border to set up a new
enterprise, it has to face a lot of problems and one of the most common problems is across
cultural problem. From an internal management perspective, human resource management
plays an important role in cross cultural management. This research condenses on the cross-
cultural human resource management problems existing in the degree of harmonious working
relationship between foreign expatriates and local employees. In order to analyze this, firstly
we needed to have a series concepts regarding cross-cultural human resource management;
we analyzed cross-cultural management, human resource management, international human
resource management, and characters and functions of them separately. Then we have given
some suggestions to overcome the cross cultural problems for the success of the international
projects. So, for later studies, we would like to dig more in to cross-cultural human resource
management and see the development efforts to cross cultural project human resource
management in a competitive market.

References
Bhatti. A.P (2009). CROSS-CULTURAL ISSUES IN HRM Bachelor of Technology, Punjab
Technical University.
Bhushan Kapoor, Impact of Globalization on Human Resource Management , Professor and
Chair, Information Systems & Decision Sciences, Cal State University, Fullerton,
USA
Briscoe, R. D., Schuler, S. & Claus, L. (2009). International human resource management:
policy and practice for multinational enterprises. Abingdon:
Budhwar, P.S. & Sparrow, P.R. (2002). An Integrative Framework for Understanding Cross-
National Human Resource Management Practices. Human Resource Management
Review.
Chen, H. Yu, N. Foreign Economic Relations and Trade, No.11,2006
Claus, L. (2008). Employee performance management in MNCs: Reconciling the need for
global integration and local responsiveness. European J. International Management,
2(2),132-152.
Claus, L. (2008). Society for Human Resource Management. Retrieved June 10, 2009,
Cuhlova. R. (2015) Cross Cultural Issues in International Human Resource Management,
Technical University of Liberec. ISSN 1805-062X, 1805-0638 (online), ETTN 072-
11-00002-09-4.

112 International Journal of Science and Business Published By

Email: editor@ijsab.com Website: ijsab.com
Int. j. sci. bus

Dowling, P.J. & Welch, D.E. (2004). International Human Resource Management –
Managing People in a Multicultural context. (3rd ed.). Thomas Learning, Singapore.
PP. 5.
Đorđević, B., Ivanović-Đukić, M. (2013). Challenges of the International Business
Communication and Implication for Human Resource Management Function.
Economic Themes,51 (2), 273-292
D. Rambabu (n.d) Principles of Management, Human Resource Management p. 135
Đorđević. B (2016) Impact of National Culture on International Human Resource
Management, Economic Themes (2016) 54(2): 281-300
Fayol, H. 1998. General and Industrial Management (Chinese translation version), p. 1-157
Gomes, Sh. (2012). International Human Resource Management, Retrieved from:
http://xisspm.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/chap-2-concept-of-ihrm.pdf., Accessed 6.
July 2015
Inkson, K., Khapova, S. N., & Parker, P. (2007). Careers in cross-cultural perspective.Career
Development International, 12(1), 5
Keeley, T. 2001. International Human Resource Management in Japanese Firm, p. 17-18.
McClelland, David C. 1973. IQ and personality tests are poor indicators of a person‟s
competence, 28, 1-14
Reiche, S. B., Lee, Y. T. & Quintanilla, J. (2012). Cultural perspectives on comparative
HRM. In: Brewster, C. & Mayrhofer, W. (Eds.), Handbook of Research in Comparative
Human Resource Management (pp. 51-68). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Rosenblatt, Valerie (2011) ‗The impact of institutional processes, social networks, and
culture on diffusion of global work values in multinational organizations„, Cross
Cultural Management: An International Journal, Vol. 18, No. 1
Siddiquea. A (2012). Importance of HRM for Organizational Success Bettina Drew (n. d).
Culture in Business Communication.
Simon, H. 1960. The New Science of Management Decision, p. 1-50

Society for Human Resource Management. (2007). The 2007-2008 workplace trends list.
Alexandria, VA: Author. Retrieved June 10, 2009.
Society for Human Resource Management. (2008). Glossary of human resources terms.
Retrieved June 10, 2009,
Society for Human Resource Management. (2008). Workplace forecast. Alexandria, V
A:Author.
Tabrizi. M.R.F, Fahani. A.S &Safar. M.P (2012) Cross-Cultural Influences on HRM
Practices in an African Context: Global Entrepreneurs in Senegal, IOSR Journal Of
Humanities And Social Science (JHSS) ISSN: 2279-0837, ISBN: 2279-0845.Volume
5, Issue 1 (Nov. - Dec. 2012), PP 44-49
Taylor, F. 1911. The Principles of Scientific Management, p. 25-114
Thomas, C. D. (2008). Cross-cultural management: Essentials concepts (2nd ed). Thousand
Oaks: SAGE Publishing.

113 International Journal of Science and Business Published By

Email: editor@ijsab.com Website: ijsab.com
 Int. j. sci. bus

Tóth. E (2012) The Role of Cross-cultural Competences in Start-up Companies, Faculty of

Business School of Social Sciences, University of Iceland.
Wang, C. (2009). Cross-Cultural Management Brainstorm. Modern Economic Information,
vol. 15, p. 1-2
Yan, G. 2004. International Business, p. 244-247
Zhang, D. 2001. Human Resource Development and Management, p. 386-388.

Cite this article:

Alam, j., & Rasheduzzaman, M. (2018). Cross-Cultural Project on Human Resource

Management: An Overview. International Journal of Science and Business, 2(2),
101-114. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.1183295

Retrieved from http://ijsab.com/wp-content/uploads/222.pdf

Published by

114 International Journal of Science and Business Published By

Email: editor@ijsab.com Website: ijsab.com

View publication stats