Cross-national learning from best practice and the convergence-divergence debate in HRM

Abstract

The chief objective of this paper is to develop suggestions as to how to learn from best practices in HRM across national borders. The analysis is based on survey data gathered from 232 HRM managers from American, Japanese and German top 500 companies. The managers provide information on how the HRM model of their respective country is characterized and from which of the other two country models they seek inspiration. The concrete attributes of the models considered worth adopting are described in detail and future developments with regards to convergence of the HRM models explored. The empirical data suggest that HR managers from all three countries expect a partial convergence towards a hybrid model. Curiously, the model that comes closest to this hybrid – the German one – is also the one that rates lowest as a source of inspiration. An argument is made that in order to better understand learning from best practice and resulting convergence tendencies, research should seek more insights regarding the knowledge of managers about foreign management models, their perceptions of these models, and how these perceptions are generated.

Keywords:

• Convergence
• divergence
• HRM
• USA
• Japan
• Germany

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Professor Yoshitaka Okada and Professor Michael T. Hannan, for their support during his research at Sophia University, Tokyo and Stanford University, Palo Alto. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management.

Notes

1 It is held here that the term ‘divergence’ is in this context a rather inappropriate antonym of ‘convergence’. To diverge means ‘to move apart’; however, most authors of the so-called ‘divergence’ approach argue that national management models are different and will remain different due to cultural and other societal contextual factors, without implying that those models actually move apart; that is, become even more different. Therefore, ‘non-convergence’ might be here the more appropriate antonym to ‘convergence’. Closely related, but not identical terms are ‘culture free’ versus ‘culture bound’ (Lammers and Hickson, 1979), ‘universalism’ versus ‘institutionalism’ (Smith and Meiksins, 1995) or ‘universalism’ versus ‘contingency’ (Delery and Doty, 1996).

2 An important exception to this is the rather substantial body of literature on HRM in foreign subsidiaries (e.g. Schlunze, 2002). The focus in this literature is, however, more on what can be adopted from one country to another within one multinational company. Instead, here the objective is to understand what can be adopted between HRM practices of different countries. It is appreciated that these two questions can overlap as both kinds of adoption processes can influence each other. The extent to which adoption processes between different country models are inspired by learning processes within multinational corporations is a question that merits more attention.

3 In deviation from standard practice, no specific standalone hypotheses will be formulated prior to the result section. The exploratory character of the results in the context of cross-national learning from best practices in HRM does not call for the test of specific hypotheses. Furthermore, due to the just outlined broad array of topics covered in the empirical section, a meaningful explanation of, and justification for, hypotheses based on the relevant literature would only unnecessarily inflate the body of the text.

4 Names and addresses were taken from the following sources: Fortune Guide to the 500 Largest US Corporations (without author, 1999a), Shukan Toyo Keizai (without author, 1999b) (for the names) and http://profile.yahoo.co.jp/ (for the addresses) as well as Die Großen 500 (Schmacke and Jaeckel, 1999). Where personal names were not available, the letters were addressed ‘To the Head of Human Resources’, ‘Jinjibucho Dono’ or ‘An den Personalleiter’.

5 These response rates seem to reflect the fact that people in very senior positions were approached (usually at a VP level) and that additionally the largest 500 companies of the USA, Japan and Germany are often contacted for similar studies. Accordingly, the survey does not claim to be representative of all large companies in the USA, Japan and Germany. It should be noted, however, that the 232 companies included in this survey cover a large variety of different service and manufacturing industries in all three countries. Furthermore, it should be observed that the response rate for Germany is still above comparable postal questionnaire research like the well known Cranet-E-survey for Germany with 19 per cent (Hanel, 1996; see also Schmitt and Sadowski, 2003). The response rate for Japan is also above similar prior surveys in Japan as reported by Kato and Morishima (2003). It can, therefore, be suggested that the data set provides useful information on HRM in the USA, Japan and Germany.

6 For clarification: all cited statements about transferable attributes of other HRM-models are put in the text into quotation marks as they have been made by the questioned HR managers themselves and are not pre-formulated by the author. However, for better intelligibility, similar statements of the respondents have been summarized by the author. In the text, the number of identical statements is given in parenthesis. If not mentioned otherwise, the number refers to the total amount of items (that is with regard to both the past and the future). The categories to which the attributes are classified are in the text in italics.

7 Table 6 includes only statements from those respondents who previously were largely of the opinion that no orientation towards the other two countries have taken place or will take place. Consequently, some of the numbers in the cells are comparatively small. Where the cumulated percentages do not add up exactly to 100 per cent, this is the effect of rounding.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Markus Pudelko

currently at Columbia Business School, New York City, USA