Distinctiveness of human resource management in the Asia Pacific region: typologies and levels

Abstract

With this special issue, we explore the distinctive contextual factors of contemporary human resource management (HRM) in the important Asia Pacific region, in order to contribute new and non-Western insights to the convergence-divergence debate in international HRM. After first establishing a multi-level analytical framework consisting of macro-, meso-, and micro levels, we discuss theoretical trends at each stage which reveal that countries at different developmental stages possess distinctive political-economic frameworks, institutions, cultural features, and value systems. We present four studies that analyze the distinctive features of the respective cultural contexts. These include (1) yongo and informality in HRM in Korea, (2) guanxi in the context of performance appraisal in Western and local banks in China, (3) relationship building by leaders in China and the US, focusing on the role humor plays therein, and, (4) human factors in virtual teamwork with examples from Taiwan, Vietnam, and Indonesia. We draw two major conclusions from our investigation. As HRM systems in the Asia Pacific region are rather heterogenic, we see no trend toward global convergence. Rather, we perceive local systems ‘mixing’ best practice approaches, and that as a result are hybrids. Others tend to diverge. We propose the distinctiveness of HRM in the Asia Pacific region, as revolving around the themes of social ties, informality, and interpersonal trust. Future research could focus on these broad themes in order to understand their respective dynamics better and make HRM systems more efficient and effective.

Keywords:

• Asia Pacific
• convergence
• distinctiveness
• HRM
• levels

Introduction

The roles of people and their management remain key to economic and organizational success. Part of this has been the search for so-called ‘best practices’ in human resource (HR) management (HRM), officially dating back to at least the ‘scientific management’ of Taylorism and Fordism. To what extent HRM is universally applicable remains an interesting question. This collection sheds new light on this question in terms of the possible distinctiveness of HRM in the Asia Pacific region.

Since the conventional theories and concepts of HRM were mainly developed in Western countries, this special issue primarily explores the distinctive contextual factors of contemporary HRM in Asia. We have observed that within-country company variations and within-Asia country variations in HRM are becoming wider. At the same time, many multinational companies (MNCs) operating in Asia have made efforts to globally benchmark HRM ‘best practices’. The overarching debate about HRM in Asia, whether it will continue, converge, diverge, or develop toward a hybrid form, is important. Whereas the literature suggests that standardization of HRM systems worldwide is important for achieving competitive advantage (Nohria and Ghoshal, 1997), introducing new HRM systems proven to be successful in one country to another country is often unsuccessful in practice (Björkman and Lervik, 2007; Tayeb, 1998), is questioned (Rowley, 1998; Rowley and Benson, 2002, 2004), and can lead to the hybridization of practices. Although the hybridization of HRM systems in East Asia has been studied in the past (Chung, Sparrow and Bozkurt, 2014; Zhu, Rowley and Warner, 2007), few studies have explicitly analyzed the distinctive variables of the cultural context that trigger the need for adaption. Conventionally, the hybridization perspective regards country culture-specific approaches to HRM as an integral part of an international best practice approach. Best practices and local systems thus mix to suit the local environment better (Benson and Rowley, 2003; Dowling and Donnelly, 2013; Poon and Rowley, 2010; Warner, 2000). The underlying principles leading to this mix are explained by the institutional nature of the environment. Divergence and hybridization advocates put forward in particular the societal context and the local culture as strong moderators that influence HRM practices.

Numerous theories help to explain the similarities and differences in HRM in the Asia Pacific region. The context of history and comparisons with better ground research and literature, both empirically and theoretically, are what have been seen as important for resolving the problem. Distinct and differential developments at macro (state), meso (practice), and micro (adoption and institutionalization of any change) levels can be usefully utilized to help analysis and to explore nuances.

Grounding the debate and analysis – macro level

It is important to locate and ground a topic historically, comparatively, and disciplinarily in broader theories and debates. These include the debates about universalism’s convergence versus contingency’s divergence (Rowley, 1998). Universal-type theory contains the central proposition of a world-wide tendency for political, economic, and social forces to push national systems toward similarity and uniformity through convergence around practices assumed to be the best and universally applicable. Such views have a long history (e.g. Kerr et al., 1962) and regularly re-emerge. Earlier ideas of the ‘best way’ at country level include 1960s France with indicative planning (see MacLennan, 1964) and 1980s Scandinavia with corporatism (see Lash, 1985) as well as some strands of the Excellence (Peters and Waterman, 1982), Fordism, Flexible Specialization (Rowley, 1994), Lean Production, Toyotism and Japanization (Womack et al., 1990; Oliver and Wilkinson, 1992) and the ‘end of history’ post-cold war (Fukuyama, 1992; Ohmae, 1990) literatures.

A singular world view of market unification and institutional convergence leading to the ‘one best way’ across a range of areas, is part of the globalization debate. Theories from different subjects explaining globalization are usefully grouped by Robinson (2007) into: Global Capitalism, Network Society, Space and Place, Transnationality and Transnationalism, Modernity and Postmodernity to Global Culture and World-Systems. For example, the historical and multi-disciplinary World-Systems Theory (Wallerstein, 1974, 2004) emphasizes not nations, but world-systems comprised of inter-connected firms, households, classes, and identity groups and significant key moments, such as the sixteenth century development of a capitalist world economy. However, world-systems mistakenly reduces the independent influence of cultural forces into different characteristics of political systems (Robinson, 2007).

Many remain sceptical of universalism, a literature with a similarly long lineage (e.g. Lawrence and Lorsh, 1967; Woodward, 1965; Hofstede, 1980, 1984). Comparisons of economies often found national differences in areas such as business organization and structure, management, technology utilization, etc., including with Japan (Dore, 1974; Rowley and Fitzgerald, 2016). For Sorge (2005), the mediation of local actions through traditions at a national level meant successive rounds of institutional reinvention layered on each other, resulting in specific ‘formations’, each with their own distinctive properties.

Other contingency type views can be seen in literature, such as that about Modes of Exchange Theory (Lie, 1992) with ‘Manorial’, ‘Market’, ‘Entrepreneurial’, and ‘Mercantile’ exchanges (see Rowley and Oh, 2016), capitalist variety (Hall and Soskice, 2001; Hall, and Thelen, 2009; Hancke et al., 2007), and comparative capitalism (Berger and Dore, 1996; Hollingsworth and Boyer, 1997; Kitschelt et al., 1998; Coates, 2000; Boyer, 2005; Crouch, 2005). Ideas of such ‘variegated’ capitalism were concerned with capitalism’s uneven development and the inter-dependence of its constituent ‘regimes’ (Peck and Theodore, 2007). Various different ‘types’ of capitalism were distinguished, including: ‘Stock Market’ or ‘Welfare’ (Dore, 2000); ‘Competitive Managerial’, ‘Personal’, or ‘Cooperative Managerial’ (Chandler, 1990); ‘Liberal’ or ‘Alliance’ (Gerlach, 1992); ‘Neo-American’ or ‘Rhinish’ (Albert, 1993); ‘Managerial’, ‘Propriety’, or ‘Collective’ (Lazonick, 1990, 1991, 1998); ‘Market-based’, ‘Social-democratic’, ‘Continental European’, ‘South European’, and ‘Asian’ (Amable, 2003).

Specifically, Asian capitalism was seen grouped in several ways. These include in a fivefold typology (Harada and Tohyama, 2012) of: ‘City’ (Singapore, Hong Kong), ‘Insular Semi-Agrarian’ (Indonesia, Philippines), ‘Innovation-Led’ (Japan, Korea, Taiwan), ‘Trade-Led Industrializing’ (Malaysia, Thailand), and ‘Continental Mixed’ (China), a trio (Whitley, 1999) of: ‘Fragmented’, ‘State-Organized’, and ‘Collaborative’, a quartet of: ‘Co-Governed’, State-Led’, ‘Networked’, and ‘Personalized’ (Walter and Zhang, 2012) and five: ‘(Post-)Socialist’, ‘Advanced City’, ‘Emerging South East Asian’, ‘Advanced North East Asian’, and ‘Japanese’ (Witt and Redding, 2014).

Weaknesses in the comparative analysis of capitalism have been noted, such as its static nature and changes have been suggested at three levels (Deeg and Jackson, 2007): micro, with less deterministic views incorporating greater understanding of how actors reshape institutions as both constraints and resources for courses of action incrementally changing institutions; meso, specifying the connections between institutions and institutional domains and how change in one affects the other; and macro, incorporating views of politics (national and international) and the impact of rule-breaking processes that govern institutional reform. Other issues include the greater need for context to be taken into account (see Rowley and Yukongdi, 2016).

Other related models suggesting heterogeneity over homogeneity include business systems (Whitley, 1992, 2007, 2014; Redding, 2005). Whitley (1992) used a threefold framework of impacts from: ‘firms’ (management styles and structures, decision-making processes, owner-employee relations, patterns of growth and development); ‘markets’ (customer, supplier and inter-firm relations, financial sector and market and industry development); and ‘societies’ (social influences on business evolution such as education, systems of power and status and family structures) to examine Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. For Witt and Redding (2014), theories needed to incorporate not only culture and informality but critically social capital, meaning ‘trust’, both interpersonal or relational as well as institutionalized or system trust. Their framework includes the role of the state, financial system, ownership and corporate governance, internal structure of the firm, employment relations, education and skills formation, inter-firm relations and social capital. This framework has been used to analyze Asian countries, including Vietnam (Quang and Rowley, 2014).

Grounding the debate and analysis – meso level

A second level of analysis of HRM change is organizational and strategic. One key variable in the policies and practice of HRM is organizational variation in business strategy (see Rowley, 2003; Rowley and Harry, 2011; Rowley and Jackson, 2011). Taxonomies distinguished include those in so-called life cycle models (Kochan and Barocci, 1985), with: ‘start-up’, ‘growth’, ‘maturity’, and ‘decline’ phases. Porter (1985) included: ‘cost reduction’, ‘quality enhancement’, and ‘innovation’ strategies. The earlier versions of the ‘defender’ and ‘prospector’ strategies (Miles and Snow, 1978) developed into ‘internal’ and ‘market type’ employment systems (Delery and Doty, 1996). In a similar vein, HRM practices were aligned to the strategic styles of: ‘products’, ‘operations’, and ‘customers’ (Grubman, 1998). Each of these strategy types has different implications for HRM.

The HRM nomenclature also covers a myriad of meanings and practices, so, a range of titles and names have emerged to capture the different roles and jobs. For example, Tyson and Fell (1986) used a trio of practitioner types: ‘Clerk of the Works’, ‘Contracts Manager’, and ‘Architect’ to indicate the spectrum of less to more reactive and administrative, versus more proactive and strategic work styles between the first and third types. Similarly, Renwick (2003) suggested three HR manager roles: ‘Policy Makers’, ‘Advice Providers’, and ‘Administrators’. Ulrich (1997) suggested: ‘Strategic Partner’, ‘Change Agent’, ‘Employee Champion’; ‘Administrative Expert’, revised to ‘Strategic Business Partner’, ‘Capability Builder’, ‘Change Champion’, ‘Technology Proponent’, ‘HR Innovator and Integrator’, and ‘Credible Activist’ (Ulrich et al., 2013).

Variations in HR professional positions may also occur due to an organization’s operational context. This is seen in the underpinnings of the framework of Rowley and Ulrich’s (2012a, 2012b) ‘3Cs’ (‘context’, ‘culture’, ‘competence’). ‘Context’ involves the philosophical country context shaping how people think and act as philosophical approaches underlie behavior and differences. ‘Culture’ involves the unique company culture challenges faced in a particular context. Cultural dimensions to consider are the following: paternalism – Asian cultures tend to be hierarchical and paternalistic, accepting personal responsibility for staff well-being; time – Asian mindsets have longer term views and focus more on long than short-term goals. HRM systems also need to reflect these imperatives; Benevolence – Asian cultures of deference within hierarchies and emphasis on team work and conformity to shared behavioral expectations; collaboration – Asian culture encourages collaboration, mutual support, and banding together to achieve common goals with differences of opinion dissuaded and if voiced, done privately and respectfully; relationships – Asians learn the importance of ‘good connections’ as such relationships matter as much, or more, than technical expertise; organization – the importance of ownership and size, whether in privately owned, state owned and/or multinational firms. ‘Competence’ or personal characteristics is the final underpinning.

Grounding the debate and analysis – micro level

The third level of analysis of possible HRM change is in terms of operations, the policies and practices of HRM, which are often the most visible and noted level. Changes may occur at different ‘levels’ of HRM (Becker and Gerhart, 1996; Colbert, 2004). At the ‘system architecture’ level are guiding principles and basic assumptions (‘deep structure’). ‘Policy alternatives’ mix consistently with (1) ‘architectural fit’ and internal/external fit. The ‘practice process’ involves techniques used given decisions at (1). The content of these levels make for certain types of HRM configuration. One way of classifying HRM configurations is to utilize the organizing principle, which means the fundamental values concerning the nature and action of people and their relationships that strongly influence the forms and functions of an organization. Adler (2001) and Adler and Heckscher (2006) suggested three organizing principles: market, hierarchy, and community. According to Adler and Heckscher (2006), the coordination mechanisms for these organizing principles are, respectively: price, authority, and trust.

Another way to look at degrees of change is via the trio of criteria and characteristics of large change, often seen as ‘transformation’ (Erickson and Kuruvilla, 1998; Gersick, 1991). First, there is reconsideration and change of a system’s ‘deep structure’ (i.e. the network of fundamental assumptions and principles underlying the basic configuration). Second, a change in structure and practice takes place relatively quickly compared to the past. Third, widespread experimentation and increases in diversity appear. Many Korean firms experienced HRM transformation by satisfying the three criteria above (Bae and Rowley, 2001).

When we utilize these frameworks, we can see several interesting points in terms of the changes in HRM in Asia. First, let us look at the general picture of the changes. Generally speaking, HRM in Asia has changed from its traditional, hierarchy-based paternalistic model, toward a rather more market-based performance-pursuing model, especially after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Universal forces and global competition pushed Asian firms to adopt more market-based HRM practices, resulting in apparent uniformity and convergence of HRM practices. Their counterparts in North America and Europe, however, took different routes of change. The traditional HRM model of these regions was based on the market principle, however, we can see that firms started to adopt some community-based HRM practices under the name of ‘high performance work systems’ (HPWS) or ‘high commitment HRM systems’ (for an overview see Mihail, MacLinks and Sarvanidis, 2013). The general picture of HRM changes thus does not support the global convergence hypothesis.

What about the motivation and direction of HRM changes? Why did some firms in Asia change their HRM systems? Bae (2012, pp. 582–583) argued that, in the case of Korea, HRM changes can be explained by a self-fulfilling prophecy:

After certain management practices are transferred to another country (i.e. Korea in this article), self-fulfilling processes at the global level operate when people observe that predicted behaviors, which are expected from generally accepted ideologies and social norms and more closely from national institutional designs, have come to more closely correspond to actual behaviors. Then the feedback loop is formed so that market-like organizational arrangements become more common; and at the same time, generally accepted ideologies and social norms gain more acceptance. Now, original conceptions about the nature and ways of managing firms can become self-fulfilling prophecy.

There are two directions of HRM change: ‘principle to practice’ and ‘practice to principle’. The first direction is a top-down approach starting from organizing principles (i.e. organizing principle → HRM guiding principles → policies → practices); and the second direction is a bottom-up approach starting from benchmarking global best practices that eventually affect the organizing principles. In the first case, top (HR) management understands the nature of, and perhaps reasons for, HRM changes; however, in the second case, firms just ‘pick and mix’ HRM practices without understanding the possible positive or negative effects of each practice. Regardless of the direction of change, two types of decoupling can result from principle-practice (or practice-principle) and implementation-internalization gaps. The principle-practice gap occurs when planned principles fail to lead to desirable practices or when adopted best practices do not fit with the existing HRM principles (cf. Bromley and Powell, 2012). The implementation-internalization gap occurs when formally adopted HRM practices are not fully internalized by people (Kostova, 1999).

HRM in Asia is not homogeneous. HRM within certain Asian countries is not homogeneous either. Within-country between-firm variation prevails. Why is this so? In the case of Korea, a typical HRM model until 1987 was the seniority-based paternalistic model (Bae, 2012), based on the ‘hierarchy’ organizing principle. When Korean firms encountered organizing principles other than hierarchy, they used various strategies to encourage its adaption. The first strategy was to keep the existing organizing principle (maintaining a paternalistic model). The second strategy was to shift to another paradigm by adopting other organizing principles such as the ‘market’ principle. Many Korean firms went through paradigm-shifting change in terms of their HRM models by adopting performance-based market systems. The third strategy was to mix different organizing principles by adding, for example, the ‘market’ principle to the existing ‘hierarchy’ principle. Thus, firms may keep their employment security policy (i.e. a paternalistic model), but may adopt a performance-based pay policy (i.e. a market model). The final strategy is to use multiple HRM configurations by adopting multiple organizing principles. In this case, each configuration applies to different groups of people, for example ‘hierarchy’ to manufacturing, and ‘market’ to sales people. Given these diverse strategies, we can expect within-country variations.

We can see the issues appearing in terms not only of levels, but also speed, depth, and degree of change/convergence. For example, what if some policies and/or practices change, but not others, and how do we ‘measure’ the degree of acceptance of change? This involves both adoption/institutionalization and levels/degrees of change. This shows the need to move beyond broad brush portrayals, to disaggregate and distinguish changing aspects from those that do not.

Universalism is thus constrained and diversity remains for several reasons. Countries are not only at different stages of development, but have embedded distinctive political-economic frameworks, institutions and cultural features and value systems. Indeed, even the spread, take-up, operation and configuration of technology, with alternative solutions to common problems, varies. Intra-national heterogeneity can occur with organizational decentralization and flexibility, and gaps between stated versus practice realities. Comparative approaches should assume economic relationships and activities are ‘… socially constructed and institutionally variable and ‘…vary significantly between societal contexts’ (Whitley, 1999, p. 5). In short, the social, cultural, institutional, economic, and political landscape in which HRM is constructed, exists, is understood, operates, varies.

Overview

We now provide a tabular overview of our symposium to aid synthesis and readers (Table 1). The common themes running through our collection can be quickly and easily seen. All the articles deal with different HRM-related issues, such as recruitment, performance appraisal, leadership, and teams. Interestingly, the notion of inter-personal relationships, seen from various perspectives, becomes a thread throughout this collection. The logic is that we start with country studies and practices, with a focus on informal social networks, before moving onto country comparisons. We now present overviews of the individual contributions.

Table 1. Overview of studies.

Study	Country(s)	Theme(s)	Findings and implications
Horak	Korea	Recruitment	• MNCs use yongo widely at top management level, SMEs instead on middle and upper level. • HR practices may be described as being in a state of ‘soft divergence’. • Informal institutions (i.e. yongo) persist although an advanced economy with effective formal institutions.
		Careers
		Yongo
Gu and Nolan	China	Performance appraisal	• Influence of guanxi on performance appraisal perceived as strongest in state-owned banks and weakest in foreign-owned banks. • Both macro-level convergence and micro-level divergence found. • Explained by generational differences in cultural values, international experience of staff and degree of alignment between senior managers and others over purpose of appraisals. • Represents an example of so called ‘mutability’ of cultural characteristics in different organizational settings.
		Guanxi
		Ownership
Yang, Kitchen and Bacouel-Jentjens	China	Leadership	• Weaker association between use of humor and perceived leadership in China than North-America. • Blind adaptation (in terms of convergence) of leader humor-behaviors oriented toward American practices may not work in a different cultural context. • Informal context of an organization explains paradoxical attitudes toward humor in China.
	North America	Humor
Collins, Chou, Warner and Rowley	Indonesia	Teamwork	• Human factors, such as cultural intelligence, cultural openness, and self efficacy influence team member knowledge sharing willingness in cross-national virtual teams. • Positive relationship between team member knowledge sharing willingness and knowledge sharing behavior is not supported. • Reasons for this include interpersonal trust, leadership, team interaction, and member language ability that significantly affect the effect of factors on virtual team knowledge sharing.
	Taiwan	Human factors
	Vietnam

First, we start with Korea as a country focus with ‘The informal dimension of human resource management in Korea: Yongo, recruiting practices and career progression’. This uses social network theory to look at the effect of informal social networks (yongo) in Korea on HRM in terms of practice, with the examples of recruitment and promotion. This paper argues that while large firms use yongo in upper management levels, by contrast small and medium firms use it for middle and upper levels. Given the persistence of such a culturally driven factor, it concludes Korean HRM practice is in a state of ‘soft divergence’. These results also contribute to the ongoing debate in international management and business studies about whether informal institutions persist or diminish with the further development of an economy and the stabilization of formal institutions. This case proposes that informal institutions, insofar as they are culturally driven, are likely to persist in one form or another, even in advanced and industrialized economies.

Secondly, while still exploring the informal dimension of HRM, we shift the country focus to China with ‘Performance appraisal in Western and local banks in China: the influence of firm ownership on the perceived importance of guanxi’. This paper argues that in China the cultural factor guanxi has an important influence on HRM in terms of the implementation and effectiveness of practices. This is tested using the example of performance appraisals in organizations in one sector (banking) with different ownership structures (state-owned, foreign-owned, city commercial) with quantitative (survey) and qualitative (interview) methods. Interestingly, both convergence (at the macro-level) and divergence (at the micro-level) were found. Variations were due to generational differences in cultural values, staff international experience, and the degree of alignment about the purpose of appraisals. This approach demonstrates the so-called ‘mutability’ of cultural characteristics in different organizational settings.

In the third paper, we keep China as the country focus but in comparison to the US, with ‘How to promote relationship-building leadership at work? A comparative exploration of leader humor behavior between North American and China’. The impact of humor in the workplace as a management and leadership tool has been widely underestimated and thus remains under-researched (Collinson, 2002). The article looks at leadership in terms of its association with humor by comparing Chinese and US contexts. It argues that there is a weaker association between humor use and perceived leadership in China than in the US. It concludes that we need to be very wary of the simple adoption of US-driven leader behaviors and HRM practices. This research does not support convergence.

In the fourth study, we keep a comparative lens, but shift to an inter-Asia comparison with a focus on Taiwan, Vietnam, and Indonesia, with ‘Human factors in East Asian virtual teamwork: a comparative study of Indonesia, Taiwan and Vietnam’. This looks at the impact of ‘human factors’ in the way team members cooperate within the context of cross-national boundaries in virtual team-working. Using mixed methods, it finds that critical human factors (individual cultural intelligence, cultural openness, and self-efficacy) influence the willingness of team members to share knowledge, which in turn is not supported due to other elements, such as inter-personal trust, leadership, team interaction, and language ability.

In sum, the four studies herein contribute to a better understanding of selected distinctive features of the cultural context of the Asia Pacific region. These features influence HRM practices and determine whether they may continue, converge, diverge, or become hybrid. No matter what, international firms have to take them into account in order to make their HRM system effective and functional. The studies in this special issue contribute to current knowledge in several ways.

By drawing on the macro, meso, and micro frameworks established at the outset, we see at the macro level the universalism-skeptical view strengthened. None of the four studies in this special issue see the universalist position toward convergence evolving. The first two studies reveal that yongo and guanxi are two constructs of their respective cultural context that are very much alive in managing people (for historical and contextualized grounding, see Wang and Rowley, 2016). It is not known, however, whether or how international firms deal with them in their HRM systems. The studies also reveal that they exist in parallel to a best practice approach that finally leads to a hybridization of HRM practices overall. For example, although belonging to the world’s top industrialized countries, informal practices in managing people are still widespread in Korea next to experiments with international best practices. As a result of local approaches being in place, we can instead describe the state of the HRM system as not on track toward convergence, but as a ‘hybrid’ case. Distinctive features remain and will likely persist. In the case of China, guanxi impacts the implementation and effectiveness of HRM systems so that overall it is in a hybrid state, with tendencies of convergence at the macro level and even divergence at the micro level. Further, the use of humor converges neither and, while frequently used in a Western context, its use deviates from generally expected leader behaviors in a Chinese working environment which is strictly formal during work hours. If this distinctiveness in its respective context is not considered, it may alienate people and become counter-productive. The study of inter-Asian cross-national team working reveals that factors such as leadership, the need for face-to-face communication and trust are moderators when it comes to the willingness of team members to share knowledge. As the previous studies have shown, these moderators have different meanings in Asia compared to Western countries as well as inter-Asian and inter-country variations. MNCs should therefore be wary of implementing universal virtual cross-border team models in the same region or globally. Overall, we can describe the state of HRM systems in the Asia Pacific region as rather heterogenic; whereas, some parts are hybrid, others tend to diverge, but, as a whole, there is rather no trend toward global convergence in sight.

At the meso level, this rather heterogeneous picture can be explained by the 3Cs (Rowley and Ulrich, 2012a, 2012b), which stand for context, culture, and competence. The philosophical country context shaping the way people think and act is in the Asia Pacific region (especially in East Asia), formed by Confucian values and norms of behavior that, in turn, influence prevailing cultural dimensions, typically the ones mentioned above: paternalism, benevolence, or collaboration, for instance. These ideals result in desired personal characteristics (competence) as fundamental to the ideal basic mindset of a ‘good’ employee and colleague. Conversely, HRM systems that evolved out of an individualistic context in which personal achievement, individual incentives, individual performance, and assertiveness are dominant ideals of behavior, may be per se foredoomed, as they grow in a 3C environment that draws on almost opposite beliefs and ideals.

This explanation alone would be too simple, however, and ignorant of the dynamics of institutional developments. A key concept of institutional theory, which describes the drive of systems or organizations becoming similar to other systems or organizations, is institutional isomorphism. According to DiMaggio and Powell (1983), isomorphism legitimates firms to access resources from the environment that are needed simply for a firm to operate. Legitimation pressures thus lead international firms to apply similar systems in an international market shared with other international competitors. Existing local systems are, therefore, in a state of constant tension so as to meet the best practices in the international market once they decide to become a part of it and move from local to international.

In the case of the Asia Pacific region, the micro level approach outlined above can explain the major drivers toward the heterogeneity of approaches that exist today. According to Adler (2001) and Adler and Heckscher (2006), the three organizing principles are market, hierarchy, and community, coordinated, respectively, by price, authority, and trust. We can say that hierarchy (coordinated through authority), characterized as being paternalistic, has a very traditional place in the Asia Pacific region. Although the principle of community (coordinated through trust) has been proposed as another candidate for the traditional model in this region, which really is not the case. Although we can expect trust between people in Asia Pacific region, this type of trust is based on loyalty, status deference, honor, and obligation, which is different from trust based on contribution, collegiality, and honesty, appearing in communities (Adler and Heckscher, 2006). The open and internationally inter-connected market (coordinated through price), however, is a totally new development. A traditional relationship-based system is complemented or even replaced by a rather de-personalized market-price system.

Although many HRM studies have taken into account national values or cultural features at the country level, few studies have considered company values or principles as a key variable. From ‘the level of abstraction’ point of view (that is, principle-policy-practice), principles or values at the company level have been less investigated. The four contributions in this issue are not exceptions.

Finally, in a nutshell, we propose that the variables comprising HRM systems in the Asia Pacific region remain distinctive. These revolve around the themes of social ties, informality, and interpersonal trust.

Conclusion

This collection focuses on theoretical and empirical contributions to the management of HR in the Asia Pacific region by exploring the distinctive contextual factors of contemporary HRM in Asia, HRM phenomena, and approaches to HRM applied by Asian firms in Asia, and HRM practices employed by Western firms in this region or by Asian-Western firm alliances. This collection demonstrates that within-country company variations and within-Asia country variations in HRM are getting wider. Finally, we show the need for historical and theoretical grounding in earlier debates, ranging from convergence, universalism, and globalization to divergence and varieties of capitalism and business systems. We hope this acts as a clarion call for others to pursue further research and assists in their endeavors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This study is partially supported by Korea Foundation Research Fellowship; Korea University Business School Research Grant.