Human Resource Management

Human Resource Management

What is Human Resource Management (HRM)?
Human resource management is the activities that attract, select, and manage employees. The word "human" in terms of human resource management clearly indicates that people are key resources of the firm to be actively managed and developed.

Four Main Areas
of
Human Resource Management

1. Staffing
2. Training and Development
3. Compensation and Performance Appraisal
4. Labor Relations

STAFFING

This refers to HRM activities associated with hiring employees and filling positions. Multinational enterprises have two types of employees. Host-Country Nationals (HCNs) and Expatriates (expats).

Three Primary Approaches

1) Ethnocentric approach- emphasizes the norms and practices of the parent company by relying on parent-country nationals (PCNs).
2) Polycentric approach- focuses on the norms and practices of the host country.
3) Geocentric approach- focuses on finding the most suitable manager who can be PCNs, HCNs or TCNs.

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

Training is specific preparation to do a particular job and development refers to longer-term, broader preparation to improving managerial skills for a better career.

COMPENSATION AND PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS

Compensation refers to salary and benefits and performance appraisals is the evaluation of employee performance for the purpose of promotions, retention, or ending employment.

1) Compensation for expatriates
2) Compensation for HCN's
3) Performance appraisals

COMPENSATION FOR EXPATRIATES

Two Primary Approaches

1) Going Rate Approach- pays expatriates the prevailing (going) rate for comparable positions in a host country.
2) Balance Sheet Approach- which balances the cost of living differences relative to parent-country levels and adds a financial inducement to make the package attractive.

COMPENSATION FOR HOST-COUNTRY NATIONALS

At the bottom end of the compensation scale, low-level HCN's, especially those in developing countries have little bargaining power. The HCN's compare their pay to the farmhands sweating in the fields and making much less, or to the unemployed who make nothing and still have a family to feed.

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

Performance appraisal refers to the evaluation of employee performance for the purpose of promotion, retention, or ending employment. Performance appraisals help managers make decisions about pay and promotion, development, documentation, and subordinate expression.


LABOR RELATIONS

Labor Relations0 refers to a firm's relations with organizational labor (unions) in both home and host countries.

Managing Labor Relations at Home

A firm's key concern is to cut costs to enhance competitiveness to fight off low-cost rivals from emerging economics such as China and India.

Managing Labor Relations Abroad

MNE's prefer to deal with non-unionized workforces.

I found this information useful because I am a management major but I am interested in the Human Resource field. I have taken a class just on human resources.

Location-specific advanages

V.S

WHO WILL WIN THE BATTLE

Location-Specific Advantages and Strategic Goals

What is location-specific advantages?
The benefits a firm reaps from the features specific to a place.

Certain locations simply possess geographical features that are difficult for others to match. Example given in the book on page 145, Singapore is an ideal stopping point for air traffic between Europe and Australia and for sea traffic between the Middle East and East Asia.

Location-specific advantages stem from
1) Knowledge spillovers among closely located firms that attempt to hire individuals from competitors.
2) Industry demand that creates skilled labor force whose members may work for different firms without having to move out of the region.
3) Industry demand that facilitates a pool of specialized suppliers and buyers to also locate in the region.

Four Strategic Goals

1. Natural Resources- Possessions of natural resources and related transport and communication infrastructure.
2. Market Seeking- Abundance of strong market demand and customers willing to pay.
3. Efficiency Seeking- Economics of scale and abundance of low-cost factors.
4. Innovation Seeking- Abundance of innovative individuals, firms, and universities.

On page 146, it is interesting to read " China now manufactures two thirds of the world's photocopiers, shoes, toys and microwave ovens; one half of the DVD players, digital cameras, and textiles; one third of the desktop computers; and one quarter of the mobile phones, television sets, and steel."

This is interesting to learn about because a lot of the normal household or everyday items are made in China. In one of my discussion post I listed off a few items I looked at. Below are some examples:

1) Emerson Television Set bought at Wal-Mart= Made in China
2) Skateboard shoes bought at Wal-Mart= Made in China
3) Tank top from JcPenny=Made in Indonesia
4)My Boston Red Sox hat from Fenway= Made in China
5) Monkey soap dispenser bought at Sears= Made in China
6) Camera bought at Wal-Mart= Made in China
7) Fun bands/Silly Bandz= Made in China
8) Simply for Sports shorts bought at JcPenny= Made in China
9) Shirt from Sears= Made in Nicaragua
10) Shirt from Sears= Made in U.S.A.



Looking at these 10 item, 70% were made in China. By the looks of my results, it may look that certain companies only buy from a certain country. Like it seems like everything Wal-Mart carries is made in China. For a fun experience and to learn something, next time you go to Wal-Mart, pick up some random things and look where there from. It looks like Sears does not have a specific country they get their products from seeing as items I listed were made in Nicaragua, U.S.A and China.

Everyone knows the famous Wal-Mart saying "Always low prices." If Wal-Mart was not so cheap they would be out of business because the only reason people shop there is for the always low prices.

Location-specific advantages may grow, change, and/or decline, prompting a firm to relocate.

In addition to the strategic goals listed above, another set of considerations centers on cultural/institutional distances as we learned throughout chapters 2 and 3.

What is Cultural Distance?
The difference between two cultures along identifiable dimensions such as indivisualism.
Institutional distance is the extent of similarity or dissimilarity between the regulatoryu, normative and cognitive institutions of two countries.

Foriegn Exchange Rates

Foreign
Exchange
Rates

the price of one currency, in terms of another

As researching online, I found a interesting information relating the
American dollar to the Euro. I have been to Germany, so I have experienced the exchange rate back about 7 years ago.


The chart below compares the Euro to 1 American Dollar


Information from the graph:
Monday, June 14=.816393 EUR
Monday, June 21 =.810438 EUR
Monday, June 28=.798021 EUR
Monday July 5= .798021 EUR
Monday July 12=.795418 EUR
Monday July 19=.771784 EUR



As seen by the chart, the Euro is not worth as much as it was on June 14th. The value dropped by about .044609 from June 14th to July 19th.

Average= .798832
High=.819807
Low= .769231

Click on this link Currency Converter to play around with different currencies.


As researching online, i came across an interesting video

What determines the foreign exchange rate?

In this video, it is interesting because he says that investors are what determines the exchange rate. This is because investors are buying and selling currencies all the time, which determines the exchange rate. He says, it is better to use a debit/credit card when going into a foreign county because you get better rates and more for your money.

The iPad

The iPad

It is interesting to learn about all this new technology coming out and looking at the details of where it is designed and where it is assembled. First, I am going to look at the recent technology advance: The iPad. The iPad was designed here in Cupertino, California but was sent to China to be assembled. The link below is an article about the release date of the iPad. It is interesting to read that the iPad WiFi was released to the United States on April 3rd and later that month the iPad 3G was released. Not only was the iPad WiFi and the iPad 3G released in the United States but also internationally to Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK which happened in late April.

Brief overview of the iPad


The iPad lets users browse the web, read and send emails, enjoy and share photos, watch videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more. Its price starts at about $499 for the 16GB, $599 for the 32GB and $699 for the 64GB. The iPad is just 0.5 inches thick and weighs about 1.5 pounds. The iPad is much smaller than a laptop computer.

MAIL
Split-screen view and expansive onscreen keyboard, it lets you see and touch your email in ways you never could before.

PHOTOS

A vivid LED-backlit IPS display makes viewing phones on the iPad extraordinary. Can open albums with a tap of a finger, flip through photos one by one, or even play a sideshow and share photos.

VIDEO

A 9.7 inch high-resolution screen makes the iPad perfect for watching HD movies, TV shoes, podcast, music videos, and much more.

ITUNES

Millions of songs, thousands of movies and TV shows, and so much more. Easy browsing and buying are just a tap away.

APP STORE

More than 200,000 apps on the app store and the iPad can run almost all of them. Including games to productivity apps.

CALENDER

Work, home, and everything in between, your schedules are easy to read and easy to manage on the iPad.

CONTACTS

With contacts on the iPad, you can see much more than just the names and numbers and you can do much more with them.

IBOOKS

Reading is a joy on the iPad. Text looks bright and crisp, pages turn with a flick and you can buy new books from the iBooks app.

MAPS

See more of the world from the iPad. Find locations easier then ever with the street view, satellite view pr the new terrain view.

NOTES

With its large display and onscreen keyboard, the iPad is easy to jot down quick notes and keep important information on hand. You can even email yourself reminders.

SAFARI

iPad is the best way to experience the web. View whole pages in portrait or landscape on the large multi-touch screen and let your fingers do the surfing.

Below is a link explaining the iPad

Explanation of the iPad

This video is interesting to watch because it is basically a video about the iPad and how the upgrade in technology. You can hold the internet in your hands as your surfing the web. We can learn so much from the iPad.


Below is a video where they disassemble the iPad and then put it back together

Disassemble and Reassemble of the iPad

This video is interesting because you can see what the inside of the iPad is made of and all the parts. I do not think that there is a lot to this little thing. It seems really easy to take apart and reassemble in such little time.

Below are links to commercials for the iPad

English Commercial 1

English Commercial 2

English Commercial 3

German Commercial 1

The commercials for English and German are interesting to watch because one would not know that they would make the same commercial in both English and German because the iPad is sold in both the United States and Germany.


This relates to the reading because in chapter 4 of the book discusses outsourcing and offshoring. We ask ourselves what each of those words mean. Offshoring is outsourcing to an international or foreign firm. Outsourcing is defined as turning over an organizational activity to an outside supplier that will perform the activity on behalf of the focal firm. An example of outsourcing given in the book is Nike. They possess strong capabilities in upstream activities (design) and downstream activities (marketing) have outsourced manufacturing to suppliers in low-cost countries. Manufacturing is often outsourced because of information technology, human services and logistics.

Apple is a company that uses offshoring because they outsource to China where the iPad is assembled. They do this most likely because it is at a cheaper cost for Chinese workers to assemble the iPad than American workers.

Civil vs Common Law

Legal Systems

Questions to be answered:
What is a legal system?
What is civil law?
What is common law?
Whose uses Common law and who uses Civil law?

Legal Systems: The rules of how a country's laws are enforced and enacted
Common Law and Civil Law

Civil Law: a legal tradition that uses comprehensive statues and codes as a primary means to form legal judgment.

• Over 80 countries practice civil law
• Civil law has less flexibility because judges have the power only to apply the law
  
• Civil law is less confrontational because comprehensive statues and codes serve to guide judges
• Civil law contracts in countries are short and less specific

Common Law: A legal tradition that is shaped by precendents from previous judicial decisions.

An example of common law is "common law marriage" which is where you can be deemed married without a license or ceremony. Massachusetts does not follow this common law because in order to be married you have to participate in a lawful ceremony.

• Common law has more flexibility because judges have to resolve specific based on interpretation of the law
• Common law is more confrontational because plaintiffs and defendants, though their lawyers must argue and help judges to favorably intercept the law
• Common law contracts in countries tend to be long and detailed

This map shows countries that use common law or civil law

Below is a link that has a story about the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court expanding common law and statutory liability to include medical monitoring expense damage claims.

http://www.lexmundi.com/images/lexmundi/PracticeGroups/ToxicTort/Articles/MA_medical_monitoring_rogers.pdf

I find this article interesting to read and learn about because common law is being used.