Employee Voice, International Hrm and Hrm Effectiveness

Employee voice could be a discretionary or voluntary behaviour where individuals decide whether to engage and involve within an organisation or not - a choice that is influenced by various aspects. It is constructive and positive in its purpose where the aim is to bring out improvements and positive change, not just criticism or vent. Employee voice can be observed and inspected in several ways within organisations; a blueprint that simplifies and permits employee voice, an environment which encourages employee’s ideas and opinions and lastly, the impact of employee voice where the ideas truly influence the outcome of the decisions (Farndale and Awamleh, 2011).

Wulandari and Burgess (2011) stated that communication openness as a form of voice and job satisfaction are positively related. With reference to Herzberg’s two-factor theory, he also adds that, while it is essential to fulfil the hygiene elements to reduce job dissatisfaction, it is more necessary to focus on the motivating elements to improve job satisfaction. Genc (2010) argued that openness in communication gives employees a sense of being taken into consideration and since it creates an atmosphere of active participation in the organization, it results in employee job satisfaction. This indicates that, the more employees feel involved in the environment of work the more likely they have higher satisfaction levels which can lead to a greater performance and productivity for organizations.

International Human Resource Management (IHRM)

Multi National Companies have three broad strategic options to choose depending on the form of Internationalisation and the extent and depth of company’s involvement in the local market. Companies from advanced countries often prefer ethnocentricity – managing employees according to their home-based models. The advantage here is that as they are tested and hence there is a coherent and unified approach to its Human Resource Management (HRM) preventing harmful contradictions, imbalance and disorder. However, the complex and diverse world in which the subsidiaries are located imposes its own imperatives which cannot be ignored; for example, subsidiaries located in a collectivist culture may require a motivation policy different from that of a parent company located in an individualistic culture-based country, and vice versa.

Polycentricity is accompanied by a decentralised organisational structure and few international HR policies and guidelines for ‘best practices’. The advantage here is that the subsidiaries’ HRM policies and practices are aligned with their own local culture and environment and are therefore easier to implement and get results, but a major disadvantage is that some local management practices (for example corruption and nepotism) might be undesirable and harmful and it would not make sense to outdo them. In addition, the subsidiaries might become loose cannons, acting not in harmony with the rest of the company but independently and sometimes in conflict with its overall interests and objectives.

Companies following a global approach emphasise cohesion and consistency across the company with a centralised hierarchical structure; the HRM policies are laid down in detail for all subsidiaries and exercised through standardised procedures, rules and regulations. Again, subsidiaries here are quasi-independent organisations which develop their own organisational culture over time and will acquire certain features which are more in tune with the local ways of doing things than the headquarters’ preferences (Tayeb and Monir, H., 2005).

Human Resource Management (HRM) Effectiveness

One critical question in HRM research that has gathered considerable attention is how much difference HRM can make in organizational functions and the overall performance.

Colakoglu, Saba et al. (2006) discuss the implications of globalization and changing nature of work on measuring the effectiveness of human resource management systems based on its proximity to four fundamental categories; employees as individuals, collectively measuring employee outcomes, financial and accounting outcomes such as Returns on Investment (ROI) and lastly capital market outcome.

According to Dyer & Reeves (1995), HR practices have their most immediate impact on employees since employee outcomes such as turnover, absenteeism, job satisfaction, commitment, and motivation. The second category of organizational performance which is more distal to HR practices includes macro level outcomes associated with individual efforts, such as indicators of productivity, quality of products and customer service. The third category encompasses financial and accounting outcomes, such as ROI and profitability and finally, the most distal performance measure to HR practices is the capital market outcome, such as stock price, growth, and returns.