Reading Assignment

• Check the Course Schedule for specific details on what to read this week.

Key Terms for This Lesson

As you progress through the course readings, create a checklist of key terms and definitions where appropriate for each lesson to make sure you understand their meaning.

• International human resources management (IHRM)
• Strategic IHRM (autonomous, receptive, active, exogenous, endogenous factors)
• Multinational corporation (MNC)/multinational enterprise (MNE) (These two terms are used equally with the same meaning.)
• International joint ventures (IJV): companies set up their operations in a new country by working together with an existing company in this country.
• International mergers and acquisitions (M&A): companies merge with or take over a company in a new country in order to operate there.
• Foreign direct investment (FDI): companies set up a new independent operation in a new country, making a direct investment in setting up their operations there.
• Stages of business internationalization:
  • International: a domestic company exports the products/services without foreign representation.
  • Multi-domestic: a domestic company has independent subsidiaries in other countries.
  • Global: foreign subsidiaries; e.g., along global product lines, report into a central domestic hub.
  • Transnational: interdependent subsidiaries are integrated in a global network.
• Business strategy orientation (ethnocentrism, poly/regiocentrism, geocentrism)
• Strategic international HRM approaches (autonomous, receptive, active)

Learning Objectives

Overall, this lesson will help you to 

• recognize that HR policy and practice both follow the business’s intent and
• understand why we are managing people abroad before distinguishing among available options.

After successfully completing this lesson you should be able to

• explain the strategic context for IHRM/ER by
  • describing the many drivers of the internationalization of business and
  • describing the different strategic approaches to IHRM and
• analyze the international factors faced by a chosen organization that influence IHRM/ER and the increasingly domestic HRM.