HUMAN RESOURCES

Human Resources



How does HRM in a large international company differ from HRM in an SME (small or medium sized enterprise)?

Introduction

The study explored the HR impact of key aspects of MNC structure and organisation. These include broad structural factors such as country of origin, sector, size, and so on, and aspects of internal organisation such as the degree of international product diversification, the extent of international integration of operations, and international structures. Analysis has explored the relationship between such organisational variables and aspects of HR/employment relations practices and policies such as 'organisational learning', employee representation, and the degree of central control over subsidiaries' HR policies. Human resource management (HRM) is a equitably new notion, first granted general currency by the Harvard enterprise School in the early 1980s. Fifty years ago companies were still debating if the term 'personnel department' should restore 'employment department' and in the 1920's even the biggest businesses commonly functioned with easily a 'time agency' and a distinct 'welfare department'. This transformation of persons administration undertakings reflects a larger emphasis on one-by-one rather than collective employee relatives, an boost in the complexity of the employment process and the development of an significant strategic dimension based on the notion of 'human capital'The expanding vigilance on human asset management (HRM) in small and intermediate enterprises (SMEs) is a comparatively latest phenomenon. HR-researchers have largely ignored the SMEs, even though smaller companies could be fruitful subjects for empiri-cal investigation because their numbers, the growth-rates and not least diversity in the qualitative aspects of management practices. Thereby HRM in SME's has been a white spot on the map, lack of interest for the phenomenon is however two-sided. The practitioners, the managers and/or owners of the SME's, have on their side often ignored personnel- or HR-issues like training and development, performance management, employee counsel-ling etc.

It seems to be the case that managers have had the view, that HRM is unre-sponsive or not tailorised enough to their needs, and it is considered too costly an activ-ity to carry for a small organisation. The lack of appropriateness, expectation of the ac-tivities being too bureaucratic, time consuming and the lack of clarity concerning direct effects etc., has resulted in very limited attention to the approach and the techniques. HRM and Entrepreneurship researchers have begun to answer the call by focusing on the HRM issues in SMEs. Many studies represent "new" knowledge, in the form of new issues, new ideas, and new data. However, there seems to be very limited debate about the fact that human resources are being managed in SME's. The question is however, to how large a degree themes and techniques from the HR-domain is being used, and if not, what are the implications? If we gaze at the proportion of professionally qualified human asset (HR) employees contrasted to other employees in medium-large companies over Europe, we find the UK has a ratio of just 1:127, while other (EU15) states (except for Ireland and Sweden) have an average ratio of ...