Human resource management - Essay Example

While feasibility studies for establishment of alliances find it important to discuss and evaluate the matters concerning technology, marketing, ownership and management structures; human resources is thought to be a subject that can be discussed, after the negotiations are finalized and alliance deal is signed. (Drouin, 2001). While issues of coordination between the workers and managers of two alliance partners remain unresolved, studies have confirmed that companies devote only around 4% of their time for resolving such issues.

In addition, the differences between workforces of alliance partners can pose complex problems, incase people from different nationalities and ethnic background are involved. (Adler&Ghadar, 1990____________________________________________________Footnotes: For example, high failure rate has been recorded among the American expatriates, as American firms neglect specific procedures required for selection and training of their personnel, for working with international assignments Alliances and joint ventures are distinctly different in working style and management as the unitary domestic companies have particular style of management and human resources functional practice.

The issues arise when people from different cultures have to undertake common responsibilities for discharging required functions and job responsibilities under a joint venture functional style. According to Shenkar and Zeira , an international joint venture can have eight different employee groups that have distinct characteristics. These would include executives from host-parent headquarters, host-parent transferees, host–country nationals, third county expatriates having foreign parents, parent country expatriates, third country nationals recruited directly by the IJV, third country expatriates having parents of host country nationality and foreign headquarters