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Research Proposal HRM
Research Proposal HRM
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Executive Summary
Global economy and international trade today has transformed, flourished and evolved
by a great deal as compared to a last few decades. One of the marked changes is the
emergence of Multinational enterprises (MNEs), which have become the source of not
only global trade but also a significant means of employment. Like any other business
the growth, development and performance of MNEs is dependent on the capacity and
performance of its most valuable intangible asset the Human resources. It has been
that effective and efficient human resource management policies and practices with an
organisation can often prove to be the competitive advantage that a business may
This proposed research would aim to firstly investigate the management of multinational
organisation today, and then analyse the strategic view of human resource
HRM. The proposal would briefly look into the consequences of globalisation of
markets, emergence of multinationals and the changing trend followed by MNEs from
HRM perspective reflecting how MNEs are a much more global perspective, with
proposed research through quantitative research would critically analyse and discuss
being in a position to offer recommendations for HRM practices and procedures in Multi
National Organisations.
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1. Introduction and background to the research:
Human resource management is one of the most important aspects in the smooth and
depends on the quality of its human resources, irrespective of its span on operation,
international or global the role of HR managers becomes all the more important and
dynamic because, as they need the HR management team to represent and form the
bridge or play the role of middleman between the set of two cultures one of the
originating organisation and the other of the foreign market. It is very important that
MNEs strategically plan the Human Resource management practices and principles
what is in line with the global objectives and strategies of the business, and it is
significantly that this fact is accepted, understood and is worked on together at all levels
the transfer of knowledge; it should be uniform and continual across the entire
knowledge transfer should be at its maximum, this has further led to reflecting the
advantage and thus has emerged as one of the key area of research in strategic HRM
discipline.
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2. Literature review:
Last few decades have seen a prominent change, that has taken place in global
technological exchange. Even though most of the researchers and authors have
indicated their views that is an outcome of globalisation, Dicken does not really
completely bank on it and mentions through his work that global economies still are
comments that “although there is an accepted presence of globalising forces that have
a strong influence, we still continue to exist in economies that not completely globalised.
Adding further to this literature Kobrin (1997) mentions that globalisation may be
considered to have a very substantive meaning and strongly supports the fact that we at
the present moment of time are in the middle of a state of international economies that
economical units.
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2. The second is that the growth of transnational strategic alliances represents a
3. Lastly he mentions that the large scale emergence of global economies over the last
few decades have primarily been driven by the development and integration of
structures.
Human resource management (HRM) is many aspects may be defined as the policies
and procedures that are designed for maximum utilisation of their most valued
intangible asset and resource the human resource, which is in line with organisational
Central to their thinking was that human resources were a significant source of
competitive success, with the implication that senior managers of organizations needed
to take a more strategic view of people management than had been the case in the
great majority of companies. What might be called the HRM movement, spread to other
countries including the UK, where it became a dominant topic of academic and
people are the key to competitive advantage. As originally formulated, the proposition
was that access to technology and finance was generally available to anyone, and it
was only people who were a firm-specific resource that could enable companies to
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It may therefore be clearer to distinguish between a 'best fit' and a 'best practice'
approach to HRM (Becker and Gerhart 1996; Purcell 1996). 'Best fit', or 'strategic fit',
takes the contingent view that human resource policies should be internally consistent
and aligned with organizational strategy or purposes, with the obvious implication that
where business units follow different strategies, HR policies may vary within the
organization in order to fit the needs of each business unit (Purcell 1995). In contrast,
'best practice' is more universal, and proposes that there is a particular set of FIR
practices which if adopted together will improve productivity and performance in any
context. As already indicated, these best practices are generally linked to workforce
commitment, and they can be traced back to the conceptual out line of HRM contained
The primary objective of this research is to critically analyse and understand the
this proposed research is that multinationals have a very important role to play in the
The aim of this research is to critically explore this proposition in greater details, with the
help of secondary and primary research findings, which would establish the literature
and the empirical study would address many issues related to the area of research.
Keeping the above literature and the objectives of the research into close consideration
the researcher proposes to address and answer the following research questions with
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Are Multinational promoting organisational knowledge developments as a shared
resource?
multinationals and what is the extent to which this is the result of international
Answering these research questions would definitely answer any gaps in the literature
With globalisation at its prime, business today made internationalisation as a key aspect
of their overall business strategy, in such changing circumstances it is very important for
business to view HRM from a strategic point of view and thus support the overall
development of the business and pave the path to profit and reflective future gains.
4. Research Methodology:
Methodology forms one of the most significant aspect of any undertaken research, the
methodology of the research determines the research philosophy, the employed data
the research needs the methodology defines the qualitative or quantitative approach,
and thus determines the expected outcome from the research. The research for the
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4.1 Research philosophy:
philosophy, the most prominent research philosophies are those of positivism and
interpretivism (Hughes and Sharrock 1997; Hussey and Hussey 1997; Gill and Johnson
2002; Easterby-Smith, et al. 2004; Weber 2004; Blumberg, et al. 2005) further to this
Blumberg, et al. (2005) add by commenting that between these two philosophies there
are numerous other applied philosophies which rely on the principles of either positivism
or interpretivism, or even those which incorporate both called as the realism philosophy.
Positivism:
"The key idea of positivism is that the social world exists externally, and that its
properties should be measured through objective measures, rather than being inferred
28)
Interpretivism:
“This interpretivist view proposes that the world and reality are not objective but are
socially constructed and given meaning by people, that the researcher is part of what is
observed, and that research is driven by interests, assuming therefore that the social
world is observed by seeing what meanings people give to it and interpreting these
meanings from their own viewpoint, and social phenomena can only be understood by
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looking at the totality” (Hughes and Sharrock 1997; Easterby-Smith, et al. 2004;
very subjective approach, where the researcher tries to establish meaningful realities for
These two philosophies can be best studied with the help of the illustration below:
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The research strategy that the researcher proposes to employ for this research would
As mentioned by Denscombe, (2000) the case study strategy is the appropriate strategy
to be employed for small scale researches, especially where there is a need a smaller
area in a very narrow perspective, with the need of an in-depth study to be conducted.
Denscombe further mentions that such an approach focuses on relations and process
to get an understanding on how these establish a link together; such researcher are
believed to be conducted in natural environment without control over situations and also
provides the researcher with the chance to explore and utilize different sources and
methods.
certain situation and the research question aims to answer the objective of how a case
adopted by this research, secondary is the data is the data would be collected from
different secondary resources and then critically analysis the collected data with the aim
Secondary data may be defined as “data that have already been collected for some
other purpose, perhaps processed and subsequently stored” (Saunders, et al 2007). All
these techniques are a reflection of the method of triangulation to gain extra validity and
reliability with the data and results (Bryman & Bell 2007). “Secondary data analysis in
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general, involves the study of data that others have gathered either qualitatively or
quantitatively” (Bryman & Bell 2007). It has an advantage of facilitating the comparative
element to be included into the research design. It also adds quality to the data as it has
undergone rigorous and strict procedures before publication (Bryman & Bell 2007).
Primary research is a source of information that has been collected from the primary
sources of information, the primary data collection and the analysis of the data collected
is believed to add validity to the research. Although the data collection process is very
time and money consuming process but it brings various benefits associated with it to
Primary Data is “data observed, experienced or recorded closest to the event” and it is
important as primary data “are the nearest, one, can get to the truth, although
distortions inevitably occur as the proximity of the event decreases (Walliman 2005, pg
197). The drawback with using primary research is the time and cost involved in the
travel and interview periods. Nevertheless it is data collected first hand hence is more
Deciding the appropriate sample size is the next most important decision in the
sample from which data that is significant is required to be collected (Churchill and
Iacobucci, 2004)
According to Hair et al. (2006), the sampling procedure plays an important role in the
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investigation. Without a sound sampling procedure, data collection will include neither
the proper respondents nor the appropriate number of them. Indeed, the study outcome
is likely to be useless (Tull and Hawkins, 1993). Churchill and Brown (2004) suggested
Considering the above the researcher has designed an appropriate sampling design
which is below:
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human activities or behavioral pattern is under investigation. Furthermore Denscombe,
(2000) adds to the literature by mentioning that this research approach is well
distinguished as the it gives the researcher the opportunity to put forwards their own
interpretations and analysis. Wilson (2003) mentions that qualitative research tends
towards an unstructured small scale carefully selected individuals approach with the
Taking this literature into keep consideration, the researcher proposes to adopt the
qualitative research methodology, and the researcher would aim to gain an in-depth
view of the situation, concerning HRM practices and policies by the ten MNCs under
consideration.
The researcher proposes to analyse the data collected, using the three types of
analytical strategies which are relying on theoretical propositions- this as per Yin (2003)
is comparing the secondary data with the primary data, thinking about rival explanations
The researcher as the Miles and Huberman (1994) would be conducting the data
o Data reduction
o Data display
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5. Timescale:
Note: This a proposed time line and plan and is subject to change as per the research
advancements and objectives achievement.
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6. Conclusion:
The fact that human resource management plays a very important and vital role in the
growth, development and the overall performance of the business, at local, domestic
and international levels is inevitable. With the influx of changes brought about from
globalisation, business today owing to economic and trade integration are venturing into
new geographical locations across the globe. It is strongly believed that with the
emergence of MNEs the practice of HRM has become more complex and important, as
now skill, experience and global learning can be shared, transferred and can be
adopted as a global practice within the organisation thus enhancing the role and
reflecting the importance of the role played by MNEs in the overall development of
The researcher with the proposed research, would aim to critically analyse the role
played by MNEs in the enhance, development and introduction of new practices in the
organisations from an international perspective, with the help of this research the
research would not only be able to critically analyse the present position of international
HRM practices and policies followed by business but would also be in a position to
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7. References:
Adler N.J., Dokter R. and Redding S.G. (1986) 'From the Atlantic to the Pacific
318.
Adler N.J. and Ghadar F. (1990) 'Strategic human resource management: a global
Black J.S., Gregersen H.B., Mendenhall M.E. and Stroh L.K. (1999) Globalizing
Cray D. and Mallory G.R. (1998) Making Sense of Managing Culture, London:
International Thomson.
Cully M., O'Reilly A., Millward N., Forth J., Woodland S., Dix G. and Bryson A.
(1998) the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey: First Findings, London:
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Davenport T.H. and Prusak L. (1998) Working Knowledge, Boston MA: Harvard
Deal T.E. and Kennedy A.A. (1982) Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of
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8. Appendix
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