HR capability is perceived to be a crucial input into whether a multinational organisation is able to manage a global workforce or not. Global presence and global expansion necessitate the extension of a firm's workforce into regions beyond those that were responsible for its origin. Expansion may be an outward pushing into new markets or it may arise through acquisition or disparate national organisations and businesses. Zynga for example has grown into a multinational firm by virtue of its acquisition strategy, buying smaller games developers from Sao Paulo to Tokyo to Boston, London and beyond.
This report from Accenture highlights the remarkable growth of business taking place in emerging economies; what might have previously be considered the 'developing world'. This change implies another change, a change in employee's perception of corporate culture and prior assumptions that culture reflected the national character of the parent company. Corporate culture is increasingly being seen as cosmopolitan, global, international, not necessarily an extension of a central value system or language of the parent. HR is posited as a force for standarisation, a system for enforcing unity in so far as the corporate entity is constituted through policy, procedure, terminology etc. HR is also posed as the corporate function best placed to encounter, interpret and implement compliance with local regulation while at the same time as it translates between and among the global 'locals' of national offices within the international firm. In this sense HR becomes a shared service, a global function that services the 'local' wherever it is.Reference
Gartside et al, (2011), Different strokes: How to manage a global workforce, Accenture. (link)
Commentary from Silicon Republic, July 19 2011 (link)
