International and Comparative Human Resource Management Assessment Answer

Introduction

In the current corporate situations, the internationalization of a company becomes an almost vital pre-condition for the forthcoming growth and development of businesses (Mbidde, 2023). The chosen countries are India (home nation) and Sweden (another nation). India is broadly known for its vibrant cultural heritage, primitive architecture, rich colors, and exotic beauty. It is deemed a land of cultural diversity (Khalique et al., 2023). The attribute of Sweden's culture is that its civilians are egalitarian, and respectful (Danielsson et al., 2019). This report delves into the cultural nuances of India and Sweden, focusing on how communication styles, relationships amongst individuals, time orientation,  beliefs, values, and societal norms influence HRM practices.

Dimensions of Culture

The chosen theories are Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory; and The GLOBE Study. There are five cultural dimensions of Hofstede namely power distance; individualism; masculinity vs. femininity; uncertainty avoidance index; and long-term orientation. There are nine cultural dimensions of the GLOBE study model namely power distance, uncertainty avoidance, institutional collectivism, in-group collectivism, gender egalitarianism, assertiveness, future orientation, performance orientation, and humane orientation (Pîrlog, 2019). The dimensions of both these theories can be reflected in workplace behaviors and expectations. Below is the discussion of two dimensions of each theory.

Individualism vs collectivism: Given workplace behaviors, individualism, and collectivism notify how diverse industrial participants are involved with one another in the view of varying goals. The expectation of management is in the area of emphasizing personal goals; and making decisions independently (Farrukh et al., 2019).

Uncertainty avoidance: This culture requires workplace individuals to avoid risky activities and try to lessen uncertainty. The expectation is a clear set of instructions (Kovaleva et al., 2021).

Humane orientation: The workplace behaviors in this culture entail the encouragement of people to be caring and kind to others. Leaders expect to empower and nurture the workforce.

Performance orientation: The workplace behaviors entail encouragement of innovation, excellence, and performance improvement. The expectation of leaders includes the individual achievements (Raimo et al., 2019).

Impact on HRM Practices

Talent Acquisition

Individualism vs collectivism: India, being a collectivist society, emphasizes interviews to assess personality and heavily depends on recommendations (Verma, 2020).  Sweden, being an individualistic society, believes in being less dependent on recommendations.

Uncertainty avoidance: This cultural dimension can advocate a worker with a broad set of skills to be used in numerous situations. India (Abushinov, 2021).

Gender egalitarianism: Both India and Sweden are developing promoters of gender equality. Their businesses acquire candidates based on gender equality (Janoris & Prela, 2019).

Performance orientation: Sweden has a climate of innovation. Its civilians are usually early adopters of new technologies for acquiring new talent in the workplace (Adebayo et al., 2022).

Performance Management

Individualism vs collectivism: The employees from a collectivist culture assess their performance based on information regarding their group outcomes (Sarwar et al., 2020).

Uncertainty avoidance: Companies with a high uncertainty avoidance culture are more likely to utilize performance appraisal systems (Tsai et al., 2020).

Gender egalitarianism: Gender biases impact how managers rate workers, leading to women having to fulfill a greater bar than men to progress professionally (Begeny et al., 2020). However, Sweden is relatively more powerful than India in this regard. 

Performance orientation: Performance orientation can impact the performance appraisal of individuals since cultures with high-performance orientation can capitalize on training practices to endorse performance improvements (Nguyen et al., 2020).

Comparative Analysis

Points of differences

Contrary to Sweden, Indian businesses are involved in gathering more information about candidates while talent acquisition. In contrast to India, Sweden businesses will not feel stressed when faced with ambiguity in appraising performance.

Similarities

Both the nations India and Sweden, appear to value gender equality in terms of appraising performance and acquiring talent in the workplace. Also, the nations reflect similarities in terms of performance orientation which is high and is impacting the performance appraisal and talent acquisition positively.

Insights

It can be inferred that Sweden is a global leader in terms of innovations while India relies on this nation for types of technologies (Nylén & Holmström, 2019). Moreover, Sweden's culture is based on individualism and civilians are proud of their country and its achievements. In comparison, Indian culture is based on collectivism where its civilians prefer hierarchy in the groups

Conclusion

The main findings of the comparative analysis conducted above entail India is a collectivist society and Sweden is an individualistic society. Moreover, it concludes that Sweden is more powerful than India in terms of performance orientation and gender egalitarianism. Also, it infers that both of the nations are equal in terms of uncertainty avoidance.

Recommendations

1. Diversity: Companies should embrace diversity to foster more innovation, creativity, and a sense of belonging amongst workers.

2. Conduct constant training sessions: These should be conducted for workforces and management by highlighting the vital cultural values, communication behaviors, and work expectations of the nations.

References

Abushinov, S. (2021). Swedish Cultural Influence on the Networking Ability of Arabic Immigrant Entrepreneurs.

Adebayo, T. S., Oladipupo, S. D., Kirikkaleli, D., & Adeshola, I. (2022). Asymmetric nexus between technological innovation and environmental degradation in Sweden: an aggregated and disaggregated analysis. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 29(24), 36547-36564.

Begeny, C. T., Ryan, M. K., Moss-Racusin, C. A., & Ravetz, G. (2020). In some professions, women have become well represented, yet gender bias persists—Perpetuated by those who think it is not happening. Science Advances, 6(26), eaba7814.

Danielsson, M., Nilsen, P., Rutberg, H., & Årestedt, K. (2019). A national study of patient safety culture in hospitals in Sweden. Journal of Patient Safety, 15(4), 328.

Farrukh, M., Lee, J. W. C., Sajid, M., & Waheed, A. (2019). Entrepreneurial intentions: The role of individualism and collectivism in perspective of the theory of planned behavior. Education+ Training, 61(7/8), 984-1000.

Janoris, D., & Prela, P. (2019). Gender Equality in Higher Education: A Comparative Study of Sweden and India.

Khalique, F., Madan, P., & Puri, G. (2023). Study of cultural dimensions in MNC subsidiaries in India. Managing and Strategising Global Business in Crisis: Resolution, Resilience and Reformation.

Kovaleva, E. A., Mustafa, A. T. A., Salari, O., & Tom-Ayegunle, T. A. (2021). Influence of National Culture on Country’s Innovative Activity. Экономика и предпринимательство, (2), 150-154.

Mbidde, H. (2023). Business Functions Capabilities and Small and Medium Enterprises’ Internationalisation (Doctoral dissertation, Walden University).

Nguyen, P. T., Yandi, A., & Mahaputra, M. R. (2020). Factors that influence employee performance: motivation, leadership, environment, culture organization, work achievement, competence, and compensation (A study of human resource management literature studies). Dinasti International Journal of Digital Business Management, 1(4), 645-662.

Nylén, D., & Holmström, J. (2019). Digital innovation in context: Exploring serendipitous and unbounded digital innovation at the church of Sweden. Information Technology & People, 32(3), 696-714.

Pîrlog, A. (2019). Perspectives of cultural dimensions research project globe in the Republic of Moldova. În Simpozion Ştiinţific Internaţional al Tinerilor Cercetători (pp. 115-123).

Raimo, N., Zito, M., & Caragnano, A. (2019). Does national culture affect integrated reporting quality? A focus on GLOBE dimensions. In 9th International Symposium on Natural Resources Management, May 31st, 2019, Zaječar, Serbia (pp. 383-392). Belgrade: Megatrend University.

Sarwar, H., Ishaq, M. I., Amin, A., & Ahmed, R. (2020). Ethical leadership, work engagement, employees’ well-being, and performance: a cross-cultural comparison. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 28(12), 2008-2026.

Tsai, K. H., Huang, C. T., & Chen, Z. H. (2020). Understanding variation in the relationship between environmental management practices and firm performance across studies: A meta‐analytic review. Business Strategy and the Environment, 29(2), 547-565.

Verma, J. (2020). Collectivism in the cultural perspective: The Indian scene. In Latest contributions to cross-cultural psychology (pp. 228-241). Routledge.

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