HRM practices in China are influenced by Chinese culture which values respect for authority, harmonious relationships, personal connections, group orientation, and avoiding shame. Common HRM areas in Chinese joint ventures include recruitment, training, performance appraisal, promotion criteria, and financial rewards. While recruitment and promotion practices resemble those of foreign partners, performance appraisal incorporates more qualitative criteria and a top-down system unlike local firms. Localization of management brings challenges of developing local talent through training and coaching while expatriates still play key roles in technology transfer, leadership, and communicating with headquarters.

1. H R practices in
Sneha Mittal

2. HRM: a strategic function concerned with
consequences of all organizational
decisions for human productivity and for
the well-being of the entire work force.
It is a distinctive approach to employment
management which seeks to achieve
competitive advantage through the
strategic deployment of a highly
committed and capable work force, using
an integrated array of cultural, structural
and personnel techniques.

3. HRM practices in China:
• Concepts of Chinese culture affecting
HRM practices in China
• the respect for age and authority
• maintenance of harmonious human relations
• the favour of personal relations
• group orientation
• the concept of face, which suggests that
one should avoid losing face - shame and
indignity in public.

4. Areas of HRM:
• Recruitment
• Training
• Performance appraisal
• promotion criteria
• financial reward

5. Recruitment
• Inheriting the existing
workforce of local parent partner
• Quick to start the local partner
provide welfare and supporting
facility old organizational culture.
• Merits and defects of recruiting
from labour market selecting the
best candidates creating new
organizational culture and
management style lack loyalty and
high turnover rate difficult to
persuade local partner to accept
this practice.

6. Training:
• Generally most joint ventures in China
recognize the importance of training
and devote a large amount of resources
to training
• Overseas training regarded not only as
knowledge acquisition, but also as part
of the strategy to retain good
employees

7. Performance appraisal
• Performance appraisal Share
similarities to that of home
HRM practices than to those of
local firms
• Use of objective appraisal
criteria; qualitative criteria are
used as complimentary
• Top-down appraisal system;
unlike the practice in local
firms, managers are not rated
by subordinates

8. Promotion
• Promotion Most similar to home HRM
practices
• the GM has important power to determine
the appointment of middle managers and
other subordinates, while in local firms
• promotion typically involves collective
actors promotion as a strategy to prepare
for greater localization
• usual conflict between foreign and local
partners over promotion

9. Financial rewards
• Financial rewards Joint ventures often
offer much higher pay than local firms
• the difference of pay for worker and
manager is larger in joint ventures
• pay and bonus are geared to individual
contribution

10. Why localize?
• High cost of maintaining
expatriates
• greater long-term
effectiveness of local
managers
• Need to attract and retain
high potential employees
• Best use of human resource
assets available locally

11. Challenges for localization in
China
• Few qualified people
• Selecting appropriate personnel
• Need for accelerated training
• Managing the expectations of local
employees
• Managing internal politics and resentments
• Ensuring the transfer of knowledge and
skills by expatriates
• Lack of comprehensive localization strategy

12. Developing high potential
employees
• Developing local leaders in the training
classroom
• Coaching and mentoring by someone who
understands how to execute business
strategies through people
• Trial and error experimentation by local
managers

13. Cont..
• Coaching by expatriates
• positioning: to position local managers
properly within the organization, both in
China and in the eyes of their western
colleagues back at the headquarters
• rotating jobs: moving from various types
of functional areas to develop broad
base of experience

14. The roles of expatriates
• To transfer technical and
managerial knowledge
• General management: to provide
strong leadership, build up
organizations, and push for changes
• To communicate with the
headquarters
• To safeguard the company’s
interests
• Hence, a certain amount of
expatriates are needed because
some roles are very difficult to be
taken up by local managers