Human resource management in developing countries

Focusing on HRM developments in thirteen developing countries across Asia, Africa and the Middle East, this book explores the contextual functions of HR in these countries. In addition, it analyzes the more general issues of HRM in cross-national settings to give readers an understanding of HR that is both comparative and contextual. Covering the policies and practices of China, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, each chapter follows a framework that draws out all of the unique and diverse configurations of HRM. This important text is an invaluable resource for all HRM practitioners, students and scholars of HRM, international HRM and international business.

An empirical investigation of audit pricing in the public sector:the case of Greek LGOs

This paper investigates the associations between audit pricing and multidimensional characteristics of local governments by using a sample of Greek municipalities. The Greek institutional setting is interesting because it is politically pluralistic. Moreover, independent auditors appointed through a bid process exclusively perform the audits. Our results suggest a considerable variation on audit fees which is mainly driven by politically related factors indicating the importance of relevant theoretical anticipations in audit pricing in the public sector. Agency costs appear strong enough to explain audit pricing. We also confirm prior findings on the significance of audit complexity and size. Results also suggest that audit fees are reduced when an internal team dedicated to accrual accounting is appointed. Therefore, our conclusions offer practical implications for policy setters and regulators in the public sector in relation to audit quality.

Human resource management in China and India

The first decade of the twenty-first century has witnessed further growth in emerging markets, which is significantly influencing the global economic landscape. For the first time in almost two hundred years, it is in this decade that the emerging economies have caught up with, and raced ahead of, the developed ones in terms of gross domestic product. This is a trend that is likely to continue for some time as many of the developed economies struggle to recover from the global financial crisis. In particular, China and India as two fast growing economies are significantly contributing to the world economic growth and are the flag bearers of this transformation. Acknowledged as favourite destinations for global manufacturing (China) and services (India) related outsourcing, both nations offer huge growth opportunities in most products and services. However, in order to sustain their phenomenal economic growth of the past decades, both countries are facing a number of challenges to their human resource management (HRM). From a macro perspective, these issues tend to appear similar (e.g., attraction and retention of talent), but given the significant sociocultural, institutional, political, legal and other differences between the two nations, the logics underpinning the approaches to managing human resources issues appear somewhat different. This chapter therefore aims to highlight the key forces determining the nature of HRM in China and India. The chapter consists of three main sections, in addition to the Introduction and Conclusions.

Human resource management in emerging markets:an introduction

The shifting of global economic power from mature, established markets to emerging markets (EMs) is a fundamental feature of the new realities in the global political economy. Due to a combination of reasons (such as scarcity of reliable information on management systems of EMs, the growing contribution of human resource management (HRM) towards organisational performance, amongst others), the understanding about the dynamics of management of HRM in the EMs context and the need for proactive efforts by key stakeholders (e.g., multinational and local firms, policy makers and institutions such as trade unions) to develop appropriate HRM practice and policy for EMs has now become more critical than ever. It is more so given the phenomenal significance of the EMs predicted for the future of the global economy. For example, Antoine van Agtmael predicts that: in about 25 years the combined gross national product (GNP) of emergent markets will overtake that of currently mature economies causing a major shift in the centre of gravity of the global economy away from the developed to emerging economies. (van Agtmael 2007: 10–11) Despite the present (late 2013 and early 2014) slowdown in the contribution of EMs towards the global industrial growth (e.g., Das, 2013; Reuters, 2014), EMs are predicted to produce 70 per cent of world GDP growth and a further ten years later, their equity market capitalisation is expected to reach US$ 80 trillion, 1.2 times more than the developed world (see Goldman Sachs, 2010).

Future trends in human resource management in emerging markets

In many ways the emerging markets represent something of a new frontier for academics and practitioners alike, or as one author puts it, ‘a significant topic of interest for a multitude of constituencies’ (Alkire, 2014: 334). The very term itself ‘emerging markets’ is something of a portmanteau one built on a series of layered insights garnered from several academic fields and multiple levels of analysis. Originally coined as a term in the 1980s, albeit with several earlier linked terminologies, this is an evolving and diverse literature. Inherent in its diversity lies a whole series of opportunities, encompassing the purely theoretical through to the methodological and the analytical. Capturing the essence of this in his Editorial in the inaugural edition of The International Journal of Emerging Markets, Akbar (2006) noted that from an academic perspective the emerging markets as a context for the creation and execution of a sustainable research agenda represent ‘a heterogeneous group of economies and societies’ and an ‘important testing ground for our existing theories, models and concepts of business and management’ affording those who focus on them as a research location the opportunity for ‘the development of new theoretical contributions in the field’. In this volume, we have sought to bring some systematics to this evolving literature dedicated to charting HRM in these emerging markets.

Marketing Approaches to Human Resources Management In the Hospitality Industry

Now that baby boomers are older and pursuing more career-oriented jobs, managers of the hospitality industry are experiencing the effects of the pre- sent labor crisis; they now know that those vacant hourly jobs are going to be tough to fill with quality personnel. The companies able to attract quality personnel by offering employees what they need and want will be the successful ones in the next decade. The authors explain how the labor crisis is currently affecting the hospitality industry and make suggestions about how firms may survive the "labor crash” of the 1990s with the application of marketing technology to human resource management.

Employee engagement in the public sector:a narrative evidence synthesis

It has been claimed that employee engagement can harness public service motivation in ways that lead to better improve functioning and positive organizational outcomes, and can help address the increasingly complex challenges associated with public service in an era of austerity. Despite this, there has not yet been a systematic review of the literature that would enable researchers to understand more about the antecedent factors and the outcomes of engagement in the public sector. To address this issue, we undertook a systematic narrative synthesis of the empirical research on engagement that yielded 5111 published studies, of which just 59 were conducted in public sector settings and met our inclusion criteria. Studies generally found that motivational features of jobs (such as autonomy), group (such as social support), management (such as leader consideration), and organizations (such as voice mechanisms) as well as psychological resources were key antecedents of engagement within the public sector; and that engagement was associated with positive employee health/morale and enhanced performance behaviors. The evidence was far from conclusive, suggesting a need for much more rigorous research focused on the specific challenges of public sector settings. We make recommendations for further research on this important topic, particularly with regards to understanding the connection between public service motivation and engagement and the need to examine engagement across different public sector/service contexts.

The concept of risk management in the renewable sector.

This study explores the perception of risk and the level of risk management implementation in the renewable sector. Risk management is emerging as a key issue due to the loss of confidence amongst banks, causing the attainment of financing to be difficult over the next few years. To attract financing, there is a fundamental requirement to manage risk in a way that minimizes the probability of a negative financial impact on the project. Miller and Lessard (2001) argue that successful projects are not selected but shaped with risk resolution in mind. Rather than evaluating projects at the outset based on projections of the full set of benefits, costs and risks over their lifetime, successful developers start with project ideas that have the potential of becoming viable. Therefore, this study bridges the gap that exists within the renewable sector in relation to risk management literature. This study succeeds through a detailed comparative case study analysis where two developers and two financiers were questioned through qualitative semi-structured interviews on the concept of risk management and its level implementation within the industry. It is believed that the growth in financed renewable energy projects depends on the adequate design and implementation of risk management to mitigate inherent project risks. However, this study revealed that are certain types of developers in existence within the renewable sector, which underestimate the magnitude of risk and view the development of projects as a ‘money racket’. Therefore, it can be concluded that perception of risk will also differ, causing risk and uncertainty to vary from project to project, resulting in investment reluctance to be associated with certain projects. The study originality lies in how it demonstrates to developers the concept of risk management, outlining the simplicity and benefits of implementing it in project development. Finally, this study contributes to the knowledge by enhancing the awareness and understanding of the presence and nature of risk in a RE project environment.

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) : A pedagogical guide for decision makers in the public sector

This guide introduces Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a performance measurement technique, in such a way as to be appropriate to decision makers with little or no background in economics and operational research. The use of mathematics is kept to a minimum. This guide therefore adopts a strong practical approach in order to allow decision makers to conduct their own efficiency analysis and to easily interpret results. DEA helps decision makers for the following reasons: - By calculating an efficiency score, it indicates if a firm is efficient or has capacity for improvement. - By setting target values for input and output, it calculates how much input must be decreased or output increased in order to become efficient. - By identifying the nature of returns to scale, it indicates if a firm has to decrease or increase its scale (or size) in order to minimize the average cost. - By identifying a set of benchmarks, it specifies which other firms' processes need to be analysed in order to improve its own practices.

Location models in the public sector

The past four decades have witnessed an explosive growth in the field of networkbased facilitylocation modeling. This is not at all surprising since location policy is one of the mostprofitable areas of applied systems analysis in regional science and ample theoretical andapplied challenges are offered. Location-allocation models seek the location of facilitiesand/or services (e.g., schools, hospitals, and warehouses) so as to optimize one or severalobjectives generally related to the efficiency of the system or to the allocation of resources.This paper concerns the location of facilities or services in discrete space or networks, thatare related to the public sector, such as emergency services (ambulances, fire stations, andpolice units), school systems and postal facilities. The paper is structured as follows: first,we will focus on public facility location models that use some type of coverage criterion,with special emphasis in emergency services. The second section will examine models based onthe P-Median problem and some of the issues faced by planners when implementing thisformulation in real world locational decisions. Finally, the last section will examine newtrends in public sector facility location modeling.