Managing People Across Cultures

Aim:

Aim of this module is to enable you to assess the international hospitality and tourism environment so that you can make judgements about the most appropriate management approaches to adopt in different situations. It also aims to increase your awareness of some of the employment issues, which need to be considered when people are managed in different national environments. In just a few sessions we cannot possibly cover human resource management (HRM) across the whole globe, but I hope the methods you learn and the processes you experience will equip you to deal with the many different situations you are likely to meet in the future.

Session 1 – Introduction To HRM And IHRM

Learning outcomes

By the end of the session and workshop and after doing some follow-up reading, you should be able to:

Understand the context and importance of people management in service sector and hospitality and tourism industries.Identify the key activities involved in managing people across cultures and a range of people management paradigms including Personnel Management / Industrial relations,HRM and its variants.Compare and contrast approaches to HRM and IHRM

Session overview

Introduces human resource management (HRM) and international human resource management (IHRM) and the assessment for this module.

Session 2 – People Management Paradigms

Learning outcomes

By the end of the lecture and workshop and after doing some follow-up reading, you should be able to:

Explore contemporary people management paradigms.Identify frameworks for the collection and analysis of data and identify sources of data for comparative studiesEvaluate the importance and limitations of comparative studies and identify strategies for collecting relevant data to inform your people management decisions in your casecompany.

Session overview

Develops our understanding of human resource management (HRM) and international human resource management (IHRM) and relates these areas to the international hospitality industry

Session 3 – Managing Cultural And Institutional Differences

Learning outcomes

By the end of this session and having completed the recommended reading, you will be able to:

Define ‘culture’ and describe behaviour related to different culturesRecognise the importance of culture in shaping management and employee behaviourIdentify models which help us understand cultural influencesApply Hofstede’s dimensions of national culture to your case countries and examine differencesRecommend some managerial approaches which are sensitive to cultural and institutional differences

Session overview

Explores the cultural and contextual issues associated with managing people across countries, and industries

Session 4 – Strategic Options In People Management And EPRG Theory

Learning outcomes

By the end of the lecture / workshop and follow up reading, you should be able to:Revisit approaches to people management, specifically personnel management (PM) and HRMIdentify the broad issues of divergence and convergence in international HRM strategies and practicesUnderstand and recognise different international management strategic orientationsUse the management orientations to analyse the approaches of international hotelcompanies

Session overview

Introduces the strategic options available to international companies when developing coherent people management approaches from an EPRG theory perspective

Session 5 – Resourcing Organisations

Learning outcomes

By the end of the session and follow-up reading, you should be able to:

Identify the key aspects of resourcing an organisation and the challenges for Understand the implications of cultural and institutional differences for resourcing.Use established theory from resourcing and labour markets, to make recommendations for appropriate resourcing for your organisation from home/ host / third country labourmarkets as appropriate.Consider the fit of these recommendations with the organisational and cultural characteristics applied to your case and country.

Session overview

Examines issues associated with labour markets ad resourcing international organisations

Session 6 – Motivating And Rewarding

Learning outcomes

By the end of the lecture and workshop and after doing some follow up reading, you should be able to:

Understand the nature of the effort/reward bargainCritically evaluate the applicability of motivation theory to international managementEvaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different methods of rewarding employees in order to maximise performanceApply reward management techniques to international hospitality companies.

Session overview

This session explores approaches to motivating and rewarding workers across cultures and different institutional mechanisms. It also explores the issues of reward systems in theinternational hospitality and tourism.

Session 7 – Training & Development

Learning outcomes

By the end of the lecture and after doing some follow-up reading, you should be able to:

Recognise the importance of training and developing human resources within the hospitality workforceUnderstand the global, national, organisational and individual implications of developing human resourcesRecognise the training and development issues associated with staff on international assignments.

Session overview

This session explores the approaches taken to training, developing and educating workforces across the world. It identifies and evaluates how national, regional and industrial differences shape company approaches to managing their workforces in relation to their knowledge,expertise and skills.

Session 8 – Assignment Workshop

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of this module, students will be able to:

1. Use, interpret and apply secondary data sources appropriately2. Evaluate business environments within which hospitality and tourism organisations operate3. Critically evaluate people management approaches in the context of organisational, institutional and cultural differences4. Recommend appropriate approaches for managing people across differing cultures5. Manage time and tasks6. Learn independently and co-operatively7. Use a wide range of academic skills (research analysis, synthesis, etc)

Session overview

This will be an opportunity to assess progress in small peer groups and evaluate exemplars of good assignments of distinction quality against the assessment criteria.You will need to bring along all of your notes and current work to this session and we will allocate the one to one tutorials for the final session.

Assignment Task

Report split into two parts, that:

Part A.

Asks students to provide a succinct summary of the key factors shaping people management approaches in their allocated country. This summary should incorporate the national business cultural and institutional factors, which affect the people management approaches of international hospitality and tourism operators.

Part B

Asks students to recommend and justify appropriate people management strategies and policies for specific groups of employees (operative through to managerial level) for aninternational hospitality operator interested in developing unit(s) in the country investigated in part a.