Human Resource Management in Europe

Scientific Essay from the year 2006 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 96 Prozent, Beijing Institute of Technology, course: Human Resource Management in International Firms, language: English, abstract: This paper analyzes in how far human resource management (HRM) of the United States of America (USA) will influence European HR practices. When investigating the special features of American and European HRM it becomes obvious that the USA is characterized by low level of state interference and stronger emphasize on individualism. In contrast, in Europe greater involvement of the states and European supranational agencies as well as huge organizational and managerial responsibility towards employees is usual. What is more, trade unions have a high social legitimacy in Europe compared to the USA. Nevertheless, due to different cultural and institutional perspectives of the individual European countries it is difficult to define a common HRM model within Europe. Hence, the discussion of various regional clusters arose in recent years. Although some European countries move towards directional convergence (whether countries share the same trend), final convergence (whether countries are becoming more alike) is still far from being realized. Consequently, it should be assumed that neither American HR practices will significantly influence European HRM nor that Europe will lead towards convergence of a common model in the future. Countries will continue to be different in their HR practices due to their unique cultural and institutional frameworks.