11-1-3 Regulatory Issues Including Immigration and Border Security

or group rather than on their individual job performance. Workers in such countries may expect the community to help take care of them, just as they expect to contribute to taking care of others.

11-1-2d Masculinity/Femininity This dimension is not to be confused with male dominance or women’s rights; instead it relates to values that are traditionally associated with one gender or the other. Highly masculine cultures place a high value on things like competition, assertiveness, and achievement. Japan, Austria, and Mexico are among the most masculine cultures. Other countries, such as Sweden and Norway, are at the feminine end of the scale, putting high values on things like care for the weak and relationships. Workplaces in more feminine countries, for example, may be likely to have more liberal policies regarding sick days, disability pay, and parental leave than those in more masculine countries.

11-1-2e Long-Term/Short-Term Orientation This factor involves the extent to which members of a given society value long-term planning and looking to the future as opposed to a more immediate short-term perspective. Many Asian countries, such as China and Japan, have this kind of orientation. In contrast, a much more shorter-term orientation exists in the United States and Britain. Workplaces in longer-term-oriented countries may place greater emphasis on worker retirement savings programs and pensions than those in the United States.

When we consider these dimensions of cultural differences, it is easy to see how they have a tremendous impact on the conduct of international HRM and the appropriateness of given HRM practices in certain countries. For example, it may be difficult to implement highly stratified compensation packages tied to individual performance in more collectivist-oriented countries. In such countries, compensation structures based on team performance or seniority may be far more effective. Multinational corporations managing operations around the globe need to be keenly aware of these issues, particularly with respect to moving employees from one country to another. For example, an executive who grew up and worked most of his or her life in a high power distance country like Mexico or Japan will be used to being addressed as “Mr.” or “Ms.” This executive may have trouble adjusting to an executive role in a low power distance country like Denmark or the Netherlands where all employees call each other by their first names. At the very least, good strategic HRM makes sure that executives making such transitions are well trained with respect to the cultural values in their new home country.

Countries around the globe have vastly different regulatory legal-political systems and structures that govern the conduct of HRM. As we will see later in this chapter, some of these regulations pertain to the ability of employees to form labor unions and engage in collective bargaining. In Canada, for example, labor relations are basically regulated at the provincial level (e.g., by the province of Ontario) rather than at the national level. Such provincial regulation generally makes it considerably easier for employees to join labor unions than does the federal regulatory scheme pertaining to labor relations that exists in the United States.

With respect to employee working hour regulations, in 1998 France instituted its wellpublicized 35-hour work week. France began its experiment with a shorter workweek with the idea that it would help lead to employers hiring more workers, thus reducing the country’s chronically relatively high unemployment rate.5 There was some evidence that such job creation did initially take place, and other countries began at least partially emulating the

Gary Moon/Age Fotostock

The U.S. Immigration Border Fence Between the United States and Mexico in Arizona.

French experiment; for example, Belgium cut its workweek to 38 hours in 2003. More recent evidence with respect to French job creation related to the 35-hour workweek, however, has been more mixed, and a new law pushed into existence by French President Nicolas Sarkozy now lets companies negotiate more than 35 workweek hours from their employees. Still, employees in France are likely to continue to work less than the approximately 42 hours per week averaged by workers in the United States.

Governmental regulations related to immigration and border security are among the most important in the field of international HRM. Some countries, such as Singapore, have relatively flexible immigration policies, making it easy for workers from other countries to come and work there legally on a semipermanent or even permanent basis. In recent years, for example, many U.S. scientists have found work in Singapore.6

Somewhat similarly, Great Britain, a member of the European Union (EU), opened its doors wide to workers from Poland, the Czech Republic, and six other Eastern European countries as soon as these countries obtained “accession” status in the EU (meaning that they began the application process) in 2004. Since that time over 500,000 workers from those countries have been granted legal entry into the United Kingdom—a huge number for an island nation of 60 million people.7

In contrast, the United States has been more restrictive with respect to foreign worker entry into its borders. That said, a sizeable number of individuals have ignored U.S. government regulations in this regard and have entered and come to work in the United States illegally. Indeed, it has been estimated that there may be as many as 20 million illegal immigrants in the United States, with many of these individuals historically working in the service and construction industries. While hiring illegal immigrants is clearly unlawful under U.S. federal law (as well as under some state laws), effectively enforcing such legal regulations has proven to be extremely difficult. To this end, President Obama recently signed an Executive Order that will give reprieve to illegal immigrants who are the parents of U.S. citizens and have been living in the country for at least five years. He has also expanded the legal rights of immigrants who came to the United States as children. This action will allow nearly five million immigrants to be eligible for work authorization in the United States.8