What is International Human Resource Management?

Human Resource Management (HRM) is set of organizational activities aimed at effectively managing and directing human resources/labour towards achieving organizational goals. Typical functions performed by HRM staff would be recruitment, selection, training and development, performance appraisal, dismissal, managing promotions and so on.

Then what is International Human Resource Management (IHRM)?

IHRM can be defined as set of activities aimed managing organizational human resources at international level to achieve organizational objectives and achieve competitive advantage over competitors at national and international level. IHRM includes typical HRM functions such as recruitment, selection, training and development, performance appraisal and dismissal done at international level and additional activities such as  global skills management, expatriate management and so on.

In simple terms, IHRM is concerned about managing human resources at Multinational Companies (MNC) and it involves managing 03 types of employees namely,

1. Home country employees- Employees belonging to home country of the firm where the corporate head quarter is situated.
2. Host country employees- Employees belonging to the nation in which the subsidiary is situated.
3. Third country employees- These are the employees who are not from home country/host country but are employed at subsidiary or corporate head quarters. As an example a American MNC which has a subsidiary at India may employ a French person as the CEO to the subsidiary. The Frenchman employed is a third country employee.

Differences between domestic HRM and International HRM (IHRM) are summarized below:

• Domestic HRM is done at national level and IHRM is done at international level.
• Domestic HRM is concerned with managing employees belonging to one nation and IHRM is concerned with managing employees belonging to many nations (Home country, host country and third country employees)
• Domestic HRM is concerned with managing limited number of HRM activities at national level and IHRM has concerned with managing additional activities such as expatriate management.
• Domestic HRM is less complicated due to less influence from the external environment. IHRM is very complicated as it is affected heavily by external factors such as cultural distance and institutional factors.

• business
• CIMA
• HRM
• Human Resource Management
• ihrm
• International Business
• international human resource management
• management
• Tutorials