The Most Recent Trends and Emerging Values in Human Resource Management: Comparative Analysis

Abstract

The article deals with the complexity of human resource management in the context of business globalization. The global trends in human resource management are shaped by competitiveness, downsizing, outsourcing, more diverse work force and an ageing population. On the contrary, the cultural differences significantly affect many aspects of human resource management, such as recruitment and selection, performance appraisal and compensation, career development. The problem is in balancing the global trends in human resource management with the influence of national cultures. The extent to which human resource management activities are successful across cultures will largely depend on manager’s abilities to understand and balance other culture’s values and practices as regards such things as the importance of work, its relationship to the whole person and to the group, how power and status is conferred, the desirability of change, the perceived value of experience versus formal classroom management training and other fundamental difference.. The article explores a major challenges arising from globalization and affecting human resource management practices in twenty – first century in the selected industrialized countries (United Kingdom, USA, Japan) and Lihtuania as the representative country of the post-soviet bloc. The article shows that the process of globalization and the development of international companies unify human resource management and at the same time underscore the importance of national cultural values. In this way the international companies reconcile two contrary goals: employees accept the dominant organizational values, and at the same time they are encouraged to exploit their national cultural differences. The general aim of the article – analyze the theory and the practice of balancing the seemingly opposing forces – global and national and to identify trends and values in human resource management across four countries: United Kingdom, USA, Japan and Lithuania..