Hijacking the Holy Grail? Emerging HR practices in Croatia

Abstract

Transition by the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) from communism towards market economies has brought with it the introduction of Western management thinking. CEE since 1989 has been a kind of test-bed for human resource management (HRM) ± the concept that people management practice is central to the strategic direction and potential competitive advantage of the firm. This paper draws on 21 diverse company case-study experiences in Croatia to review emerging HR practices and assess the relevance of Western management models. A matrix is designed, that categorises these organisations as``sleepers'',``doers'',``thinkers'',``strivers'' or``leaders'', according to their strategic intent and their progress on policy implementation. The results suggest that subsidiaries of multinational corporations are leading the way towards HRM and other significant factors are industry sector and size of the company. There is evidence of``hijacking''of HRM amongst some Croatian companies by old style traditional forces to maintain the status quo. Young Croatian managers welcomed new HR progressive practices and identified with most of the philosophy of HRM, apart from suspicions associated with``mindset control'' aspects that they saw underpinning HRM and associated with the previous regime.

Is there Something as an Ex-Yugoslavian HRM Model? – Sticking to the Socialist Heritage or Converging With Neoliberal Practices

“…Serbia's second position in terms of HRM proficiency, although not expected because compared to Serbia Croatia is economically more developed and already an EU member, is most probably a consequence of foreign-owned companies representing a third of Serbian organizations in the sample (see Table 3). Namely, it has been verified that in CEE countries foreign-owned companies are not only disseminators of good HRM practices but as well top HRM performers (Taylor & Walley, 2002;Zupan & Kaše, 2005;Martin, 2006;Karoliny et al, 2009). …”

“…The HRM function had a personnel rather than an HRM orientation (Morley et al, 2012), which resulted in the absence of clearly articulated human resource strategy (Gurkov & Zelenova, 2009in Morley et al, 2012. However, after the fall of the socialist regimes throughout CEE, in order to respond to free market system pressures, HRM started taking hold in the discourse of management thinking and in emerging practice, began to be institutionalized, and moved from mostly administrative to more business-oriented function (Taylor & Walley, 2002;Weinstein & Obloj, 2002;Brewster et al, 2010;Bourke & Crowley, 2015). Foreign-owned companies especially contributed to the emergence of professional HRM (Svetlik et al, 2010); however, during the transition period East European HRM practices were still considered immature compared to the West (Kiriazov et al, 2000), as the transition period was characterized by years of resistance and vacuum in the personnel area (Karoliny et al, 2009).…”

“…The HRM awakening phase -Before 2000nds, there is little evidence of the HRM philosophy being embedded in Croatian organizations, especially in public sector organizations (Marušić, 1999;Taylor & Walley, 2002;Pološki Vokić, 2004), but many examples of resistance to and poor implementation of new practices such that they were demotivating (Taylor & Walley, 2002). However, numerous examples of HPWP were being introduced, such as effective recruitment, performance appraisal, performance related pay, systemic T&D, and mentoring, often associated with foreign-owned and "high tech" sector companies (Taylor & Walley, 2002).…”

“…However, numerous examples of HPWP were being introduced, such as effective recruitment, performance appraisal, performance related pay, systemic T&D, and mentoring, often associated with foreign-owned and "high tech" sector companies (Taylor & Walley, 2002).…”

“…The last two and a half decades were a period of immense political and economic change in CEE countries (Taylor & Walley, 2002); however, it is evident that the post-communist HRM landscape is still in a transition between East and West. Although there is considerable evidence that HRM practices in European areas that were previously part of communist regimes have experienced many changes since 1990 and are still evolving (Kohont et al, 2015b), in ex-Yugoslavia countries they still hold some socialist omen.…”