Managing talent across advanced and emerging economies: HR issues and challenges in a Sino-German strategic collaboration

Abstract

The HR practices involved in global talent management continue to advance and evolve. A majority of talent management commentary is from multinational corporation (MNC) perspectives. However, the less commented small-to-medium sized enterprise (SME) also confronts challenges grounded in economic (i.e. resources, finance), organisational (i.e. size, scope and structure) and consequent behavioral rationales (i.e. mindsets and stances). This paper establishes and examines a number of propositions which consider how these factors impact on an advanced economy SME's talent management in emerging economy collaborations.An interpretive qualitative methodology is employed using interviews conducted within two cases -SME and an MNC comparator case. The SME case is used as the driving force of the paper and its theoretical focus and findings. The MNC is used to develop issues as a comparator case. The findings show SME economic and organisational drivers producing behavioral dynamics in relation to mimesis of planned actions yet informal serendipitous responses in reality; a predilection for the proximate and familiar; design configurations of short-term expatriate visits and inpatriates; cumulating in on-going inpatriate acculturisation and re-acculturation oscillation. Consequently, the implication is that the SME needs a HR practices encompassing resignation to the situation, flexibility and resilience in order to survive and progress.Keywords: HR practices, talent management, SME, inpatriates, acculturisation. 1 IntroductionHuman Resource (HR) practices around talent management -the recruitment, selection and retention of national and international talent by organizations -has attracted considerable scholarly attention (Collings, Scullion and Morley, 2007;Farndale, Scullion and Sparrow, 2010;Minbaeva and Collings, 2013). This work has focused primarily on HR practices in multinational corporation (MNC) contexts. This propensity is perhaps to be anticipated since MNCs possess complex multi-faceted infrastructures, expansive international operations, and, large marketing budgets which require (and can afford) the development of planned talent management systems.In contrast, by definition, small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), frequently lack the scale, scope, resources and international experience of MNCs. In essence, while SMEs may compete in segments of MNC markets, the 'world' of SMEs in terms of inter alia: decisionmaking, investment choices, culture and daily running of the firm -often led by family owner-directors and linked with a community rooted to a specific geographical locality -are all substantively different to MNCs. In response to SME proclivities, a substantive body of writing has been generated (Voordeckers, Van Gils and Van de Heuvel, 2007;Nieto, Santamaria, Fernandez, 2013;Lewis, 2015;Wang and Liu, 2015).Nevertheless, HR practices for talent recruitment and management in SMEs, and in particular as SMEs expand into international strategic partnerships, have been considerably less researched.Given t...

Contextualising Risk and Building Resilience: Returnees Versus Local Entrepreneurs in China

“…Although talent retention is a prevailing risk factor for firms operating in emerging economies (Stokes, Liu, Smith, Leidner, Moore, & Rowland, 2016), this type of risk is more pertinent during the early stages of technologyoriented ventures. However, our analysis reveals that local and returnee entrepreneurs tend to adopt different coping strategies in dealing with talent retention risk.…”

Resilience and the (micro-)dynamics of organizational ambidexterity: implications for strategic HRM

“…Commensurately, this means that in an organizational setting, on the one hand, it will be possible to evidence modernistic and managerialistic approaches to resilience -which cast it as primarily a 'positive' behavior to be used and managed by managers to prepare and deal with exceptional circumstances -and, on the other hand, there will be more criticallyinformed views which see resilience and extremes as prevalent and everyday occurrences that are played out in a wide range of micro-moments with a possible role for behaviors which question modernistic stances. Moreover in variegated globalized and internationalized 21 st century workplaces such approaches may also facilitate enhanced interaction and talent management between all parties (Liu, 2017, Liu andAlmor, 2016;Stokes et al, 2016).…”

“…In this frame of reference, 'optimism', and 'being positive', become, a managerial device to be deployed to: "…help managers recognize employees at greater 'risk' of variable or eroded positivity" and this "will ensure that managers and organizations [have] more rigorous information regarding the positivity of staff" (Dawkins et al, 2013: 364). Such a managerialist outlook and environment may variously have negative effects and impacts on employees depending on their personality and interpretation (Stokes et al, 2016).…”

The moderating role of transformational leadership on HR practices in M&A integration

“…In general, the impact of M&A on individuals and groups may differ widely between various human resource management practices (Budhwar, Varma, Katou, and Narayan, 2009;Sarala, Junni, Cooper, and Tarba, 2014;Weber and Tarba, 2010), and can be influenced by nationa l cultural distance and corporate culture differences (Weber, Tarba, and Reichel, 2009;, strategic agility (Junni, Sarala, Tarba, and Weber, 2015), knowledge sharing during postmerger integration (Aklamanu, Degbey, and Tarba, 2015), and talent retention (Stokes, Liu, Smith, Leidner, Moore, and Rowland, 2015;Zhang, Ahammad, Tarba, Cooper, Glaister, and Wang, 2015).…”