Keywords
Citation
(2000), "The German Way: German Multinationals and the Management of Human Resources", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 24 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jeit.2000.00324aae.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2000, MCB UP Limited
The German Way: German Multinationals and the Management of Human Resources
Anthony Ferner and Matthias Z. VarulAnglo-German Foundation for the Study of Industrial Society1999ISBN 1 900834 16 251 pp.£12.00
Keywords Germany, HRM
Is there anything distinctively German about how German multinationals operate? Do German multinationals "export" the practices and culture of their parent country in managing their foreign operations? If so, do such practices confer international competitive advantage, or do they create tensions that complicate the international management process?
These key questions are investigated in this report which is based on a recent study of German multinationals, involving detailed interviews in several dozen companies and their UK subsidiaries.
The report looks at an aspect of corporate behaviour that many observers believe to be a key to competitiveness in the international economy: the management of human resources. It asks how German multinationals differ from their US, UK or Japanese counterparts in the way they manage issues such as performance appraisal and reward, management development, employee involvement, the organization of work and relations with trade unions.
The report's overall finding is that German firms are reacting to the pressures of internationalization by adopting a distinctive "hybrid" style of international operation, with elements of both the Anglo-Saxon and German approaches in sometimes uneasy co-existence. http://www.plint.co.uk