Convergence and Divergence of Human Resource Management Across Countries

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,3, University of Mannheim, language: English, abstract: Although cultural and contextual settings vary across the world, there is of course one level at which HRM is clearly universal: all companies have to manage and hence to utilize Human Resources. A few questions might arise when exploring the convergence-divergence issue in HRM.

How to define HRM and which particular HRM areas and practices should be analyzed for making hypotheses about the absence or presence of convergence? Which time horizon should one apply and how HRM convergence-divergence to be conceptualized? Can we find sufficient evidence for determining whether there are common trends of HRM becoming more similar or contrary more dissimilar over time and across nations? Are US derived HRM practices universally applicable to, for example, the European context? What are the specific HRM areas where researchers can identify developments towards convergence or divergence?

This bachelor thesis addresses the above mentioned questions in order to provide an overview about the most important issues in the convergence-divergence debate. The focus of this study is not to identify a winning side but instead to present some of the main concepts and best-available evidence for each perspective. Thus, this study aims at enhancing the readers understanding about relevant controversial subjects in the convergence-divergence discussion.