Divergent Norwegian and North American HRM Regimes: Implications for Norwegian MNEs

Paul Gooderham, Birgitte Grøgaard and Odd Nordhaug

Chapter 8 in Global Trends in Human Resource Management, 2013, pp 163-176 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract As Norwegian companies internationalize by establishing major business units in a variety of locations such as North America they have to confront different local human resource management (HRM) policies and practices. These differences are not arbitrary but products of different industrial relations regimes. Using a comparative data set the initial purpose of this chapter is to assess the ‘distance’ between the Norwegian and the North American HRM regimes in terms of ‘calculative’ and ‘collaborative’ HRM practices (Gooderham, Nordhaug & Ringdal, 1999). In line with measures of institutional and cultural distance our findings indicate substantial differences. Thereafter we employ interview data to investigate how these differences have an impact on the selection of HRM practices in the North American operations of a Norwegian multinational enterprise (MNE). In particular we investigate the degree to which the Norwegian MNE ‘exports’ Norwegian HRM practices and the degree to which it succumbs to local pressures to adapt to the North American context. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for the HRM strategies of Norwegian companies in the North American setting.

Keywords: Human Resource Management; Industrial Relation; Cultural Distance; Local Employee; Human Resource Management Practice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-30443-8_9

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781137304438

DOI: 10.1057/9781137304438_9

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().