Transferring Human Resource Practices from the United Kingdom to China

Abstract

Substantial effort has been devoted to exploring the extent to which human resource management (HRM) practices can be transferred from one national context to another. Particular attention has been paid to the manufacturing sector, to countries with ‘strong’ HRM traditions and to transfers between economically developed countries. This chapter addresses the transfer of a retail sector firm’s human resource practices from the United Kingdom to China. Despite the global orientation of many UK firms, few studies explore the extent to which they have transferred their human resource management approach overseas. By contrast, numerous studies explore the transfer of HRM practices from countries such as Japan where these are seen to be a source of competitive advantage (e.g. Gill and Wong, 1998; Purcell et al., 1999). When research has focused on UK firms, the exploration tends to remain within the realm of economically developed countries (e.g. Edwards et al., 1996; Edwards et al., 1999; Muller, 1998; Schmitt and Sadowski, 2003).