Eileen Aitken-Fox, Jane Coffey, Kantha Dayaram, Scott Fitzgerald, Stephen McKenna and Amy Wei Tian
Mohammad Alqahtani, Desmond Tutu Ayentimi and Kantha Dayaram
Saudi Arabia (SA) is amongst the few countries with a significant foreign workforce who are employed in the higher education sector. More specifically, 39% of SA's academic staff…
Abstract
Purpose
Saudi Arabia (SA) is amongst the few countries with a significant foreign workforce who are employed in the higher education sector. More specifically, 39% of SA's academic staff members are foreign nationals and 63% of that proportion occupy professorial positions. Drawing from a workforce localisation perspective, the study was framed as an exploration of equity and social justice amongst Saudi nationals and foreign nationals in a university work setting. The authors employ the lens of how human resource development (HRD) opportunities are administered.
Design/methodology/approach
Following the choice of an exploratory qualitative study, the authors employed a multi-case study approach where each of the six universities represented a unit of analysis.
Findings
The authors found that nationality differences influenced access to HRD opportunities. These differences are reinforced by practices associated with procedural processes, managerial discretion and selective restrictions in accessing HRD opportunities.
Social implications
The findings have both practical and social implications, specifically for the SA government's strategic vision of developing local human capabilities.
Originality/value
The workforce localisation agenda within the higher education sector has both a compounding effect on local human capital and supports SA's 2030 Vision and human capital target. Nonetheless, perceived inequity and injustice in accessing HRD opportunities by foreign nationals potentially undermine morale, academic quality standards and research performance, which impacts the development of future human capital and the ‘Saudization’ goals.
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Nabila Khan, Lata Dyaram, Kantha Dayaram and John Burgess
Integrating individual and relational centric voice literature, the authors draw on self-presentation theory to analyse the role of status pursuit in employee voice. Status…
Abstract
Purpose
Integrating individual and relational centric voice literature, the authors draw on self-presentation theory to analyse the role of status pursuit in employee voice. Status pursuit is believed to be ubiquitous as it is linked to access to scarce resources and social order pecking.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors present a cross-level conceptual model outlining relational nuances of employee status pursuit that drive upward voice.
Findings
The model integrates status pursuit with peer- and leader-related facets, focusing on three targets of voice: immediate leader (supervisor), diagonal leader (supervisor of another team/unit) and co-workers. The model highlights how employee voice can be directed to diverse targets, and depending on interpersonal attributes, how it serves as underlying links for upward voice.
Originality/value
While employee voice can help to address important workplace concerns, it can also be used to advance employees' self-interest. Though there is a wealth of research on the importance of employee voice to organisational performance and individual wellbeing, especially through collective representation such as trade unions, there is a lack of literature on how employees navigate the social-relational work setting to promote their interests and develop status.
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Desmond Tutu Ayentimi, John Burgess and Kantha Dayaram
Using an institutionalist perspective, and through a case study analysis, the purpose of this paper is to examine whether subsidiaries of MNEs demonstrate a convergence across…
Abstract
Purpose
Using an institutionalist perspective, and through a case study analysis, the purpose of this paper is to examine whether subsidiaries of MNEs demonstrate a convergence across their HRM practices in a less developed host-country context.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper reports on an exploratory qualitative study involving five MNEs subsidiaries that operate in Ghana and originate from the UK, France, Germany, and India. The authors applied thematic and cross-case analysis techniques to explore similarities and differences in their HRM practices by drawing data from in-depth face-to-face interviews and document analyses.
Findings
Findings suggest that MNE subsidiaries demonstrate more convergence across their HRM practices as well as other HRM characteristics. Despite the similarities in their HRM practices, the evidence suggests that MNE subsidiaries’ HRM practices were similar to corporate headquarters HRM practices. It appears that the host-country has less influence in driving their convergence but rather the country-of-origin effect; competitive isomorphic pressure and global integration benefits were driving their convergence across their HRM practices.
Originality/value
This study makes a contribution to the convergence-divergence literature in the international HRM (IHRM) domain with specific focus on addressing an under-researched context of less developed host-countries. One of the puzzles in comparative and IHRM literature yet to be resolved is the convergence-divergence thesis of firms’ HRM practices.
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Eileen Aitken-Fox, Jane Coffey, Kantha Dayaram, Scott Fitzgerald, Stephen McKenna and Amy Wei Tian
The purpose of the paper is to investigate how human resource professionals (HRPs), in a variety of organizations, responded to the crisis brought about by the event of COVID-19…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to investigate how human resource professionals (HRPs), in a variety of organizations, responded to the crisis brought about by the event of COVID-19. In particular, it aims to show how organizations, across all sectors, in Western Australia responded with urgency and flexibility to the crisis and showed “resilience in practice”.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on 136 questionnaire responses, 32 interviews and 25 managerial narratives. The mixed qualitative methodology was designed to enable an investigation of the impact of COVID-19 and the response of HRPs.
Findings
HRPs have responded with agility and flexibility to the impact of COVID-19. They have done so through extensive trial and error, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing. They have not simply activated a preconceived continuity plan.
Research limitations/implications
The research indicates that resilience is an ongoing accomplishment of organizations and the people in them. The objective was description rather than prescription, and the research does not offer solutions to future pandemic-like situations.
Practical implications
The research suggests that, given the impact of COVID-19 on organizations, HR practices, processes and policies will need to be thoroughly reconsidered for relevance in the post-COVID world. Possible future directions are highlighted.
Originality/value
The research considers the actions of HRPs as they responded to a global crisis as the crisis unfolded.
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Desmond Tutu Ayentimi, John Burgess and Kantha Dayaram
This study aims to investigate whether the historical and institutional re-construction of Ghana support the transfer of human resource management (HRM) practices and if so, what…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate whether the historical and institutional re-construction of Ghana support the transfer of human resource management (HRM) practices and if so, what local conditions support such transfer?
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws from an exploratory qualitative study design by assimilating history, culture and institutions (social institutionalist perspective) to explore host-country factors and conditions supporting the transfer of HRM practices in a developing country context.
Findings
The study finds the colonial history, and the political and economic interests of Ghana to mimic best HRM policies and practices from its colonial masters and other advanced economies provided strong institutional support for the transfer of HRM practices.
Research limitations/implications
This paper complements the understanding of HRM practice transfer literature by highlighting the significance of host-country historical and institutional re-construction support in developing economies as key drivers for the diffusion of HRM practices.
Practical implications
By incorporating institutions, history and culture to form the underpinning social context, it offers a new perspective into how historical, cultural and colonial institutional legacies as entrenched social instruments facilitate HRM practice transfer in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Originality/value
The integration of institutions, history and culture (social institutionalist perspective) provide a wider understanding of factors that denote the effect of Ghanaian contextual distinctiveness as against the continued colonial institutional legacies (inheritance) supporting the transfer of HRM practices. This is the first study to consider how local institutions, culture and history of Ghana support the transfer of HRM practices to subsidiaries.