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The purpose of this paper is to introduce a conceptual model that integrates multi-disciplinary research in relation to crisis management, and to consider its application for international human resource managers in preventing and managing the evacuation of expatriate staff during crises.

The paper critically reviews and distils research into crisis and evacuation management, and examines its relevance to a generic framework of international human resource roles. The paper evaluates this body of literature and suggests potential research avenues from an international human resource perspective.

The review reveals a dearth of research on emergency evacuation of expatriates from a human resources perspective. The paper articulates a framework that delineates what role human resource managers could, or should, play during crisis preparation and response. This framework aims to establish a basic “roadmap” for use by practitioners and researchers.

Focusing on the human (rather than business) implications of crises, the paper links crisis management literature to the role of international human resource managers in supporting the health, safety, and security of international assignees during crises. A framework is presented which enables managers to map their current (and potential) contributions to preventing and managing expatriate evacuation. From this, several avenues of future research are drawn.

Human resource (HR) practices are increasingly concerned with adding value through increased skills, autonomy and contribution. Whilst useful in some cultural and industry contexts, there is potential for incompatibility with other norms, especially those outside western culture or the manufacturing industry mainstream. Australian construction companies in Malaysia use the language of normative HR, but they are challenged by the differing cultural norms of Asia. It is concluded that HR policies and corporate culture are used as marketing devices not solely as management strategy.

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales.

This paper aims to examine and discuss learning conditions for teachers, in the context of choice and decentralisation reforms.

This article is based on analyses of 30 interviews with Swedish upper secondary teachers focusing on their experiences of their conditions for learning.

This paper shows how teachers at upper secondary level identify their subjects as the most important to learn more within. Secondly, we also show that spatial and temporal aspects of organisation of work seem to influence the conditions for subject learning, where the interviewees in many ways contrast their own view to how they describe their work being organised.

Our findings may have currency for other professional groups with similar governance-contexts, and teachers in other similar governance-contexts.

These findings indicate the need to further develop workplace learning strategies founded upon the understanding of schools as workplaces, taking occupational values into account. Furthermore, these strategies should be seen as a core Human Resource Management issue, as they can potentially enhance the work environment, thus increasing the profession’s attractiveness.

We show that spatial and temporal aspects of organisation of work seem to influence the conditions for the sought after subject learning, and that the teachers and the school management seem to identify with different and clashing ideals in terms of what, when, how and with whom to learn.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse human resource supply chains and the responsibility of occupational health and safety (OHS) management using Australian evidence from two unrelated research studies in the resources sector.

The analysis is based on additional findings from the research projects using qualitative case study methodologies. The paper draws on interviews with the underground mining manager in study 1 and the OHS manager in study 2, together with current literature on supply chains and OHS responsibility in Australia.

The paper uses examples drawn from two research studies conducted in the resources sector in 2011 to present the notion that there has been a shift in responsibility and management of OHS from the top of the supply chain to the bottom.

The paper draws on two unrelated studies that investigated different issues in OHS management. There is a need to undertake specific research to confirm the argument that suggests that the OHS management systems are improving for the bottom of the human resources supply chain in the resources sector.

Findings suggest that in the middle tier resources sector the bottom of the human resources supply chains have robust OHS management systems and induction training, contrary to the weakening of OHS management in typical supply chains in other sectors.

Unlike manufacturing, healthcare, the public sector and transport, there is little research conducted in the resources sector researching supply chains and OHS management. This paper provides limited evidence of a differing picture in the resources sector than other industries; however, it argues that further studies should be conducted.

The reading and discussion on case will enable participants to appreciate importance of reward management in performance management system for both employee and organizational good; to develop insight on the effect of perceived discrimination on the motivation of employees; to internalize the effect of perceived unjust, subjective, non-communicative, non-transparent policies on the behavior and productivity of employees and overall organizational culture and climate; and to comprehend the importance of HR and OB issues with respect to performance management system for the benefit of employee morale, motivation and organizational culture.

The effectiveness of an employee is the key factor for the employer. All the profit that the company or the organization makes depends on the employees’ productiveness. The case needs to be understood in the overall context of performance management system (Ferreiraa and Otley, 2009) with focus on elements of appraisal and compensation via rewards and recognition as per objective standards. Performance management systems (PMSs) is a more general descriptor if the intention is to capture a holistic picture of the management and control of organizational performance. Performance management policies and practices refer to the processes of setting, communicating and monitoring performance targets and rewarding results with the aim of enhancing organizational effectiveness (Fee, McGrath-Champ and Yang, 2011). PMS includes both the formal mechanisms, processes, systems and networks used by organizations, and also the more subtle, yet important, informal controls that are used (Chenhall, 2003; Malmi and Brown, 2008). Otley (1999) proposed a framework which highlights five central issues which need to be considered as part of the process of developing a coherent structure for performance management systems. The five areas addressed by this framework include identification of the key organizational objectives and the processes and methods involved in assessing the level of achievement under each of these objectives, formulating and implementing strategies and plans, as well as the performance measurement and evaluation processes, process of setting performance targets and the levels at which such targets are set, rewards systems used by organizations and the implications of achieving or failing to achieve performance targets and types of information flows required to provide adequate monitoring of performance. While the case touches upon all the aspects of the PMS framework, it revolves round the reward episode and elaborates on the way it affects all stakeholders, those who got the benefit, those who felt discriminated and those were mere observers to the episode. Objective performance appraisals are needed to ensure that every employee produces the best performance and that the work performed is rewarded with reasonable increases in pay scales or special additional allowances or incentives. This system carries crucial importance as it helps managers to decide which rewards should be handed out, by what amount and to whom. Additionally, performance appraisals may increase an employee’s commitment and satisfaction (Wiese and Buckley, 1998) The case readers need to notice that when organizations fail to follow objective appraisal or reward standards, the same rewards become a cause of contention. The reward which was handed over to the employees in this case was in addition to the annual appraisal. Though the role of rewards has been well-recognized in motivating the employees to continue performing at high level and encourage others to strive for better performance, what needs to be recognized that rewards’ per say does not serve purpose. They need to be dealt within the context of performance management system. Using rewards to favor or discriminate a few employees by using subjective standards backfires and does no good as the person who is favored cannot take pride in it and is not motivated to perform better or equally well as he/she also knows that the work has no relation to the reward, it is personal favor, on the other hand, the one who is discriminated feel discouraged and demotivated to perform. Rewards have the potential to both help and harm the organization if dealt in a callous and careless manner. Use of rewards to favor or discriminate certain people due to subjective preference can be suicidal for the organization and irreparably damage the trust of the employees in the management. It has been well stated that fairness and objectivity are the core principles using an assessment of the nature and size of the job each is employed to carry out (Torrington et al., 2005). If any organization decides to include rewards as a motivating mechanism, it needs to cull out unambiguous and transparent criteria for rewarding. If employees perceive procedural or distributive injustice from the management, it is not only detrimental for the employee’ relations and teamwork, it also tarnishes the reputation of the organization and jeopardizes the culture of the organization. Reward management needs to be closely related to performance appraisals, job evaluations and overall performance management systems. The current case elaborates on one such instance where unjustified inequity in reward system not only disturbed the employees concerned but it had bred a negative image of the organization among other employees too, organizational citizenship was replaced with contempt and feeling of apathy.

Post graduate students and working professionals can benefit from this study.

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Human resource management.