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The European Environment of HRM
Recently, interest has grown in the possibility of there being a model of HRM
which is distinctly European. The model of the European environment of HRM,
first produced in 1991 by Chris Brewster and François Bournois, emphasizes the
cultural, legal, and market contexts of human resource strategy and practice.25
Brewster says that he prefers Thomas Kochan's framework of IR (discussed
above), which, he contends, is a more comprehensive view of the range of social
factors influencing HRM than other models, such as soft and hard HRM. He also
proposes that the model of the European environment of HRM is partly a response
to dissatisfaction with American HRM.26 The anti-unionism of the American
approach to HRM has been more consistent in US national culture than in some
countries within Europe which have shown greater willingness, during some
periods of their history, to work within a social partnership.
Brewster and Bournois (1991)
In the Brewster and Bournois model, HR strategy is only partly subservient to
corporate strategy because HRM is influenced by behaviour and performance from
both inside and outside the organization. The organization and its human resource
strategies and practices interact with the environment and, at the same time, are
part of it. The model shows that HRM policy and practice are not exclusively an
organization's choice but are also influenced by the wider environment, particularly
the national culture and the industry sector the organization operates in (see Fig.
1.7).
In 1995 Brewster reported the results of a survey 27 covering fourteen European
countries in which three regional clusters corresponding to level of socio-economic
development were found: a Latin cluster (Spain, Italy, France); a Central European
cluster (Central European countries plus the UK and Ireland); and a Nordic cluster
(Norway, Sweden, Denmark). Brewster proposed that the survey shows Latin
countries to be at the lowest stage of socio-economic development, the UK and
Ireland next, then continental Central European countries, and finally Nordic
countries at the top of the development scale.28 The Latin culture, at the lowest
stage of development, according to Brewster, is characterized by an oral culture
and political structures that create docile attitudes towards authority, whereas the
culture of the highest stagethat of the Nordic countriesdisplays a widespread
collective orientation to management, extensive consultation between employers
and workers, documented strategies, and (perhaps this conclusion is to be expected
from an HRM researcher) substantial and authoritative HRM departments.
Despite the tendency of the national cultures to cluster into three regional groups,
Brewster found some trends common across most European countries. Pay
determination, according to the evidence of the survey, is becoming increasingly
decentralized, and flexible pay systems are becoming more common. Flexible
working practices are increasing in European countries (for example, atypical
working; annualized hours; and temporary, casual, and fixed-term contracts).
There is, unfortunately, also continuity in lack of equal opportunities in so far as, at
senior management level, women and ethnic minorities are still underrepresented.
However, other opportunities vary much more by country. For example, in Greece
and Spain, where women are a third of the workforce, there is very limited
childcare provision, but in Sweden and France the provision is more extensive.
Training investment is on the increase overall in the whole of Europe, particularly
for managerial and professional staff, but the level of government intervention
varies greatly by country. 29 The role of the HR function was also found to vary
according to country, HR enjoying the greatest representation at board level in
Spain and France, where 7080% of organizations have an HR director (thus
contradicting, on this point, Brewster's ranking of the Latin cluster as the least
developed), and somewhat less in the UK, where fewer than 50% of organizations
have an HR director.
European employment differs from employment in other parts of the world in that
it is comparatively more unionized, and unions play a wider role in society and the
workplace in European countries than they do in many other countries. Brewster
attributes some of the persistence of unions in Europe to their official recognition,
as social partners, within the European Union. So, what is the model of the
European environment of HRM? Essentially, it has similarities with Kochan's
framework in that both accommodate partnership between unions, employers, and
government. The European model assumes that national culture shapes HRM
practices and that the culture of countries within Europe are, despite their
differences, more positive overall towards social partnership than is US culture. In
summary, however, the European environment of HRM does not indicate a
distinctive move away from personnel management; rather what's happening in
Europe is a complex mix of continuation of traditional personnel management and
change towards HRM.
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