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.