Human resource management: comparison france and china

Contents
Introduction 1
Part I – France and China: prevailing systems of HRM 2
Part II – Analysis of France and China contexts and its impact on HRM policies 5
Cultural and Social disparities 5
Economic, Legal and Political disparities 6
Part III - 2 functional areas 9
Functional area 1 – the selection and recruitment process 9
Functional area 2 – the reward system 10
Conclusion11
Bibliography 13


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Introduction

Human resources have been introduced during the 1960’s by R. Miles. Human resource management (HRM) can be defined as an approach to value organization’s assets, more precisely, people working in the organization and contributing to its goals and objectives, individually and collectively. According to Byars and Rue (1987) HRM is a modern term forpersonal management. Storey (1989) as Ulrich and Lake (1990) highlighted the fact that HRM is a set of policies, a set of different approaches set up to match the objectives of the organization, through people. Those HRM approaches and systems help the organization to reach its goals and contribute to its development.
The comparison between two countries, France and China, focused on thedifferent HRM approaches will help to understand the importance of Human Resources Management, and how it is influenced by social culture values which are very different in France and China (high or low uncertainty avoidance, masculine or feminine cultures, low or high context). The context can also be compared, such as political, economic and legal context, as well as the HRM systems. In order tointroduce the two countries, it can be highlighted that China and France have been chosen because they have different context: China is living a post-communism development, with a strong economic growth whereas France is a country with a strong economy but a slowing down growth, where people protection is really important.
In order to compare those different HRM approaches relevantly, this essay willfirst describe the models set up in each country, France and China, comparing the two models, their differences. Then, this essay will continue, describing and analyzing the political, social and economic context in order to understand their differences. In order to highlight those HR differences and context differences, this essay will introduce two examples, the selection and recruitment processand the reward system in France and China and will conclude, focusing on the convergence and divergence of both models.

Part I – France and China: prevailing systems of HRM

Human Resource Management (HRM) emerged in the American labour market, in the late 1960s, and is seen as an American management tool. HRM is linking two concepts, firstly the concept of the value of human resources, andsecondly, the concept that human resources can be a source of competitive advantage. There are different policies and practices in Human Resource Management. After the thought that HRM was universalist and could be applied anywhere with the same model, models of human resource management have been developed with individualistic approaches, focused on the job, staff, performance appraisal andrewards including group and cultural values, and become more specific to the country. Both countries studied are respectively linked with a general HRM approach: France belongs to the West European HRM approach and China to the Asian one.
Chinese approach appeared after Mao Zedong’s death (1976), during the 1980’s with the “personal department” introduction and has been switched to a modern modelright after. The protection of employee’s interest has been introduced in 2005 by the Chinese labor contract law, this legislation actually don’t ensure completely employee’s interest but has been a first step to the separation between collectivism and individualism, between the group and the individual. It leads to the setting up of individual labour contract law, more precisely working time rate,...