I. Introduction
Human resource management (HRM) is a field that is susceptible to cultural influences. Although there are standard practices to reckon in the practice of HRM, it is important to understand that differences in culture may provide different variations. What many human resource (HR) professionals may think as standard procedures to their line of work may not actually be the same in different settings, given that there are various cultural stimuli connected to the nature of the industries they serve and the place where employment is conducted, among many similar others. This study aims to highlight the different kinds of cross-cultural challenges to HR intervention, specifically in the aspect of empowerment. Empowering individuals must accord with HR practices attendant to various cultural differences, given that there is no uniform approach to empowerment that applies to all employees, who must be presumed to hold different cultural values.
II. Body
It is important to understand that the landscape of HRM is constantly changing, particularly in the theoretical sense. Bowen and Lawler (1992, p. 39), for instance, noted the changing landscape of HRM among service workers as a formidable challenge, in that corporate approaches to approach customers the “rulebook-free” way is presumed as one that may not be universally applicable. Supporting a new culture is particularly demanding, given that it involves having to change “mindsets, assumptionsbehaviors, as well as the organizational system” (Randolph, 2000, p. 106).
Given such concern, HR best practices and organizational behavior (OB) tools all serve as enabling factors to efforts on HR empowerment, amidst the challenge of cultural differences. Randolph (1995, p. 31) noted that HR practices and OB tools could help enable three important challenges to empowering employees subject to their cultural differences: making all disseminated information imaginable, informing the position of the organization with regard to its market and competition and building employer-employee trust through sharing crucial and relevant organizational information.
Attendant to the foregoing, cultural influences are deeply important factors to consider in the realm of HR empowerment. With the enabling power of HR practices and attendant OB theoretical tools, Conger and Kanungo (1988, p. 480) emphasized that empowerment must be viewed as a culturally-defined construct, not just a stagnant concept, with various approaches in the existing literature. Indeed, it is essential to keep in mind that the concept of empowerment varies culturally among employees (Bowen and Lawler, 1992, p. 39).
III. Conclusion
Empowerment does not proceed in a uniform, “one-size-fits-all” approach that employees of different cultures may perceive the same way. Cultural values have a strong correspondence to the concern of empowering employees and it is therefore important for HR professionals to consider cultural differences in their efforts so that they could successfully formulate and propagate best practices to empowerment in their respective workplaces.
Bibliography
Bowen, D., and Lawler, E., 1992. The employment of service workers: What, why, how and when. Sloan Management Review, 33(3), pp.33-39.
Conger, J., and Kanungo, R., 1988. The empowerment process: Integrating theory and practice. Academy of Management Review, 13(3), pp.471-482.
Randolph, W., 1995. Navigating the journey to empowerment. Organizational Dynamics, 23(4), pp.19-32.
Randolph, W., 2000. Re-thinking empowerment: Why is it so hard to achieve? Organizational Dynamics, 29(2), pp.94-107.
