What are the key aspects of effective performance management of expatriates?
Introduction
Honda Corp., in essence of business and manpower have been subject to enormous pressures over the past few years, with major underlying business challenges of the motor industry, sometimes issues to deal with, the failure remarks of having effective performance by the expatriates, as the MNC sometimes conceal to HR concerns and conflicts being known about. There will be no simple solutions and success will depend, as always, on the soundness of strategic decisions taken by top management, and the ability of Honda to determine aspects of effective performance, pushing promptly useful and known aspects of Honda’s business nature, giving reasons for effectiveness and ineffectiveness of Honda’s expatriate workers. The effective management of expatriate performance need to be realistic and reliable to achieve into as how Honda management executes their people management and approaches does impact performances of the expatriate employees, as strategically noted from within aspects of the business from the importance of Honda in supporting and helping expatriates produce effective inputs and outputs into the actual work setting, allowing the business to create better HR strategy and formation, allowing social responsibility to work well for the expatriate group.
There is functional reality of expatriates into the multinational corporations (MNCs) from where determination as well as recognition of effective performance management is seen through such aspects of effective stature. For example, rewards and motivation factors can be good aspects towards the effective performance of expatriates, wherein human resources assumes unique foundations of the business and its operations, allowing people to move with strategic drive and informed values. For this paper, the need to incorporate one MNC as an example to focus are of essential notion, Honda Corporation, to be particular. There is a need to provide ample research grounds on expatriates’ effective performance management. To discuss theories of the process, as deemed relevant and to explain the aspects there is, for study vigor and spontaneity. Then, to come up with measurable and realistic conclusion and recommendations, giving ways and pointers for Honda Corp. to consider and follow hereunto.
Ideally, Honda employs and recognizes effective performance practice as the business operations at Honda realized the sustainable drive of competitive advantage, the management of Honda’s human resource can be of importance as there posits of selection, recruitment and training as example aspects of effectiveness. The need for Honda to understand how the overall management assumes good performance of the noted personnel group – Honda’s expatriate workers. The case of Honda can integrate diverse formation of their expatriates from various situations upon actual ways of the business and have to be managed the same way as to non-expatriate group, the need for Honda to develop other options towards their personnel management tools
Background – Honda Corp.
Honda Motor Co., Ltd. operates under the basic principles of “Respect for the Individual” and “The Three Joys”, commonly expressed as The Joy of Buying, The Joy of Selling and The Joy of Creating. Respect for the Individual” reflects our desire to respect the unique character and ability of each individual person, trusting each other as equal partners in order to do their best in every situation. Honda Motor Ltd. has remained on the leading edge by creating new value by providing products of the highest quality at a reasonable price for worldwide customer satisfaction. Honda, implies to the MNC context, which have grown to be one of the leading motorcycle manufacturer, having intelligent and skilled automakers. Honda develops, manufactures and market variety of products ranging from small engines and to best crafted sport cars, and Honda earns one outstanding reputation from customers from different nations.
Discussion
To assume effective performance from expatriate employees, Honda should support the patterns of having flexible working hours, better human resource, expatriate centered training from strong establishment of Honda’s employment systems and avenues for human relations, from wherein corporate values are substantially meet from the operational grounds of the MNC process formation. There entail to ethical standards adaptation, the expatriate manpower and justifiable forecasting acquires effective performance through for example, Honda’s distribution and production pathways allowing the expatriates to be innovative as they receive motivation, constructive criticism that makes expatriates performance at work increase from the process of human resource handling. Considering effective management of performance, there indicate Honda’s capability for collating and choosing high quality expatriates to form standards of manpower factor. In addition, opportunities for career management as well as performance training, do satisfy Honda expatriates, there links to effective performance aspects, the required human resource practices is vital for effectiveness of expatriates into the work setting, related to developing expatriates potential knowledge, the capability of promoting product and service productivity at Honda. When effective management of performance is higher, Honda’s long term competitive advantage for human resource function is better.
The compensation aspect integrates to precise effective notion of factor loading to work safety and benefit system helps the expatriates to work on diverse environment from within flexible working conditions and reward-related indices, the human resource compensation factor adhering to Honda’s encouraging options to maintain ideal relationships from within there is pressing reality that expatriates work in great value due to contentment of compensation, as well as incentives and reward schemes into Honda’s ability to support expatriate labor conditions and bonus giving to the employees. Moreover, the maintenance of stability of people management conforms to expatriates working with synergy and teamwork idealism, from HR practices variation into performance upheaval keeping Honda business on the edge into global market, MNC’s ability to maintain some robustness of HR ways are of better influence.
Aspects of human resource effectiveness at Honda business industry is considered an integration function supporting expatriates to continually improve their craft and be of ideal performance ratio determining definite goals and functions of the business milieu. Sound HRM systems and strategies clearly contribute to effective performance of expatriates. Indeed, Honda upon having different expatriates in terms of personality recognition, does produce diverse HRM strategies and the achievement of the expatriates may have pressing issues towards effective performance stature. The human resource compensation and maintenance, receive more attention and achievements from the organization but, human resource acquisition and development are the two factors with significant correlation to high productivity as this helps firms monitor the major factors of HRM and appropriately adjust their efforts to activate HRM subjects for improving industrial human productivity of Honda. Strong forces are shaping the environment in which Honda operates and old concepts of management have to be re-examined against the challenge of the world the organization live in today and the world Honda believe they will live in tomorrow. While there will always be many new issues in the external business environment which will affect the organization from time to time, and which will impact both the corporate strategy and HRM, Honda can also see some long-running trends which have been with us for some years, and which will continue into the future. Perhaps of more significance than the expatriates forces described here is the cumulative result: organizations face a period of almost continuous change. There is no escape from this, so the only solution is to learn to live with it, and this makes effective management of the expatriates even more significant than they have been in the past. Competition has increased, and for most industries it is no longer possible to define competition within the boundaries of a particular country.
There are effective places where an organization can shelter from competitors, and many industries have been shaken up because their competitors have taken a global view of their markets. The demise of the motor cycle industry was in a large part due to the inability of the firms to imagine that anyone could gain great production advantages by thinking of manufacture for a global market, instead of the traditional approach of producing for the local market and the exporting of any surplus where there was a protective customs tariff. More organizations are compelled to think of Honda’s business in global terms and most others are subject to ever increasing intensities of competition. Aside, technology advances bring opportunities as well as threats. One example close to the hearts of HRM managers is the new opportunities offered by advances in computer technology, making e-learning a real option, and providing opportunities for other forms of e-HRM.
Devanna, Fombrum and Tichy (1981, 1984), have indicated that “Honda business ways is now looking at human resources as a unique asset that can provide sustained competitive advantage. The changes in the business environment with increasing globalization, changing demographics of the workforce, increased focus on profitability through growth, technological changes, intellectual capital and the never-ending changes that organizations are undergoing have led to increased importance of managing human resources”. Form the expatriate scenario, Honda’s human resource department will need to be designed and focused on highly administrative tools for people management and avoid failures into Honda’s strategic integration, providing expatriates founding stance of competitive advantage over others. The survival into the company is of loyalty and that business responsibility trust MNC empowerment and relevance. Huselid and Becker (1997), have found that there were “noticeable financial return for business wherein human resource have achieved operational excellence and are aligned with business strategic goals. The expatriates usually endeavor to find better training, compensation as well as motivating tools in order to perform their job functions and tasks upon supporting MNC ways of Honda’s human resource for people centered options, deemed for effective management of the expatriates as there is critical aspects to be identified, allowing work roles to be in conformity to Honda business and achieve sustainable performance by the expatriates. Furthermore, Honda will continue striving to earn even more trust and understanding from society through companywide activities, with efforts to develop effective safety and environmental technologies, Honda will have to enhance the creativity in its advanced technology and products and will have create and swiftly introduce new services and products that meet specific needs in various markets around the world. Importantly, the aspect of effective performance by expatriates will provide good nature of the human resource relationships, supporting ample human resource practices avoiding work problems into the operations as the changing context of performance at work does assume effective handling of the expatriates, creating technology driven models for analyzing expatriates attitude and values for Honda’s people relation success. The expatriate does increase their expectations for instance, having projected requirement for flexibility and knowledge management in the workforce as well as having standard employment contracts avoiding ill human resource agreements.
In addition, Bird and Dunbar (1991); Boyacigiller (1991); Rosenzweig (1994); Shaffer, Harrison and Gilley (1999); Forster (2000), have asserted that, “multinational corporations do use expatriates, not only for corporate control and expertise reasons in vital global markets, but also to facilitate entry into new markets or to develop international management competencies” (quoted from, Chew, 2004 pp. 1-30). The recognition of human resource at Honda is presently adopted into the manpower formation, as the expatriates assume complex human environment to be at their best shape, there is increased performance approach, suggesting proper effective management of the expatriates upon which the human resource practice are duly acknowledged as one useful factor for the success and or failure of the Honda management (Tung 1984, Dowling 1999, Hiltrop 1999 quoted from, Chew, 2004 pp. 1-30). For renowned and established MNCs, failure to be able to communicate and coordinate their activities in international business has the potential to plunge them into a crisis. The crises confronting MNCs include failed assignments due to premature return of expatriates and the loss of their returned expatriates due to poor repatriation.
Honda as one MNC can possibly connect to several categories upon contributing to effective performance into success of the expatriates from wherein there is technical competence, acceptable personality abilities, better environment domains and ideal situation of families of expatriates as being supported by Ronen’s (1989 quoted from, Chew, 2004 pp. 1-30), within such model incorporating scope of effective performance, the success of expatriates as known by Tung (1981 quoted from, Chew, 2004 pp. 1-30).
Thus, Ronen (1989 quoted from, Chew, 2004 pp. 1-30), “describes some categories of attributes the, job factors, relational dimensions, motivational state, the family situation as well as the language skills” (refer to the below table) .
Categories of Attributes of Expatriate Success
Job Factors
Relational Dimensions
Motivational State
Family Situation
Language Skills
Technical skills
Tolerance for ambiguity
Belief in the mission
Willingness of spouse to live abroad
Host country language
Familiarity with host country and headquarters operations
Behavioral flexibility
Congruence with career path
Adaptive and supportive spouse
Non verbal communication
Managerial skills
Non-judgementalism
Interest in overseas experience
Stable marriage
Administrative competence
Cultural empathy and low ethnocentrism
Interest in specific host country culture
Interpersonal skills
Willingness to acquire new patterns of behavior and attitudes
Source of the above table: quoted from, Chew, 2004 pp. 1-30 in, Ronen, S. (1989), Training the International Assignee. Training and Career Development (1st ed), San Francisco: Goldstein.
The “contributing to greater expatriate success in international assignments as compared to the customary selection of expatriates based solely on technical abilities” (Ronen, 1989 quoted from, Chew, 2004 pp. 1-30). Aside, having effective selection of expatriates implies to effective performance of the latter, as well as monitoring of career processes as well as counseling, which is necessary to avoid human resource dilemmas from the augment of women expatriates into Honda business for effective stature, most of the expatriate employees and their families will be needing help to adjust work roles and job specifications. Proper assistance of the expatriates will produce effective performance, allowing them overcome some shocks of the organization culture, the entrance to rigorous training and career consultations proves to be one useful aspect in the effective performance organization prove (Sievers 1998 quoted from, Chew, 2004 pp. 1-30). The need to orient Honda expatriates to the work setting, those unfamiliar with business policies, HR patterns, protocol requirement and work habits of the Honda team, as effective training serves as a critical connotation to the effectiveness and success of expatriates doing abroad assignments (Mendenhall et al. 1987, Black 1992, Weech 2001 quoted from, Chew, 2004 pp. 1-30). Furthermore, Black (1992); Swaak (1997), Tung (1998); and Hauser (1999), reported that, “intensive training can provide the encouragement and motivation to seek the social network and activities that will make the new stressors more bearable. For the expatriates, training can reduce many of the uncertainties associated with the new role. The need to utilize repatriation programs that assist in the development of business policy and job definition being the initiatives that are executed as a part of the overall performance notion for career development and human resource respect of the expatriates” (quoted from, Chew, 2004 pp. 1-30). Truly, the failure to address repatriation problems may lead to disillusionment and high turnover of expatriates and have shortcomings on their performance at work (Mendenhall and Oddou 1991, Engen 1995, Tung 1998, Haines and Saba 1999 quoted from, Chew, 2004 pp. 1-30). The need to help in the organization of ample expatriates’ ambition and expectations like through incentives and rewards realization and application thus, the expatriate should have complete assurance of the MNC job roles that are mutually acceptable, allowing training grounds to be in best foundation, of operations supporting effective performance management of the expatriates, helping them adjust to the new workplace.
However, Peltonen (1998), suggests that, the “repatriation programs have to be based on knowledge acquired from the responsiveness phase of an organizational crisis, consist of activities that provide a comparable position or a promotion from the job held before repatriation and assistance for the employee and family in assimilating back into their home culture, these programs are crucial in demonstrating supportiveness to the returnees” (quoted from, Chew, 2004 pp. 1-30). The allowing of the repatriation approaches to improve expatriate performance determining human resource practices into the business paradigm and be properly applied like through having commitment of Honda Corp. to their expatriate employees (Allen and Alvarez 1998 quoted from, Chew, 2004 pp. 1-30) and Honda then, can give encouragement to the expatriates to feel that best interests is one priority of the company, leading to the enhancement of the expatriates giving commitment to the overall business operation, and the helping attitude for the development of greater heights of performance to achieve effective performance unit, thereby facilitating human resource ways into strategic process.
Conclusion
In conclusion, aspects for recognizing effective performance of the expatriates is of ample degree and focus as the management of expatriates can possibly relate to MNC’s selection, human resource planning forming in expatriate attitude towards actual work set up. There is one a need to exercise primary and secondary research tools, allowing good amount of effective performance knowledge, providing desirable appraisal of such MNC issues into expatriates views and perspectives.
Therefore, believing that “crises in expatriate management will threaten Honda’s capabilities and performance from within host dominated nation, country and may comprise to negative return on Honda’s investment towards their manpower formation and human resource ways”, and the need to put in appropriate value, any suitable human resource policies as well as measures, Honda can do amiably manage human resource and encourage their staff to accept overseas options for work as the MNC does hold up to their expatriates and attempted in contributing to effective performance of the expatriates going abroad for work. Lastly, there will be appreciably increase probability of handling expatriates despite crisis situations in the business market, human resource can increase likelihood of expatriate goals for attaining performance at work effectively.
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