The extent to which organisational performance is related to the Human Resource policies and practices adopted has been a question debated by both academics and practitioners for the past two decades. This book takes the debate into the international field by drawing upon the well respected Cranet data set, which provides longitudinal and comparative data drawn from 40 countries across the world. International Human Resource Management highlights the dominant institutional factors embedded in the societal contexts of different cultures which impact on corporate HR policies and practices, and illustrates how these variables influence Human Resource Management and performance. It examines how the HR function can impact upon HR policies and influence organisational performance. It also discusses the role of the HR department; specifically, how the distribution of responsibilities between HR managers and line managers moderates the relationship between HR strategic integration and organizational performance. Finally, it investigates the impact of societal factors on the strategic integration of female HR directors. These contributions show the complexity of the relationship between HRM and organisational performance, and modify the current prevailing models of this relationship, where scant attention has been paid to institutional forces and the cultural, economic and social contexts in which organisations are located.

This book was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of Human Resource Management.