International HRM: national business systems, organizational politics and the international division of labour in MNCs

In this paper we address a key issue that dominates international HRM research, namely the global–local question. The question concerns how multinationals can or should balance the pressures to develop globally standardized policies with the pressures to be responsive to the peculiarities of the local context. In our view, three important conceptual weaknesses have restricted research progress in this field: the inadequate conceptualization of national effects, which results in culture being used as an unsatisfactory ‘catch-all’ for national differences; the lack of attention to the influence of internal organizational politics; and the absence of focus on the internal division of labour within MNCs. We discuss the ways in which these weaknesses can be addressed and the implications of these alternative concepts.