International human resource management and organizational learning

Abstract

Global companies are pressed by the need to simultaneously manage globally since they consider the whole world as their own market, and locally, because the global market consists of various different and weakly connected market segments. The need to be global and local at the same time presents, perhaps the most important challenge for management of global companies in 21st century. Searching this balance presents also an important challenge for human resource management (HRM), regarding the ways of accomplishing it. HRM is expected to contribute to achievement of global competitive advantage worldwide efficiency, local responsiveness, as well as transfer of learning within global organizations. The transfer of learning gains on its importance as many authors see it as the main motive of establishing global companies. However, regardless of recognized significance of organizational learning for global companies, international HRM literature simply lacks studies related to transfer of learning, recommendations about how to develop this organizational ability, how to improve it and measure, and how to provide permanency of the learning process. Therefore, the aim of this paper is through reviewing the relevant literature, to shed light on different aspects of the responsiveness-integration paradigm and its implications on the transfer of learning in global companies.