ABSTRACT
It is now widely acknowledged that globalization as we knew it has changed. MNCs from the global North, in particular in the manufacturing sector, have long since learnt how to organize globally divided production, although they still struggle with the diversity of human resources available. Increasing global competition and the turn to the ‘knowledge society’ have recently brought knowledge and skills, i.e. ‘human capital’, to the fore as major resources for MNCs in the global game. New challenges for human resource (HR) management in MNCs arise from two directions. Firstly, the quality of the labour force at many subsidiaries in emerging economies has to be improved substantially when MNCs wish to relocate more or less sophisticated production abroad; with the dual aims of gaining access to lower production costs and regional markets. In terms of skills and knowledge available, it seems that the world is full of ‘blind spots’ where the labour force has to be repeatedly trained and qualified. Secondly, MNCs can increasingly tap into newly emerging ‘hot spots’ where knowledge and highly educated ‘talent’ seem to be available at lower costs for knowledge-based activities such as R&D. Here, MNCs face even more diversity in the ‘cultural’ dimensions of human resources which may render efficient communication between talent at different locations difficult, thus impeding an efficient globally divided labour force. As a result, MNCs are driven to develop new approaches
at the interfaces of global HR management and global knowledge management in order to overcome these barriers. This paper wishes to shed some exploratory light on recently established tools in global HR management in a manufacturing sector which is characterized both by skill and R&D intensity, i.e. mechanical engineering, and more precisely, sections of the automotive industry. We argue that the particular context of origin of the MNC and its sector-specific knowledge base have to be considered when companies introduce new tools in global HR management.
