ABSTRACT

This chapter presents findings from a survey of Russian and Canadian managers about their managerial values and human resource decisions. It explores information and interest concerning human resource management (HRM) practices in both Canada and Russia. Managers from both countries were asked to rate the importance of some basic HRM issues such as health and safety, training and development, employee performance, employee attitude, employment equity, especially equity between males and females. Russian managers put more value in union membership as compared to Canadian managers. In the context of human resource management practices, the hypothesis of convergence means universality of HRM principles and practices regardless of national environments, while divergence hypothesis assumes the influence of culture, people and organizations in each nation determining their HRM principles and practices. The questionnaire was translated into Russian language for data collection. The questionnaire was entitled, 'Critical Incidents for Managerial Decisions' and contained several items relating to human resource decision-making.