ABSTRACT
The field of international management has, until recently, largely ignored how human resource management (HRM) systems in overseas subsidiaries are designed and how design impacts performance. In addition, there is virtually no research comparing the HRM systems in Japanese and in Western affiliates.
In an attempt to begin to address this important issue, this chapter presents the results of a study of Japanese and American maquiladoras (in-bond assembly plants) in Mexico. The research builds on two streams of recent work in the international management field – the first on international HRM systems and the second on strategic roles of business units in multinational corporations (MNCs).
This chapter examines the relative influence of parent company strategy, strategic role of the affiliate, parent company administrative heritage and host country environment on the HRM systems in eight maquiladoras, four Japanese and four American, located in Tijuana, Mexico. Using a contingency framework, this chapter also describes the fits between each maquiladora's HRM system and its internal and external environments. Finally, it identifies the resulting impact of these fits on performance, both at the individual employee level and at the affiliate level.
