ABSTRACT
As we said at the outset, the aim of this book is to help practitioners to improve the performance of HR in a global setting. We have set out a number of challenges, but also we have offered suggestions to overcome them. In this short concluding chapter we will look at what one might call the meta challenges. For us, there are five of these:
In business change, how can HR contribute to organizational success? How dependent is this on the type of the deal or transaction and what impact does a global setting have?
To what degree can organizations build a universal brand and EVP around a common culture? But in so doing, is it inevitable that the organization creates a narrow ethnocentric view of the world rather than a pluralist or diverse one?
To what extent and in what way can international organizations create and sustain a global talent pool? Does this approach reinforce the common culture, brand and EVP?
Is it current practice to create HR governance structures to allow the corporate centre to hold the ring between the various global players within the function and outside of it? Or is the predominant approach a method that controls the behaviour of business units and locations?
Can there be a global service delivery model? If so, is this predicated on a high level of standardization and automation that makes it possible, for example, to introduce HR shared service centres that operate on a cross-national basis?
