Our next seminar will be held on the 26th of April 2006 from 12.30-2pm at the University of Wollongong, Building 19, Room 1003 and all are welcome to attend. Our speaker will be Dr Anne Vo on the topic "The international transfer of HRM policies and practices in a low power host country.". Following is an abstract of the paper and some biographical notes on the speaker:

This paper aims to examine the interaction between ‘country-of-origin’ and ‘country-of-operation’ effects in determining human resource management (HRM) policies and practices in multinationals (MNCs) within the context of globalisation. As national institutional patterns can penetrate into a firm’s internal operations, this study investigates the transmission and adaptation of the home country’s HRM traits at the MNC subsidiaries in the developing host country. Based on an investigation of the reward systems and performance management of US and Japanese companies in Vietnam, this paper argues that while ‘low power’ environments pose little in the way of formal constraint mechanisms they can facilitate the penetration of novel HRM practices. They also suggest a complex and challenging situation for MNC operations, requiring a very high level of adaptation and flexibility on the part of the host country firm.

Bio-note:
Dr Anne Vo completed her doctoral studies in the HRM Department, De Montfort University, the United Kingdom, in 2004. She then went back to Vietnam and worked as a HR Manager for British American Tobacco Company. Dr Vo joined the University of Wollongong as an Associate Lecturer in November 2005, and currently researches in the areas of international and comparative HRM (with a focus on Asian countries), the transfer of multinational companies' IR/HRM policies and practices across borders, and the transformation of HR systems in developing countries.