Comparison of HR Practices and Employment Relations Philosophies in China and Taiwan

Comparison of HR Practices and Employment Relations Philosophies in China and Taiwan

Introduction

In the face of ever-increasing globalization, both China and Taiwan

have now joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO); a more open market

economy and closer integration with the global economic order appears

to be inevitable for both countries (Magarinos et al. 2002). Human

Resource Management (HRM) is one of the critical tools for improving

productivity and competitiveness at the grass-roots level (Poole

1997). This Essays aims to identify and compare the current HRM

systems and practices at different types of enterprises in both China

and Taiwan respectively (Zhu and Warner 2000), to evaluate their

performance in this domain, as well as to illustrate the implications

of the inter-relationship between social norms/ environment and the

transformation of HRM in both economies.

The outcome of this comparison may be meaningful in terms of

understanding the theoretical arguments about the trend of HRM

development towards a ‘convergent’ or ‘divergent’ model within the

global production and economic systems of our time (Warner 2002) or

possibly a hybrid ‘cross-vergent’ phenomenon where national cultural

systems are blended with broader economic ideologies .

HR practices and employment relations philosophies of China

HRM is a term used to describe a wide range of activities involved in

attracting, developing, motivating, and retaining the best and most

capable people to perform within an organization. Western HRM places

importance not only on systematic recruitment but also on selection,

training, and development procedures, empha...

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...cmillan and New York: St Martin’s Press.

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