This document is a student assignment reviewing two articles on leadership and international human resource management. The first article discusses how employee engagement affects organizational performance, especially during economic downturns. It uses the example of an Indian printing company that conducted an employee survey during a recession. The second article examines how medium-sized companies can adapt HR practices to different cultures during international expansion. The assignment provides an in-depth summary of each article's key points and hypotheses. It evaluates the relevance and strengths of the studies, such as their real-world examples. The conclusion is that employee engagement and adapting HR are important for organizational success globally. Recommendations include providing more details on the survey results and action plans from the first article

1. KCB ID: 14508 – Tolga KOYMEN
University of Wales
(Kensington Collage of Business)
MBA
MODULE TITLE: CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN IHRM
MODULE CODE: MCIIHRM
ASSINGMENT TITLE:
THE ARTICLE REVIEWS – LEADERSHIP / EVOLVING OF
CULTURE
LECTURER NAME: NUALA OSULLIVAN
KCB ID: 14508 – Tolga KOYMEN
DATE OF SUBMISSION: 02/12/2010
0

2. KCB ID: 14508 – Tolga KOYMEN
PART - A
The review of article “The Innovative Technique at Thomson”
INTRODUCTION
The article which is named “The Innovative Technique at Thomson” aims to explain how the
employee engagement affects an organisation by providing the customer satisfaction. And it gives a
survey example, which is named as “Vaarta”, for measuring and understanding the employee’s
satisfactions, attitudes, motivations and opinions. It’s been claimed that especially in current
economic recession all over the world the engagement of employees has become the most
important issue for an organisation whether it is national or multinational.
On 2009 during the economic recession, the leader printing company in India –Thomson Press
Company; which was established in 1967 and has exported children’s books to overseas publishers,
assigned an external consultancy agency. Measuring its employees’ engagement by ensuring the
confidentiality of the process was the survey’s target. Identifying the strong and weak areas of the
company to set new priorities would be the results of this survey. For the company which has
already attached an importance to training its employees and operated an open door policy by its
senior managers, the aim of the survey has been finding out the necessary areas of improvement on
work conditions and reinforcing the employee engagement to continue the company’s leadership in
printing industry. For the company’s board, and also based upon the nature of the business world, it
means enabling to continue paying dividend to stakeholders.
The authors of this article, Agarwal, Chaudhary, and Dixit (2010), have explained the structure of a
new initiative to make a contribution to business performance during the economic recession. The
authors has used the chance that one of them –Dixit; was the human resource specialist of Thomson
Press Company during the survey. They have tried to sustain their ideas by giving the examples of
Thomson Press Company practises.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The article has built up its hypotheses on the importance of employee engagement on tough times
for organisation such as economic recession. Treacy (2004) has claimed that if the organisation takes
care of its employees, they will take care of the organisation’s customers, so on tough times the
customer satisfaction will sustain company’s position in the market. It’s claimed that that’s a chain
that the employees impact the customers’ attitudes and behaviours, and the customer impact the
company’s profitability by buying its products. When the company takes care to establish a company
culture that respects its employees, it will have the benefits of the loyal customers. The authors of
this article have sustained this idea by giving the examples of TMC practices. For example, the
training school; which has started in 1995, aims to educate printing professionals for requirement of
quality workforce. On the other hand, regular in-house training programs gain the motivation of
workforce.
According to Vazirani (2007) `employee engagement approaches` of an organisation can reinforced
the ability to cope with recession and the established trust can be unlocked the commitment of
individual staffs.
It’s said that by Bono and Judge (2003) continuity of good delivering service during the economic
recession, in which huge cost savings decisions to be had, can just be able by having open culture,
clear messages and stable leadership. Sharing the responsibility has provided the total success of
company. According to the authors of this article, it was an advantage that Thomson Press Company
has already operated an open door policy by its senior managers to respect its’ employees. The
authors claimed that the strategies, products, services, models etc. can be copied from competitors.
1

3. KCB ID: 14508 – Tolga KOYMEN
But the loyal talented workforce will be one of the most important parts of the organisation and
cannot be duplicated. The company always has proud of that the average stays of workers is lifetime
for the company. For the continuity of this employee loyalty, the company has always cared to place
effective performance schemes, greater teaching and development projects, employee recognition
programmes and flexible working opportunities. The Company has believed that not to have
disenchanted staff and decreased productivity can only be able by placing the employee
engagement at the front line.
At the end of the each working day the highest level of employee engagement can be sustained by
identifying the right improvement areas in customer satisfaction, business performance,
organisational culture, and then matching them with the individual levels of staffs. (Bernthall and
Wellins 2001) Thomson Press Company has decided to do an employee engagement survey to
identify the right improvement areas. The objective of the survey is to creating a forum for the staffs
to give effective feedbacks.
The human resource department cannot individually establish the employee engagement, but it has
an important role to develop the organisational culture which makes the engagement a reality by
improving the managerial skills. Identifying the key points of employee respected culture,
communicating effectively and well explaining the action plans must be the shared way. (Conger,
1992) The human resource department of Thomson Press Company has linked all part of the
company with the survey. It has been well explained that the goal of this survey was to obtain
honest feedback from all participants to understand the right improvement areas. It shouldn’t be
forgotten that the participants want to ensure that the company has an interest in listening their
opinions and to ensure that their inputs are kept in confidential. (Conger and Kanugo, 1988) On the
other hand according to Hoover (2005) for a well qualified working life it’s not so much important
what the business is but how the people in that business behave.
Thomson has understood that this survey is not an event or a simply survey. It’s been a process that
will be a catalyst for reconstruct the trust between the staffs and their line managers and the
company. Arriving at a shared definition and interpreting it into an action plan will be one of the
most important things in this process. (May, 2004) Acting quickly on survey results will show the
employees that the senior managers and the company well defined the improvement areas. It’s
highlighted that if the company waits a time to take action it won’t be so effective. Because after a
time, identified improvement areas can be changed.
It can be ranked the hypotheses of this article as below:
1. Employee engagement is very important for a company. The employee engagement impact
behaves and attitudes of customers. Especially during in the tough times such as economic
recession, if the organisation takes care of its employees, they will take care of the organisation’s
customers, so on tough times the customer satisfaction will sustain company’s position in the
market.
2. The continuity of good delivering service during the economic recession, in which huge cost
savings decisions to be had, can just be able by having open culture, clear messages and stable
leadership. For enabling to have this position; the organisation must identify the improvement areas
of employee engagement, customer satisfaction, business performance, organisational culture and
must match them with the individual levels of every staffs.
3. The human resources department has a key role to identify the improvement areas and match
them with the individual levels of staffs. But the department cannot individually establish it. HR is
one of the most important parts of establishing the employee respected organisational culture.
2

4. KCB ID: 14508 – Tolga KOYMEN
4. To identify the improvement areas it is a good way to do an employee engagement survey. The
results of the survey will provide to establish the employee respected organisational culture. The
goal of the survey must be measuring and understanding the employee’s satisfactions, attitudes,
motivations and opinions.
5. The participants of the survey want to ensure that the company has an interest in listening of their
opinions and to ensure that their inputs are kept in confidential.
6. It hasn’t been forgotten that the employee engagement survey is a process for reconstruct the
trust between the staffs and their line managers and the company. Arriving at a shared definition
and interpreting it into an action plan will be one of the most important things in this process. The
action plan must be taken as quick as possible.
RELEVANCE
The study attempts to explain the leadership aspect of Human Resource Management. The article is
going on how the employee engagement effect the continuity of good delivering service of the
company and how this engagement will be provided by strong leadership and open door policy.
In the 21st century globalized world insists a strong leadership by identifying the improvement areas.
There is a key role for Human Resource Management to provide this identifying to assist the strong
leadership. Every company, whether national or multinational, needs to focus on this improvement
areas to remain the continuity of its competitiveness and success.
So this article’s view becomes very important and relevant in the Human Resources Management
perspective.
CRITICAL REVIEW
The study seems well researched and generates its hypotheses based on its references. Having a live
example is the advantage of this study. The authors can measure the impacts of their hypotheses on
this live example. The company, which was chosen by the authors, provide a good study area by its
background in employee engagement. And also the current economic recession all over the world
assists the necessity of this study. The company’s open door policy and the trust of the employees to
the company help the success of the survey process.
Only one limitation of this study can be that the possible action plans based upon the existed
employee engagement survey has not been given. However the study highlighted that the action
plan must be taken quickly after the survey process, the authors has not been talking about neither
the results of this survey nor the action plans which was taken.
At the end of the study the article tries to open discussions for some several issues based upon this
survey. It can be a key point that these discussions can be helpful for any other cases in Human
Resources Management.
CONCLUSION
The employee engagement is a key point for any company in 21st century. Products, services,
strategies, models etc. can be taken from competitors, but only thing that cannot be taken from
competitors is loyal talented employee. Among the decreasing loyalty of employee, having a low
staff employee or lifetime employee stays is an intangible asset for an organisation. The
organisations must save this asset by identifying the possible improvement areas and taking action
plans.
3

5. KCB ID: 14508 – Tolga KOYMEN
RECOMMENDATIONS
The outputs of this study are very important for leadership aspect. The examples of this study can be
used for improving the employee engagement.
1. The results of this survey should be given in this study for becoming more helpful for readers
and researchers.
2. The action plans which would be taken after this survey should be given in this study to
show how the results impact the plans.
Total word count for Part - A = 1801
4

6. KCB ID: 14508 – Tolga KOYMEN
REFERENCES
AGARWAL, R., CHAUDHARY, M. and DIXIT, S., 2010. The Innovative Technique at Thomson. American
Journal of Economics & Business Administration, Vol 2. No. pp 189-193. Available at:
<URL:http://www.scipub.org/fulltext/ajeba/ajeba22189-193.pdf>
BERNTHAL, P.R. and WELLINS, R.S., 2001. Retaining Talent: A Benchmarking Study. Development
Dimensions International, Pittsburgh, PA. Available at:
<URL: http://www.ddiworld.com/pdf/ddi_MeasuringEmployeeEngagement_wp.pdf>
[Accessed: 10 November 2010]
BONO, J.E. and JUDGE, T.A., 2003. Self-concordance at work: Toward understanding the motivational
effects of transformational leaders. Acad. Manage. J., 46: 554-571. Available at:
<URL:http://www.corporateheart.com/pdf/SelfConcordance%20at%20Work%20Motivational2003.p
df>
[Accessed: 10 November 2010]
CONGER, J.A., 1992. Learning to lead: The art of transforming managers into leaders. Jossey-Bass,
San Francisco. Available at:
<URL: http://www.saycocorporativo.com/saycoUK/BIJ/journal/Vol No1/Review_2.pdf>
[Accessed: 10 November 2010]
CONGER, J.A. and KANUGA, R., 1988. The empowerment process: Integrating theory and practice.
Acad. Manage. Rev., 13: 471-482. Available at:
<URL:http://www.jstor.org/pss/258093>
[Accessed: 10 November 2010]
MAY, E.L., 2004. Are people your priority? How to engage your work force: Healthcare Executive.
Available at:
<URL:http://resources.greatplacetowork.com/article/pdf/he_ja04_priority.pdf>
[Accessed: 10 November 2010]
TREACY, M., 2004. Employee engagement higher at double digit growth companies. Hewitt
Associates. Available at:
<URL:http://www.hewittassociates.com/_MetaBasicCMAssetCache_/Assets/Articles/DDGEngageme
ntfull.pdf>
[Accessed: 10 November 2010]
VAZIRANI, N., 2007. Employee Engagement: SIES College of Management Studies, Nerul.
Available at:
<URL:http://www.siescoms.edu/images/employee_engagement.pdf>
[Accessed: 10 November 2010]
5

7. KCB ID: 14508 – Tolga KOYMEN
PART - B
The review of article “International Human Resource Management: A new Challenge”
INTRODUCTION
The article which is named “International Human Resource Management: A new challenge” aims to
explain how the medium size international organizations, which is trying to expand their trading
activities, can fit the human resource management to the values and norms of different cultures.
The author claims that generally international human resource management and expatriate
management have being confused.
The author -Trudel, who has also been a fifteen years mobile international professional, has been
trying to reinforce the approaching of human resource management in a situation of
internationalization of medium size companies. Trudel claims that great numbers of articles have
focused on the big size international companies in the context of international human resource
management, but there have been a few studies about medium size organizations. The author has
given four approaches by focusing on medium size companies which follow an expansion strategy to
catch new opportunities in the rapidly growing emerging markets.
The given four situations to understand the international human resource management process are
among from Canadian companies which have been employing less than 300 employees. It has been
highlighted that these companies’ exportation values have been close quarter of the total
exportation values of Canada to US, EU markets or emerging markets such as BRIC -Brazil, Russia,
India, China (Quebec Statistical Institute, 2010)
LITERATURE REVIEW
The article has built up its hypotheses on how the human resource management can be adapted to
the values and norms of the different cultures. Gankema (2000) claims that the great number of
studies are about major companies and they have only explained the practises of expatriated
employees, the training methods of how to deal with different cultures in a different location or the
problems of the returned expatriated employees from abroad to home. It has been highlighted that
the author’s study can be reinforced how to manage the diversified work force. Trudel has purposed
to present four main structures for explaining the international context of human resource
management. These are “international leadership”, “international operational capabilities”,
“coordination of human resource management practises” and “international human resource
management practises”.
Trudel has underlined what must be the skills of top management team to explaining the
“international leadership”. It has been said that the references come from top management team.
So the top management team must have a globalised thinking, intercultural competency, corporate
mission and preferably the members from different cultures. According to Laabs (1997) the high
degree of the competence of the top management team provides the employee confidence for
following them to realize the corporate mission of the organization. If the top managers have doing
good works also spending efficient times for critical activities such as judgement, good listening and
communicating or creating future visions, the employees will easily follow them by respect.
According to the researches of MacMillan (1987) and Sanchez-Arias (2004) being a role-play as a
change representative by creating a future vision, knowing how to good listen and communicate,
being progressive on the promotion of the vision in the context of internationalization,
demonstrating the importance of the internationalization by all activities, doing activities to develop
the long term international culture, hiring high-skilled employees, demonstrating the importance of
training, being a coach by transferring the experiences, awareness of the importance of the
6

8. KCB ID: 14508 – Tolga KOYMEN
knowledge form international markets and keeping them up to date must be the base features of an
international leader. The given example of Trudel is a leader who is not high educated or not having
a strong background in international markets. He recovers his shortages with being a good
communicator / listener and being in a perception for international business. He has attached
importance to confidence, team work and being participate of the organisation.
Progressive standardisation and adaptation for diversity provide to create the “international
operational capabilities” to efficiently manage the environmental diversity in different locations at
the same time. Trudel has emphasized that the standardisation mustn’t be confused with creating
bureaucratic boundaries which has blocked out the creativity of the employees. The standardisation
of performance measurement system, information system, the sharing of sources, strategic planning
etc. must be enough flexible to allow for diversity. Good communication channel can convince the
staffs to add value. There has been an important role for managers to transfer the values between
the organisation and employees. On the other hand the managers have to motivate the mobilized
staffs to integrate her / his energies in the international perspective of the company. So the
managers who are mobilized have to have larger communication networks. And the company must
equip them with supports, assistance and incentives such as international compensation plans which
have to have differences from domestic plans. This will encourage the other locals to be volunteers
for working this company. The given example of Trudel is a company which is growing 50% per year
over the last ten years. The company has an informal flexible structure which has created based on
the live experiences. For instance at the beginning of the internationalization, the company didn’t
have a strategy to have overseas project managers, but now it has managed all its international
activities efficiently by locals.
Creation of the relationship between recruiting, hiring, training, career planning, locational mobility,
multicultural work groups and the capacity of managing the diversity has been very critic for the
organization. It can be able to have a managerial structure which has attached importance to
providing the “coordination of human resource management practices”. (Dowling et al, 1998) The
integration of human resource department with the other departments provides the continuity of
international perspective to the company. The network between human resource department and
the other departments has assisted to have a pool of high-skilled individuals to selecting from and
preparing them for international tasks. The human resource management and its coordination must
have great importance for the top management. Dowling and Welch (1991) claim that the
coordination of human resource management practices are very important for the growing
international companies to continue their activities efficiently. The given example of Trudel is a
company that its top management has placed the global human resource management in a great
importance and has connected the department directly to the president. The company has been
employing over 250 employees all over the world and there has been close relationship between
functions. All human resource management activities and decisions have been thought at head
quarters.
The abilities such as able to fit to work in a different country with different cultures, strong
relationship between the functions of organization, not to have superior behaviours which avoid the
relationship with the foreign colleagues have been as important as the technical abilities, and the
human resource department must ensure about these abilities by involving in the hiring process of
an international task. This involving can only be able through the efficient international human
resource management perspective. It has been another important task for international human
resource management that planning the familiarization of the employee with the new environment
before an international task. Also the international human resource management practises
demonstrate high effort to manage the repatriates who are participates of the organisation like
expatriates. After returning from an international task to home, it’s essential to meet the expected
offers. The career plans must be considered by the human resource department. At the example of
Trudel, the company has a careful selection process and before the international posting it meets all
7

9. KCB ID: 14508 – Tolga KOYMEN
the necessities which are expected. The communication channels are provided. The regional
responsible managers visit the site at least four times a year.
RELEVANCE
The study attempts to explain the evolving of international culture aspect of Human Resource
Management. The article is going on how to adapt the human resource management to the norms
of different cultures in medium size growing international companies. The globalized world insists an
international cultural perspective for human resource management to manage the multinational
work force. There is a key role for human resource management to provide the expectations. The
mixture of international leadership, international operational capabilities, the coordination of
human resource management practises and efficient international perspective of human resource
management must be the main perspective of the human resource management process. The inputs
of multinational work force must be assessed with consideration of these four pillars.
So this article’s view becomes very important and relevant in the Human Resources Management
with the context if international perspective.
CRITICAL REVIEW
The article seems well researched and generates its hypotheses based on its references by having
actual examples for each pillars. The author can see the impacts of his hypotheses on these actual
examples. But the examples; except the first one –international leadership; are not clearly match
with the hypotheses. It’s thought that especially the examples for “international operational
capabilities” and “coordination of human resource management practises” are not sufficient to
explain the idea. Although their shortages in sampling; the companies which was chosen by the
author provide a good study area by their backgrounds in international employing.
It’s thought that another shortage of this study is the lack of the example of mixture of four models –
international leadership, international operational capabilities, coordination of human resource
management and efficient international human resource management practices, however the
author opens a discussion about these four pillars.
However it’s thought that at least one actual example must be given about the mixture of four
models which are the subject of this study, in the discussion part the author highlighted that a
medium size international company must have an international leadership perspective, human
resource capabilities for efficient international operations, coordination between human resource
department and other departments, following an international human resource strategy to be
successful in international markets, well-structured communication channels.
CONCLUSION
Adapting its structure to the new human resource managerial realities of internationalization is the
key point for an organization which is trying to expend its international trading activities in 21st
century. Every organization can find its unique model during the internationalization. Even it is
internationalized the context of the international perspective of human resource management will
be vary. The company have to demonstrate the priority of international perspective by assisting of
actual examples. It’s not been forgotten that without internationalization of human resource
management, it is not able to internationalize the company’s services or products.
8

10. KCB ID: 14508 – Tolga KOYMEN
RECOMMENDATIONS
The outputs of this study are very important for evolving of culture aspect. The four examples of this
study can be used for creating an international human resource perspective for internationalising
organizations. However every company practises its unique model, at least one example should be
given for mixture of four models.
Total word count for Part - B = 1776
9

11. KCB ID: 14508 – Tolga KOYMEN
REFERENCES
DOWLING,P. J. and WELCH, D. E. (1991). The Strategic Adaptation Process in International Human
Resource Management: A Case Study. Human Resource Planning. 14 (1), 61-69.
GANKEMA,H.G. J., SNUIF, H. R. and ZMART, P. S. (2000). The Internationalization Process of Small
and Medium-Sized Enterprises: An Evaluation of Stage Theory. Journal of Small Business
Management, 38 (4), 15-27.
LAABS, J. (1997). Global HR: Doing What’s Important First. Global Workforce, 2 (2), 14-5.
MACMILLAN,I. C. (1987). New Business Development: A Challenge for Transformational Leadership,
HR Management, 26 (4), 439-454.
SANCHEZ-ARIAS, F. (2004). Five Roles of Leadership. Executive Excellence. 21 (7), 8.
TRUDEL, J. (2009). International HRM: A new challenge. Portugese Journal of Management Studies.
Vol. 14 No. 2 pp 149-161 Available at:
<URL:http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=6&hid=13&sid=f141b619-475f-
4617-bca7-873335aab383%40sessionmgr4>
[Accessed: 26th October 2010]
The official web site of QUEBEC STATISTICAL INSTITUTE. Available at:
<URL:http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/default_an.htm>
[Accessed: 26th October 2010]
10