Not many would refute that employees are the most important asset of any organization. The course Human Resources Management (HRM), led by Associate Professor Kuok Kei LAW, addresses organizations’ needs to attract, develop, and retain their best employees. The concept of HRM goes beyond the traditional administration-focused personnel management concept; HRM instead advocates the notion that employees should be treated as valuable and rare resources that can generate competitive advantage to organizations. Having said that, organizations need to understand the fundamental nature of employees as human resources of the organization, and it is crucial for Global BBA students to understand this whether they will go on to become an employee, perhaps in the HR department, or even become an employer.
As such, the course aims to provide students with fundamental knowledge about HRM and HRM practices. Also, it enables students to examine the roles and responsibilities of organization managers in general and HR professionals in specific in developing the HRM function as well as aligning it with the organization’s strategic pursuit. In the first class, Dr. Law has introduced students to a system’s perspective of HRM, linking the HRM function with other organizational factors such as organizational structure, culture, and strategy. The second class further expands the discussion in the first class - to the global arena.
The theme of the second class is global HRM. Students went through two mini cases to get a sense of the intricacies in managing human resources in multinational corporations (MNCs). Specifically, one of the mini cases deals with the implementation of an official corporate language with an aim to minimize communication and cultural barriers within the MNC and maximize knowledge exchange among the MNC subsidiaries. The other mini case deals with the issue of expatriation - one of the common approaches in global HRM. Students discussed the advantages and limitations of sending an expatriate to manage host operations. More importantly, students examined the possible difficulties and struggles faced by the expatriate and discussed how the organization can help the expatriate cope with the challenge. In between case discussion, students went beyond the case facts from time to time to explore some of the related issues to HRM in general and global in specific including work-life balancing, self-identity, and repatriation. By the end of the class, Dr. Law shared with the students some of the most recent research findings relating to the discussion carried out by the students as a concluding remark to both reinforce students’ analyses and inspire further thoughts on the discussed issues.