Free Comparison Of Singapore With India Critical Thinking Example

INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Introduction
Companies nowadays are expanding their business at an international level to expand the customer base and enhance the sales of the company. But, the working culture and structure varies for each company in the world and hence, the need is to dwell deeper into the culture, climate, history, language, beliefs, customs and working style of the target country for company expansion. The study will present a relocation plan under the human resource management so as to make the employees aware about the working culture of the chosen country (India) and will draw a comparison between the host country (Singapore) and the target country (India) in order to train the employees to fill the gap and form a bridge for efficient work in India. The study would also focus over design of the overseas unit in reference with Hofstede national cultural dimensions (Engle, 2008). Thereafter, a staffing process would be devised to select a bunch of right and responsible candidates suitable for the overseas job in India. Training and development of the employees would also form an integral part of the study to prepare the employees for working for a year in the overseas branch of the company. For making the suitable employees work in the destination country some of the remuneration packages shall be devised taking into consideration the expenses in the international country and the present salary of the employees selected for the job.

Introduction about India

India is a land of gods and being a religious country, it is guided by moral values, ethical principles, set norms and aesthetic beliefs. It is al and abounding in natural bounties of nature and hence is rich in cultural heritage too. People of India are proud of their cultural heritage including poems, dances, songs, film industry, paintings and many more related art forms. Predominantly Hindi is spoken being the national language but have plethora of regional languages too. As per the climatic conditions, India has diverse climates during the whole year including winters, summers, monsoon, spring and autumn. India has a patriarchal society which is reserved for women. In working culture, India has centralized power usually practiced by higher authorities or politicians investing in large scaled business. Information technology has a huge scope in India with intellectuals working in each and every field. All the sectors are predominantly practiced in all the parts of India. People have variety of food items as per different states. People either have their own business or work for companies.

(Hofstede National Cultural Dimension)
Every country have different organizational structures and cultures and this domain have been thoroughly researched by Hofstede to present a report about national cultural dimensions. There are six dimensions for comparing the organizational design of the countries. Power Distance Index is the degree of acceptance of unequal distribution of power in a country. A high degree of PDI refers to a hierarchical structure with everyone having a justifiable place in the work hierarchy. Individualism versus Collectivism is a belief that individualism refers to loose knot society with a feeling of “I” whereas collectivism is a tight knit framework of a region and a sense of “we”.
Masculinity versus Femininity is a comparison of work environment having masculine features like achievement orientation, regard for heroism, material rewards, assertiveness, competition etc. with feminine features like cooperation, modesty at work, care for the weak and quality of life.Long term orientation scores a high with companies taking up pragmatic approaches to invest in modern education and encourage thrift to prepare for the future whereas low scoring countries maintain time honored norms and traditions by not including much of societal changes in the trends of the companies. Indulgence versus Restraint refers to the freedom of practicing the human drives by not taking care of the social norms.
For Singapore, being a multi ethnic society largely occupied by Chinese the six dimensional analysis will be able to draw differences between the two countries under consideration. Singapore have a Confucian background having syncretic approach towards religion. The power is centralized with managers and control is formalized. There is an indirect communication channel with a strict selective value system. The values on individualism are quite low being 20 showcasing that there is a sense of “we” and not “me” in the society. Family is considered as a prototype of all the social organizations. There are feelings of love, respect, dignity and preserving the face of the family. A medium score of masculinity attribute a more feminine bend of the working conditions. The environment is soft imbibed with consensus, sympathy and care for the co employees. In the professional life, conflicts are avoided and it is required to proceed with caution. For uncertainty avoidance, Singapore scores a very low score of 8 due to high PDI with a belief that society is a Fine Society getting fine for everything. In relation with long term orientation, the culture is focused towards a long term investment such as slow results, ordering of relationship based on status, perseverance, sustained efforts etc. Singapore has become a country with an immense economic success due to the factors affecting the culture and the workplace.
Now in comparison, India has drastic changes in some of the attributes such as individualism, uncertainty avoidance, indulgence and long term orientation. In relation with PDI, India too respects a centralized control of power by giving respect to a top down control structure. There is a huge gap between power and privilege thereby making it similar to the control structure of Singapore. There is a top down and directive communication with an acceptance of unequal power distribution lying in the hands of politicians and government bodies. India is an amalgamation of collective and individualistic traits in the working scenario. There are some people acting for collective good (extended families, working groups, social network) and some others confined to personal space. It is a general trend that during hiring and promotional activities, relationships are given preference over skills giving a sign of individualistic society which is confined to self interest rather than collective good (Schuler, 2004). This individualism is also a result of dominance of Hindu religion having their personal beliefs of individual karmas. India is considered a as masculine society with dominant features of a man in the work force. The focus is laid over materialistic gains and profits adorned by achievements and success. Work is the central point of focus in one’s life and strict actions in workplace is the attribute of Indian society. India has a score of 40 on uncertainty avoidance and hence it is characterized by acceptance of imperfection in the work scenario. The action orientation is hardly noticed with a trend comfortable working in the industry. Adjustments are made at a greater level to do any kind of task seeming to be highly impossible. There is a high score on long term orientation due to the religious background of India dominated by Hinduism. The non linear nature of time amalgamated with concept of karma, make the people form a pragmatic culture. The belief over faith leads to change of plans rather than the set plan made b the company. And therefore, there is an element of unpredictability in the industry. The indulgence score of India is quite low with 26 points depicting a constrained culture having traits of pessimism and cynicism. People feel restrained by the social norms and are not free to practice their desires with a fear of doing wrong to the society and culture.
The following graph gives a comparison of the culture and structure of Singapore and India under the dimensions of Hofstede national cultural dimensions.
Retrieved from: http://geert-hofstede.com/singapore.html

The Staffing Process

The staffing process is essential to choose worthy and dedicated employees for the overseas project. The employees should be competent and must form a diverse and heterogeneous group so as to adjust with the differences in culture between Singapore and India. It is suggested to have a group of diverse employees having different skills and knowledge so that they may be able to adjust in the foreign land and come up with innovative solutions to leave a mark at foreign land.In the team of ten senior managers going for this overseas project, there should be one specializing in every domain of operations. There must be a team manager, technical head, finance manager, marketing manager, public relations officer, creative team manager, one translator (outsourced), a team member selected from India, human resource development manager and some other team mates. It is essential to have a translator in the group but the requirement would be dependent upon the situation therefore, the translator should be outsourced from the target company itself. The translator should be recruited form India from a reputable firm and should be given suitable salary for the same. Another employee from India should be recruited so as to make the company competent in the Indian culture and working environment (Boyne, 2004).The staffing process should include selection of employees that would closely match up with the culture of India and would be able to adjust well in the environment. But these employees would have to undergo relevant training to suit up the working culture of India.
This staff comprising of specialist in every branch would be able to cope up with the highly competent market of India and would be able to complete the project at the overseas site. The selection tools for selecting suitable managers would matter a lot in predicting the success of the project undertaken in India. One of the main test is screening test that would evaluate the skills of the managers suiting up with the requirements of the project. This would include an aptitude test followed by specialized tests for the project. Another method can be situational judgment tests that would preparethe managers to match up with the culture, structure, climate, beliefs, values and style in India. Some of the hypothetical conditions would be presented to the employees and their answers would guide the further settlement of employees in India. These conditions may be from climatic situations in India, religions followed in India, some prevailing business issue, some corporate conflict, some government regulations, some industrial constraints and some similar issues that may come up in the progress in India. The results of this situational analysis would be able to frame a better interview templateand to monitor the specific areas of growth and others that require more training. A skill test is required to make the company feel confident about the employees being sent for the overseas project in an entirely new land having different concepts, cultures, values, belief systems, working environment etc. The testable skills shall be evaluated with the help of a preset paper having a mix of questions that match up with the targeted position of the employee, his roles and responsibilities and also cover up some of the skills required to survive in the foreign land pertaining to food, climate, politics, competition and other factors. Virtual reality and web based simulations can be used to make the employees fit in the target working environment and perform remarkably in the field. This would be able to capture some realistic responses with the help of behavioral simulations.

Training and Development Process

Training and development is required to make the employees fit in the working culture and environment of India. This would include climatic simulations to make them survive in extreme summers of May and extreme winters of January. The training would include routine life of India and understanding the trends of routine life. The food habits and important neighborhood places to eat the suitable food should be presented in the form of deliverables. The training should start up with theoretical lectures given by some experts from India either in the company or by the means of online learning. Thereafter, employees would be encouraged to read about culture, history, work structure, working environment, rules and politics of government in India and also become thorough about the labor laws and industrial rules of India (Tyson, 1991). Further, the training would include a simulation of the office in New Delhi and the schedule of work followed which is usually 9 am to 5 or 6pm IST. When the employees have started working on the overseas project, training should also be given in Indian office by giving them every kind of possible help to make up alliances with other companies, to cope up with the present competition, to negotiate with the clients, to maintain the supplier chain, to respect the centralized authority system, to have references with higher authorities for ease of business. For this purpose an employee shall be recruited from India to make the company adjust better in the environment. A learning management system can be used to monitor the training results of the employees and reformulate the training process specialized for each employee.

Remuneration Package for the selected employees

The difference between currency of India and Singapore is that 1 Indian Rupee equals 0.022 Singapore Dollar and hence surviving in India would be easier than survival in Singapore. The daily routine costs would be handled by the employees themselves but the facility for accommodation should be arranged by the company itself with separate spaces given for individual personal space since costs for accommodation is high in cities like New Delhi where this operational unit of the company is set up. Before the overseas project, the employees should be given an appraisalin order to make them approve the decision to work in the overseas branch. After the initiation of the project, the employees can be given accommodation facilities, travelling expenses and salaries pertaining to Indian currency rate and comparable with the salaries given in the host country, Singapore.

Conclusion

It was observed from the analysis, that there are plethora of drastic differences in the working conditions of Singapore and India with the host country being sophisticated about the laws and orders and the target country having some of the loopholes in the work related to government and public sector dealings. The difference in currencies led to differences in remuneration packages offered to the employees. Because of the different climatic conditions in India and the capital (New Delhi) to be specific, the employees have to be aware of all the conditions of work. The company should specially arrange for the accommodation because of escalated rates in the city. They must be prepared for the food available, climatic conditions, types of people they will meet and the work culture in India which totally depends upon the company. For the overseas company, the work cultures shall be decided by the host country but the outside contract shall be modulated based over the target company in India. There may be an open and flexible environment if the company relates to information and communication technology or on the other hand, if the company calls for a great competition in some field, then the culture shall be strict, challenging and demoralizing for the new entrants. Therefore, the study was able to develop some of the key differences in culture, beliefs, values, working styles, working approaches and working conditions between Singapore and India. Concluding on a note that, Singapore country has a strict and sophisticated culture of work uniform, for all the fields but in India the working culture various with the type of work and the competition in the work.

References:

Brewster, C., & Tyson, S. (Eds.). 1991. International comparisons in human resource management. Financial Times Management.
Dowling, P., Festing, M., & Engle Sr, A. D. 2008. International human resource management: Managing people in a multinational context. Cengage Learning.
Briscoe, D. R., & Schuler, R. S. 2004. International human resource management: policy and practice for the global enterprise (Vol. 5). Psychology Press.
Budhwar, P. S., & Boyne, G. 2004. Human resource management in the Indian public and private sectors: an empirical comparison. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 15(2), 346-370.