Abstract:
When Western multinational enterprises seek to transfer their preferred strategic
human resource management (SHRM) practices to their subsidiaries in Africa, they
face numerous challenges. Some of these challenges arise from Africa’s particular
cultural and institutional features. In Africa, parent country nationals (PCNs) prefer
to standardize SHRM practices embedded in western values while host country
nationals (HCNs) prefer to localize practices in accordance with African cultural and
institutional specificities. This conceptual paper analyzes research on the motives and
strategies for standardization and localization of SHRM practices and develops a set
of propositions on how these practices are utilized in African subsidiaries of western
multinationals. On the basis of published case examples I illus trate preferences
for standardization, localization and a combination of both approaches. I discuss
the implications of my study in terms of future research directions and lessons for
practitioners
