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Human Resource Management Processes and Practices

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The Influence of Culture on Human Resource Management Processes and Practices. Dianna Stone and Eugene Stone-Romero, eds. New York: Psychology Press, 2008. 340 pp. $38.25, paper. Although national and international workforces have become increasingly culturally diverse, human resource systems and processes often lag in adapting to multiculturalism in ways that will reduce the cultural bias of existing human resource systems and enhance organizational effectiveness. Nearly 15 years ago Sharon Lobel and I developed a framework for our edited book, Managing Diversity, on the human resource implications of managing the growing diversity of the workforce (Kossek and Lobel, 1996). Although some changes have been made to account flexibly for …show more content…

Several chapters consider the effectiveness of performance appraisal and development systems in an increasingly culturally diverse workforce, such as understanding cultural biases in ratings (Ferris and Treadway) or cultural variation in motivational responses to feedback (Pritchard and Youngcourt). Joshi and Martocchio consider cultural differences in responses to reward systems and nicely summarize how rewards need to fit the degree to which individuals are oriented toward values of individualism and collectivism or femininity or masculinity. Bhagat, Steverson, and Segovis consider cultural variation in employee assistance programs in an era of globalization. They make the interesting observation that cultures vary in the degree to which members value seeking assistance for mental health, a reality that employers and scholars need to consider. There is also a good chapter on the popular topic of multicultural teams. Burke and coauthors take a sensemaking approach to understanding crosscultural teams and offer a number of interesting ideas for future research. As a work and family scholar, I was glad to see a chapter by Cleveland, McCarthy, and Himelright on U.S. and Irish differences in work and family policy. It is not entirely clear, however, why the authors selected Ireland as the focus instead of

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