International human resource management in multinational companies: Global norm making within strategic action fields

The formation of global norms that affect work is a crucial element to how multinational companies (MNCs) achieve a degree of HR integration internationally. We establish a ‘strategic action fields’ framework to guide research into global norm-making in MNCs in general and for analysing the work of those that we term ‘globalising actors’—those who are active in globalising a firm's management of its human resources—in particular. We position our framework with relation to existing research in international human resource management, and show how the field can benefit from achieving an approach to global norm-making that is contextualised, personalised and contested.

Practitioner implications

What is currently known?

Many aspects of international assignments, global human capital and the nature of international HR policies and practices.

Institutional influences on the cross-national transfer of practices.

What the paper adds?

An extension of the notion of ‘strategic action fields’ to understanding how global norms are formed in MNCs.

A framework for understanding global norm formation that is contextualised, personalised and contested.

Implications:

Global norms are the organising frameworks for integration efforts around how work is done in MNC It is crucial to understand the relationship between norms and the wider context.

Global norms come into existence through the interaction of a range of types of ‘globalising actors’.

The relationships between these globalising actors is often contested.