BSc Management (Accounting and Finance) / Course details

The Module aims to introduce students to a range of topics and issues related to the international and comparative dimensions of Human Resource Management. The need to understand how work and employment is managed and regulated in an increasingly globalised context is of fundamental importance to organisations and to workers. Overall the module aims to introduce the student to how globalisation is changing the way we work and are employed, how organisations manage across different national contexts and how HRM is developed and understood in the context of the growing role and impact of multinational corporations and new pressures on them to manage their workforce responsibly.

Only available for students on: BSc Mgt/Mgt Specialism, IM, IMABS and BSc Acctg.

Only available for students on: Mgt, IM, IMABS & BSc Acctg.

To understand the international dimensions of human resource management and the diversity of practices in terms of how they influence the question of work and employment.

To also explain factors influencing multinational companies in their deployment and transfer of human resource and industrial relations practices across their organisation, subsidiaries and partner firms.

1. To explain the distinctive nature of the management of human resources and industrial relations in multinational companies in a globalised context.

2. To understand the main ways in which national systems of HRM vary and how questions of training and welfare regimes - for example - impact on HRM strategies.

3. To identify the nature of HR strategies arising from their embeddedness in distinct national environments and styles of HRM.

4. To understand both the structural and political factors that influence a multinational company’s HR and employment relations strategy.

5. To understand key aspects of IHRM such as the management of international staff, the impact of migration, different systems of worker representation, worker and management training and development issues, diversity/equality issues in a global context, and reward/payment systems.

6. To debate the need for - and role of - new forms of transnational employment regulation and ethically based/CSR strategies in the context of a more globalised system of work and employment.

In general the module will cover questions of globalisation and work, the nature of national systems of HRM and the role of regulatory and welfare institutions in terms of international aspects of work and HRM, the impact and nature of systems of training in a global perspective, the changing nature of the workforce in terms of flexibility and migration (for example), issues of equality and diversity in a transnational context, the nature of HRM strategy in multinational corporations and how it varies, the growing impact in positive and negative terms of multinational corporate power on how we work, the management of international staff and mobility issues within multinational corporations, the importance or corporate social responsibility and transnational labour standards, the role of trade unions and non-government organisations (NGOs), and reward and payment issues within MNCs and IHRM.  

There will be 11 two-hour lectures and 8 one-hour seminars. 

The main form of formative assessment will be oral feedback to non-assessed presentations in the seminars.The main form of summative assessment will be a closed book exam.

The teaching staff urge to students to see them should there be any concerns. There will be collective feedback sessions at the final lecture alongside an overview of the module and the content. Staff involved will have office hours posted on their doors and will meet with students to discuss issues related to feedback. Seminars will allow for an ongoing discussion on features of the module. Questions of examinations will be dealt with collectively at the lecture-based revision sessions.

Miguel Martinez Lucio (2014) International Human Resource Management London: Sage 

Rubery, J. & Grimshaw, D. (2003) The Organisation of Employment: An International Perspective, London: Palgrave.

Programme Restrictions: Available to students on taking the BSc in Management/Management (Specialism), Accounting, IM and IMABS.

For Academic Year 2023/24

Updated: March 2023

Approved by: March UG Committee