As the global commerce is increasing so has the activities of International Human resource management becomes an important and more complex than Domestic Human resource management. While we acknowledge the expanding business activity, there is a school of thought that support and concur on the alignment of business practices on global scale. The idea posits three major perspectives towards the practice of Human resource management, Universalistic, Contingency and Configuration.
The Universalistic perspective is about identifying the best standard of Human resource practice through various and continuous Human resource activities while the Contingency or 'externally fit' perspective suggests the need for a mix of different policies and practices to get high results or best HR performance. The Configuration perspective stand for the interaction of business strategies and HRM practices used to determine business performance (Beardwell and Claydon, 2010).
Another observation toward the HR practices in the international level says that, organizations operating under same environment would be compelled towards a uniform management practice. This 'Isomorphic pull' as they refer to it or 'isomorphism' has three forms. Management practices under the Coercive form adopt foreign HR practices due to external pressure, such as pressures or expectations from the state, Legal or cultural environment. The Mimetic form is when companies copy HR models from other companies operating on the same line of business and accept it as the standard form of practice against various uncertainties. The last model is the Normative and it is a pull resulting from the professionalization functions or widely accepted HR practices (Brewster et al, 2007).
Whereas the disadvantage points are the problem with the adaptability of expatriates to the foreign environment and the high cost incurred by the parent company to the selection and training of expatriates (Dowling & Welch, 2005). The process of selecting the right person to the right position is crucial to the success of the oversees mission and it is to noted that an expatriates success in one environment does not imply that the same expatriate will fill gaps in all circumstances (Brewster & Harris, 1999).
To this end, In order to select an expatriate for an international assignment, Dowling & Welch (2005) have set six basic factors which may assist managers in the process. As individual factors they have set Technical ability, cross cultural suitability and family requirements are listed essential while in as situational factors country or cultural requirements, language and MNE requirements need to be analysed and considered in the selection process. In another perspective Schneider and Barsoux (1997) list nine point they believe are important for the selection process. They are interpersonal skill, linguistic ability, ability to tolerance and cope up with uncertainty, motivation to work and live abroad, flexibility, patience and respect, cultural empathy, strong sense of self and sense of humour. (Dowling & Welch, 2005)
