Socialist Legacies of Personnel and Human Resource Management in European Transition Economies : An Analytical Review

Transcription

1 Socialist Legacies of Personnel and Human Resource Management in European Transition Economies : An Analytical Review NORIO HORIE CENTER FOR FAR EASTERN STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF TOYAMA (JAPAN) KAZUHIRO KUMO INSTITUTE OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH HITOTSUBASHI UNIVERSITY (JAPAN) WORLD CONGRESS OF COMPARATIVE ECONOMICS SESSION JUNE 2015 ROMA TRE UNIVERSITY, DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS ROME (ITALY)

2 Aim of the research The Central and Eastern European countries are the new frontier to develop the new research in HRM. Basic questions in this paper The transition to the market economy did not derive from institutional vacuum but depends on a dense and complex institutional legacy. How is the socialist personnel management legacies in ETEs placed in the research on the transition 25 years later? Is the legacy called socialist personnel management a problem? Does it continue to be an important subject of consideration even today? What are they attempting to abandon specifically and what do they consider as strategic resources, and what form of HRM are they aiming to pursue?: These are not clear. Needs to conduct analytical survey research on personnel and human resource management that places contextually the transition experienced by the ETEs.

3 Literature Review Methods How we pick up articles from databases Web of Science and EconLit databases for the published literature that has been registered from 1989 to 2013 a combination of two terms including one from human resource management (HRM) or personnel management and another one from transition, transition economies, postsocialist, post-communist, or any of the names of the 21 Central and Eastern European countries. The number of listed references: 209 articles

4 Identification of the Extracted Basic References (Transition matters!) Identification of the articles that specifically focused the context of transition from a socialist economy or management to a capitalist economy or management among 209 listed references Method to identify the extracted basic references: 3 structures in each article; an introductory part, an analysis part, and a conclusion part We identified the articles that mention the factors related to the transition in even one of three structures were selected. The number of the extracted basic references: 83 articles

5 Research Attributes of the Extracted Basic References:Publication Year 9 the extracted basic references

6 Location of the Institutional Affiliations of the First Authors and their research target regions Table 1 Location of the Institutional Affiliations of the First Authors Region U.S. U.K. ETEs Others Number of references Percentage 26.50% 21.70% 31.30% 20.50% Source: Prepared by the authors. Table 2 Region Former Soviet Union Central Europe Southeast Europe Research Target Regions Country Number of references Russia 26 Belarus 2 Ukraine 3 Moldova 1 Poland 17 Hungary 5 Czech Republic 13 East Germany 1 Slovakia 6 Rumania 6 Bulgaria 4 Slovenia 11 Serbia 1 Bosnia-Herzegovina 1 Subtotal of the number of references by target region % Former Yugoslavia 1 Baltic States All the European transition economies Estonia 5 Lithuania 5 Latvia Total Source: Prepared by the authors.

7 Research Target Industries Socialist legacies embedded in the dominant industries in the period of the former Soviet Union. the mining industry the manufacturing industry traditional tertiary industries Modern tertiary industries Table 3 Research Target Industries Industrial classification Total number of articles Percentage of the total number of articles Mining industry % Manufacturing industry % Traditional tertiary industry % Modern tertiary industry % Others (Industry: not specified) % Source: Prepared by the authors.

8 Determinants of the Transition Encoding what are assumed to be problems of the socialist period and what constitutes the problem of the transition. 3 categories of determinants of the transition the issues on personnel and human resource management practices the issues on cultural legacies the other issues

9 Distribution of the Determinants of the Transition Table 4 Distribution of the Determinants of the Transition Transition mode Group of problems on personnel and human resource management policies Group of problems on cultural legacies Group of other problems Major ETEs before participating in the EU (before 2003) No. of articles Percentage 29.40% 40.70% 45.50% Major ETEs after participating in the EU (after 2004) No. of articles Percentage 70.60% 59.30% 54.50% Total number of references Source: Prepared by the authors.

10 Category 1: the issues on personnel and human resource management practices The introduction of Western HRM practices and the transition from socialist personnel management to modern HRM are the common central targets Very few extracted basic references on analyses related to the relationship between HRM practices and corporate performance

11 Category 2: the issues on cultural legacies p the cultural aspects such as the national, corporate, and management culture as well as the attitudes and values of the managers and employees p a collectivist value system with strong socialist characteristics p the extreme clientelism of the communist system p authoritarian and hierarchical, inequitable power system p communist egalitarianism p a unique time perspective and a unique set of subcultures embedded in socialism p Soviet mentality, and personality( homo sovieticus )

12 Ctegory 3: The other issues p external environment and the institutional changes outside corporate organizations p underdevelopment of managerial labor market. p Management Style, Leadership, managerial turnover, Ownership etc.

13 Hypotheses H1: The research on socialist legacies intends to explain the socialist personnel management in the transition economies by further focusing on the relative diversity of capitalism and that of personnel and human resource management. H2: The research targeting the former Soviet Union focuses more strongly on institutional legacies than the other research does. H3: The research on traditional industries inherited from the period of socialism focuses more strongly on institutional legacies. H4: Cultural legacies are an issue shared for all the European transition economies, which are not limited to the former Soviet Union countries, and are focused on without depending on the research target industries. H5: Participation in the EU by the research subject countries diminishes the research on socialist legacies.

14 Examination of H1 The articles citing Brewster have a relatively high frequency in relation to their focus on the legacies of socialist personnel management. For those citing Hofstede the frequency is low. The articles citing Hofstede to a relatively considerable extent focus on the group of issues on cultural legacies, although the frequency of the focus on the legacies of socialist personnel management was low compared to those not citing Hofstede. The articles citing Brewster to a significantly greater extent focus on institutional legacies while no correlations with cultural legacies were found.

15 H1: partly rejected The articles whose first authors work in US, the UK, or the ETEs to a relatively low extent focus on the legacies of socialist personnel management. The researchers who work in the United States, the United Kingdom, or the ETEs have a strong interest in cultural legacies. The belief: it is not institutional legacies but cultural differences that obstruct the penetration of global values and the implementation of HRM European authors except authors in the UK recognize the socialist institutional legacies as the very point of argument, while they recognize the cultural diversity of Europe as a matter of course. A part of Hypothesis 1 (H1) is rejected.

16 H2: rejected, H3: supported The group of issues on personnel and human resource management practices is very frequently explained in the traditional manufacturing industry. No significant examination results were obtained for the relations between the targeted country and the group of issues on personnel and human resource management. While Hypothesis 2 (H2) was rejected, Hypothesis 3 (H3) was supported.

17 H4 (cultural legacies shared for all), H5(EU int. abandoning socialist legacies) supported Cultural legacies have been widely considered as an important issue: Hypothesis 4 (H4) supported. The researches on the effect of cultural legacies of Socialism may lose their importance in association with the progress of EU integration: Hypothesis 5 (H5) supported Institutional legacies are an important research subject as common characteristics in the European Transition Economy countries.

18 Conclusion Even 25 years after the transition of ETEs, the cultural & institutional socialist legacies are still discussed continuously as an important issue in ETEs. There is a possibility that the divergence theory based on socialist cultural legacies may lose its importance in accordance with the qualitative integration with the EU economy. The effects of the institutional legacies will keep their importance in HRM studies in the ETEs.