Best Human-resource Management Practices in Latin America

Citation

Davila, A. (2010), "Best Human-resource Management Practices in Latin America", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 18 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/hrmid.2010.04418gae.003

Best Human-resource Management Practices in Latin America

Article Type: Suggested readings From: Human Resource Management International Digest, Volume 18, Issue 7

A. Davila and , M.M. Elvira (Eds) Routledge, 2009, ISBN: 9780415400626

Best Human-resource Management Practices in Latin America is relevant to human-resource management specialists in and beyond Latin America. Those working in clear legislative HRM environments and stable and secure societies will find the book a useful aid to decision-making when legislation and society do not provide guidance. The book also provides insights into why some Latin organizations support co-operative working as a means of dealing with complexity, rather than trying to control complexity as many Anglo-Saxon organizations attempt.

The book is made up of 14 chapters in a series of themes. The first theme is case studies in organizations applying “novel” HRM strategies in difficult environments – particularly multinational corporations that have to cope with stakeholders and activists in their home as well as host countries.

The second theme considers multinational corporations that have been particularly successful in managing people in Latin America. A notable lesson here is that it is not only in the USA and Europe that useful developments in HRM and other aspects of management occur.

A chapter on business schools highlights why some Latin American countries lose many of their best brains to the richer countries of the north. Richer nations are able to offer substantially higher pay to talented people, whose loss to Latin America contributes to the continued gap between developed and developing parts of the world.

Finally there is a chapter on the theoretical aspects of HRM.

Income inequality is greater in Latin America than any other region, so that 10 percent of the population has 48 percent of national income while the bottom 10 percent shares a total of 1.76 percent of national income. This, along with massive inequality in property rights, leads to disputes between the rich and poor in which multinational corporations and foreigners are caught.

However, the book demonstrates that, even in violent and uncertain environments, it is possible to operate at profit and to deploy world-class HR management systems and practices in Latin America. Part of the reason has been a move from ex-military HR people to people – mainly women – trained in social and psychological sciences. This has reduced confrontation and enabled more employee-oriented stances to be taken.

HR people accustomed to an equal-opportunity environment which values diversity may be shocked when dealing with recruitment in Latin America. Recruiters normally seek information from candidates on marital status, family background and number of children. The reason for asking for this information, which USA and European HRM specialists are normally forbidden to explore, is that for many Latin American organizations the person appointed is more than an employee but a “whole” person who is joining a family within the organization. Latin American employers are genuinely interested in their employees beyond their immediate work capabilities and consider that the Western view of equal opportunities leads to a narrow focus within the employment relationship. While undoubtedly some unfair discrimination does result from a concern with the personal and social background of candidates, there are advantages, to employees as well as employers, in having staff who are compatible with the group expectations and organizational culture.

Moving away from the operational aspects of HRM, chapter 4 highlights the importance of social responsibility rather than strategic HRM. Within much of Latin America, social innovation is required of many organizations which then have to find ways of combining economic efficiency and social equality. This is supported by contentions in chapter 13 (on business schools in the region) which also point out the greater resilience of managers in the region compared with those in the more stable environments of the USA. Perhaps it is this resilience that has helped many of the organizations, reviewed in the case study chapters, to achieve national and international standards of excellence by applying global best practices through sensible contingent actions.

The authors give cases of multinational corporations and local Latin companies that successfully deal with great social and environmental problems – and make a profit. A major factor in the success of these organizations is the shared commitment to work as a group and a community rather than as competing individuals. Western HR managers who have corporate social responsibility as part of their responsibility will find this book a useful source of inspiration and practical advice. It will help them to manage for the long term.

Reviewed by Wes Harry, Cass University School, City University, London.

A longer version of this review was originally published in Personnel Review, Vol. 39 No. 3, 2010.