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However, the most interesting and important story, here, may be told by the

thousands of small to medium-sized firms (SMEs) that sell all types of products and

services in other countries, supply materials and parts or services or do subcontracted

or licensed manufacturing for firms from other countries, or distribute products from

manufacturers in or own franchises from countries other than their own. And withthe advent of sales via credit cards and the internet, and the improving ability to ship

parcels from source country to country of the customer via services like UPS and

Federal Express, anyone can sell any product to anyone else, anywhere in the world.

And they are. And it involves business activity of every sort.

Because most early international business was conducted by firms involved in

extraction (oil, mining) or manufacturing for export (often manufactured from

imported raw materials), much of the writing about international business has been

from the perspective of industrial enterprises. (The evolution of international business

is covered in more detail in the next chapter, as it relates to the development of

international business and HR strategy.) But today the reality is that every type of

firm is conducting or can conduct business internationally. And in doing so every

type of firm becomes more involved in the internationalization of human resource

management.

The internationalization of Human Resource Management

The above paragraphs make the point that business is global. All aspects of the

enterprise are affected. This book is about one specific function of business, the

international nature and implications of the management function termed human

resource management (HRM). Thus the focus of this text is International HRM

(IHRM). The more broadly defined field of IHRM is about understanding,

researching, applying and revising all human resource activities in their internal and

external contexts as they impact the process of managing human resources in

enterprises throughout the global environment to enhance the experience of multiple

stakeholders, including investors, customers, employees, partners, suppliers,

environment and society.

As the global economy expands, as more products and services compete on a global

basis and as more and more firms operate outside their countries of origin, the impact

on various business functions becomes more pronounced. Practitioners in all business

functions must develop the knowledge, skills, and experience in the international

arena which will enable them and their firms to succeed in this new environment. This

new reality is just as true (if not more so, as this book will demonstrate) for the HRM

function as it is for other business disciplines, such as finance or marketing, which

often get more attention. The purpose of this book is to describe the knowledge, skills,and experiences necessary for the successful management of the IHR function, a

function that is increasingly performed by all employees in companies, including

HR professionals (in the HR department), managers and non-managers (see Sparrow

et al., Globalizing Human Resource Management, in this series).

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