[Our translation: ‘One of the ways in which to ensure correct
evaluation is to carefully specify to each employee their objec-
tives. These will then form the basis of the assessment. These
objectives ‘must be clearly spelled out’. Our various informers
insisted on the fact that they had to be ‘proper’, ‘measurable’.
Hence, everyone will be judged on an undeniable basis, agreed
in advance as early and as well as is possible. Those who fulfil
their contract can be sure that they will be OK’.]D’Iribarne (1989) points out that, in the US, managers are free to fire or reward
employees within the boundaries of a ‘fair contract’. He contrasts the situa-
tion in the US factory with matched factories in France and in the
Netherlands. In France, the notion of a ‘contract’, psychological or other, is
not of primary relevance. Instead, D’Iribarne insists on a ‘logic of honour’. If
the manager has status and if his (more often than her) authority is consid-
ered justified (justification comes primarily through standards of education,
qualification and to a lesser extent through experience), then orders are
obeyed and all is well. If this ‘logic of honour’ is breached and the authority
of the manager is not established, employees will refuse to respond to orders,
or at the very least will display passive and active resistance to authority.
Furthermore, under pressure, people will not hesitate to shout and complain.
This is part of normal organisational life and is seen as a healthy, positive way
of communicating.
In contrast, D’Iribarne (1989) observes that the guiding organisational
principle in the Netherlands is consensus. There is a strong resistance to both
formal pressures exercised by managers (American style formalisation) and
informal pressures (French style shouting). Hence, the management of HR in
the Netherlands is centred on the principle of ongoing communication: talk-
ing, explaining. People accept orders if they understand them.
The examples from France and the Netherlands explored above are a far
cry from the manager’s ‘right to manage’ through the contractual perspective,
which is a feature of HRM in the US. What underpins the American perspec-
tive is the notion of theirs as the land of opportunity in which any individual,
through hard work or self-improvement, can be a success. These ideals of free-
dom and autonomy are reflected in:
- the private enterprise culture;
- the low interference from the state with low levels of support, subsidy or control
(especially compared to the role of the state in European countries); - the antagonism of management towards trade unions.
It is worth exploring each of these issues in a little more depth.
174 International Human Resource Management