(less developed countries). The term ‘developing’ is used (for example by the
United Nations) to describe a broad range of countries which include those
with both high and low per capita national incomes, which are heavily depen-
dent on primary production and normally lack an advanced industrialized
infrastructure, including education, health, communications and transport
facilities (Punnett, in press).
So within these definitions could be included all countries in the conti-
nent of Africa, in Latin America, South Asia, many parts of South East Asia and
Polynesia, and Central Asia including many of the former Soviet republics. One
could also stretch the point to include some of the transitional economies of
the former Soviet bloc in East and Central Europe, the newly industrialized
countries of East Asia, and much of the Middle East. China also is often
included in this category. It is difficult to provide a comprehensive account of
issues relating to HRM in all these countries in a short chapter. The main focus
here is on sub-Saharan Africa as an illustration of some of the specific issues
that need to be addressed, and these can equally be applied to many of the
other regions and countries that can be grouped under the somewhat pejora-
tive term ‘developing’.
The objectives of this chapter are to:
- review current perceptions of the management of people in the so-called devel-
oping countries within the literature; - challenge the concept of human resource management as it is perceived and
applied in such countries; - develop an understanding of management of people in such countries by focus-
ing on both historical and current international power relations, and on the
cross-cultural nature of human interactions in organizations in developing
countries; and, - suggest a more constructive approach to managing people in such countries that
takes into account the complexity of stakeholder interests and aspirations.
This is undertaken first by looking in Section 2 at the particular issues involved
in discussing HRM in developing countries, including the problems of adopt-
ing the developing–developed world paradigm and the need to understand this
in the context of cross-cultural theory. Section 3 then reviews the current liter-
ature, which tends to focus on a post-colonial inheritance. The need to chal-
lenge the concept of HRM in the context of developing countries is
subsequently considered in Section 4. The processes of cultural crossvergence
and hybridization need to be understood within this context, and this is the
focus of Section 5. From this discussion, Section 6 then makes recommenda-
tions about how more appropriate approaches to ‘people management’ may be
developed within ‘emerging’ countries, using terms that may address the
222 International Human Resource Management