instrumentally themselves: seeing them purely as a means of survival, but
sometimes also to provide a means of pursuing other interests in the informal
economy. There is a lack of appreciation of a wider stakeholder base in societies
that traditionally have been community-oriented (e.g. Koopman, 1991).
Aligned with this lack of appreciation is a lack of questioning of the appropri-
ateness of ‘modern’ HRM methods, and a failure to incorporate the manage-
ment of multiculturalism. Training and development interventions are not the
only ways of addressing these issues, but appropriate training can be incorpo-
rated into facilitating the process of change and effective hybridization of peo-
ple management systems in emerging countries. We now discuss these issues
and make suggestions for developing effective and appropriate people man-
agement principles and practices.
Accommodating the interests of multiple stakeholdersAs a result of their adoption of structural adjustment programmes, and being
launched into a competitive global marketplace, companies in emerging coun-
tries may be becoming increasingly results-focused, as well as having the pri-
macy of shareholder value as their main strategic driver. For example, in South
Africa, Jackson (1999) found that managers saw their organizations as giving a
low priority to employees, managers and local community as stakeholders.
They saw their organizations as viewing quality and growth as important key
success factors but job satisfaction and success of affirmative action were con-
sidered to be of minimal importance as success factors. Yet organizations, to be
effective in South Africa and other emerging countries by all other measures
apart from profit and financial efficiency, may have to reflect the multiple
interests of a broader base of stakeholders, and incorporate these within the
strategic objectives of the organization.
In order to incorporate the interests of multiple stakeholders, it would
seem logical that organizations must have effective means to give voice to
those interests, and incorporate them within the dialogue of the organization,
its strategy, objectives, policies and practices. As we have seen, studies within
the ‘developing’ world see management as fatalistic, resistant to change, reac-
tive, short-termist, authoritarian, and risk reducing (Kanungo and Jaeger,
1990). With the influence of democratic processes from Western approaches to
management as well as from indigenous approaches, organizations in the
‘developing’ world generally may be looking towards more involvement of
their people in decision processes. Hence the current author found elements of
consultative management, but not participative management in South Africa
(Jackson, 1999). Organizations were seen as hierarchical, centralized, fairly
rule-bound yet having an element of consultative management.
It seems that lip service is being paid to participative management in
organizations. Often downsizing and de-layering leads to ‘empowerment’ of
HRM in Developing Countries 239