New perspectives on human resource management in a global context

In the past three decades or so, globalization/regionalization, migration and reverse migration (also referred to as “brain circulation”), the ascendancy of emerging markets, the demand for people with a global mindset, and the worldwide war for talent have brought about fundamental changes to the nature, magnitude, and raison d’etre for human resource management (HRM) in a global context. These changes require us to adopt new lenses to fully understand the dynamics that impact international human resource management (IHRM) policies and practices. This paper presents new perspectives on IHRM as they relate to research on multicultural teams under the three dimensions of diversity (separation, variety, and disparity) posited by Harrison and Klein (2007), and brain circulation in the context of movement of peoples across countries. These perspectives go toward the traditional approach of studying expatriates, whether company-sponsored or self-initiated assignments. The paper discusses how these new perspectives can set the agenda for future research on IHRM.