Introductory Statement

Nowadays, it is becoming more and more evident that the Human Resource Management is gradually becoming more and more important aspect of the effective business handling. In contrast to the business structure of the previous centuries, the nature of production has become more human oriented that the production facilities focused. In other words, it has become natural that the key elements of almost any business entity nowadays are inherently connected to the staff of the company.  The professionals of the firm have become the crucial element of the business. This feature is relevant to all most rapidly developing industries nowadays. The lawyers, the catering business, the auditors and the IT sector is inherently connected with the development of the human resource infrastructure within the firm. To be more exact, the Human Resource department of the company is becoming the most important element of the business organization, alongside with the managerial and the legal departments of the company.

The importance of the Human Resource departments is especially essential for the effective business structures nowadays. The essentiality of this aspect is clearly demonstrated by the giants of the IT industry. To illustrate, the salaries received by the HR departments of the Microsoft and the Apple Corporations are comparable to the salaries received by the leading software projectors and software developers. Several companies, are even promoting the policy under which the Human Resource professionals are more well-paid and their compensatory package is considerably more significant that the package and consideration received by the leading professionals of the firm. Although this situation may sometimes seem to be discriminatory for the professionals of the firm, namely the Human Resource department of the firm is the crucial element of the best talents attraction and corporate culture cultivation.

Executive Summary

Present report is structured the way that enables the close review of the posed questions. First and foremost, the project closely analyzed the key aspects of the research conducted, highlighting the integrally important elements of the international and domestic Human Resource management. In accordance with the widespread scholarly opinion and contemporary international practice, it is strongly recommended that to apply theoretical issues in combination with the elements of the practice. More importantly, both the scholarly opinion and the practice is substantiated and adapted to the needs of the present research paper.

Key Areas of Research

With the rapid development of the contemporary modern technology, the importance of the progressive human resources management is gradually but steadily gaining its importance and actuality. Whereas the key factor of the production in  the early and late 20^th century was the number of production facilities and the elements.  The workers could have been easily substituted, if their manual labor for some reasons no longer fit the needs of the business  owner.                                                                                                                    

Nowadays, the owners of business hire the extensive and highly professional Human Resources departments in order to guarantee that the most qualified and the most talented employees have been attracted to be engaged in the industrial cycle of their companies.  This policy of the recruiting of the best cadres is dictated by the saturation of the market.  Almost in every country both the goods and the services are over-produced, and solely those companies who indeed manufacture the best commodities or render the most qualified services is more or less likely to keep afloat on the international business  arena.                         

Besides, it is particularly essential to highlight the ever emerging international character of the contemporary business. Joint ventures become a popular form of business conduct. Therefore, factors of international importance must be duly considered by the Human Resources Department of the business entities.                                                                

Fully realizing the nature of the contemporary business, it can be illustrated that there is a crying need of the modern business men to implicate the forces of the workers both within the country and to hire workforce from overseas. For instance, a vast majority of the software which is operable in the United States of America is being developed in India or Pakistan, by the  talented but by the less expensive software engineers of those countries.

Overall, the aim of this paper is to give a brief understanding of the major trends in the field of contemporary International Resource Management and to accentuate the main issues of this field of business.

Both international and domestic commercial practice together with the growing scholarly opinion explicitly indicate the fact that before any business venture is launched, the theoretical framework of all industry-related aspects shall be meticulously and attentively scrutinized by the managers and by the Human Resources department of the future venture.  Professor Herzberg in his How Do You Motivate Employees (2003) duly accentuates the fact that the effective Human Resource policy is the most integral aspect of the contemporary business conduct.  However, it is natural to assume that whilst the issues connected with the motivation concern both the productive and the managerial departments of the company, the aspects of the motivation strategy promoted by the company is inherently connected with the managerial chain of the firm.

Overall, the ultimate aim of this extensive theoretical background of the firm is to achieve the best industrial performance for the company and to accrue bigger profits for the company. Professor Buckingham (2005) has asserted that the improvement of the organizational effectiveness is inherently confined to the utilization of the existing managerial and motivation theories. The recent economic recession, which fully spanned the developed European and North American countries, as well as the rapidly developing oriental countries, is indeed the best illustration for the essentiality of the proper comprehension and more importantly proper utilization of the motivation concepts and motivational theories (Hallowell 2005). To be more exact, those companies, which followed the postulates of these strategies managed to keep afloat and to stay in the business circles, while the vast majority of their competitors, especially those business structures, which behaved chaotically and without any substantiated theoretical justification of their managerial actions were either driven out from the economically narrowed markets or simply went bankrupt (Manion 2005). In contrast to them, the companies, which had poorer financial or HR resources, but which properly utilized the policies managed to survive and now, with the retreat of the global economic downturn are gradually increasing their industrial capacities (Nicholson 2003).

The aim of this paper is to provide an extensive exploration of the motivational theories, motivation styles with regard to the scholarly opinion discussed in conjunction with the contemporary, conventional commercial practice of the companies, and the causation of those concepts with the issues of effective industrial performance of the company.

Whatever analysis of the business entity is being conducted, the first step that must be closely followed by the analyst is the detection of the peculiarities and the individualities of the business structure, because namely this operation enables further conduct of the enterprise-related research (Alderfrer 1972).  Both the scholars and the practice manifest that the failure to comply with this requirement invariably leads to the deterioration of the business environment of the company, which may in the long run result in the bankruptcy of the firm.

Therefore, considering the following assumptions of the internal and external business atmospheres of the company, it can be recapitulated that the elaboration, the choice of the most appropriate ones, the justification and the utilization of the most relevant motivation styles and motivational theories is made on the basis of the “simple and ordinary” conditions as no extra peculiarities are found within the integral, internal, and external enterprise elements (Herzberg 2003).

Motivation Styles in the Period of Changes within the Organization

First and foremost, it is necessary to accentuate the fact that various types of the changes are likely to happen in the company.  The following types of changes, in accordance with the widespread scholarly opinion are likely to happen to almost any business institution operating in the retail market of the global community. Accordingly, the following managerial motivation styles are requested and admonished to be applied in the case of the changes in question:

The Layoffs of the Staff due to the Financial Distresses of Various Natures (the losses exceed the profits and in order to keep solvent the expenditures shall be diminished at any cost) or due to the technological improvements of the sectors.

This situation unequivocally demands the utilization of the combination of the authoritarian (also known as autocratic motivation style), and the participative (also known as democratic style) motivation approaches. Under the first concept and strategy of motivation the role of the manager, who is the ultimate decision maker is crucial to the efficacy of the decision making and the implementation of the decision. Moreover, the manager is the one who takes the decision solely substantiating the choice of the decision by his personal qualifications, experience, and skills (Manion 2005). This manager is the one, who bears the ultimate responsibility for the repercussions and the outcomes ensued from the fulfillment of the decision. Therefore, the manager is asked neither to have counseling from those who will be charged with the implementation of the decision nor with his own superiors who control and monitor his performance. 

The utilization of the first approach is necessary here due to the fact that the rest of the styles (the democratic, free-reins and target oriented method) do not guarantee that the personnel of the firm will be laid off ultimately. This decision always requires firmness and resolution, because sometimes there is a crying need to dismiss even those who have been loyal to the company for years and whose dismissal is painful for the owners of the firm ethically and emotionally. Therefore, this decision shall be taken once by the manager and this decision shall be ultimate and irrevocable in its nature. Providing these requirements is observed, it can guarantee that the safe environment of the business is saved (Morse 2003). 

However, the personification of those, who are subjects to the dismissal, shall be necessarily attributed to the section of participative motivation style. In other words, although, it may indirectly exercise the negative impact on the healthy collaboration of the team in future, the members of the staff shall be involved in the process of deciding who shall be dismissed. This strategic concept is especially important, when the qualifications of the professional engaged in the specific industries are outwardly equal and, therefore, the choice of the one who shall be fired cannot be reasonably substantiated. In this case, the application of the participative (although known as cooperative motivation) strategy will help the managers to shift the responsibility for the personalized dismissals to the general staff of the company.

Overall, it can be recapitulated that when the organizational changes of the company necessitate, the number of the active employees shall be curtailed; the best way to accomplish it is to refer to the combination of the authoritarian and the participative motivation strategies (Hallowell 2005).

The Restructure of the Company Leads to the Increase of the Number of Employees Due to the Production Expansion or Other External and Internal Factors

Very often the economic situation of the enterprises engaged in the retail trade sector increases the number of the active employees of the company. Mostly, this situation arises when the ever-growing influx of the customers and the popularity of the specific markedly represented good or service dictate that the facilities of the firm are to be expanded. In other words, this situation occurs when the demand rises and there is no other way to comply with the growing demand rather than to focus the attention of the company on the increase on the number of both the production staff and the managers of the firm (Morse 2003).

This situation definitely requires the implication of the autocratic and the engaging styles of motivation. The autocratic style is substantiated by the need to hire new employees. In this case, the existing employees of the company shall not question and their opinion shall be under any conditions disregarded by the managers of the firm. The unanimous scholarly opinion and the domestic UK as well as the international practice are that all pending employees of the firm and are always against the recruitment, so the new staff. This paradoxical trend is often generated by the growing apprehensions of the firm staff, if the new people arrive, their own salary packages and the bonuses will be diminished by the necessity to finance the activity of the new people.  Therefore, it is natural to assume that the decision to hire the new staff will not be approved by the existing employees of the firm.

The Application of the Motivational Theories within the Workplace

Contemporary domestic and international commercial practice together with the opinion of the scholars carefully identifies the trend that the motivational theories shall be indeed applied in the business development and subsequent expansion of the business structures. As it has already been mentioned in the introductory statement of this paper, the failure to comply with this requirement may lead to catastrophic results for the company. In other words, those companies, which have decided on the chaotic motivational approaches, are permanently on the verge of the bankruptcy, the staff turnover is higher and the retention of the most qualified and talented members of the staff. The relevance and substantiation of this assumption was proven during Great Depression in the United States of America during the 1995 economic recession in Europe and during the latest 2008-2010 financial downturn in Europe.

The Employees Theory and its Vitality for the Purposes of the Present of the Present Case Study

Generally, two aspects are subjects to close analysis. First and foremost, extrinsic factors are relevant for the examination. In other words, the salaries, the bonus packages, the holidays and the availability of the day-offs and the presence of the post-employment bonuses. The intrinsic aspects of this theory mandate that in order to inspire and to motivate the employees of the firm to further accomplishments and to raise their dedication and loyalty to the firm, their subjective needs, like promotion, sense of competiveness, equal attitude, gender, racial, and social equality principles are to be carefully observed (Nicholson 2003).

For the purposes of the present situation, the most effective theory is the one discussed.  Naturally, the employees of the firm are routinely encouraged and admonished by the managers to achieve their personal and the corporate goals, and the application of this theory is the best tool to accomplish these goals in the context of retail trade business of the UK.

Conclusions

Having recapitulated the main points of the discussed issue, it can be reasonably assumed that effective management is the issue of top importance as far as the effective business environment of the company is concerned. With the increasing importance of the human resource oriented industries of the global economy, the essentiality and relevance of the Human Resource management shall not be underestimated in any case by both the scholars’ and the business practitioners nowadays.                                                                             

As far as the approaches are concerned, the most efficacious method does seem to be geocentric staffing approach of the personnel composition. Another important element relating to the discussed issues is the necessity to distinguish between the human resource policy and the personnel management  , as these aspects are completely different in their nature. While personnel policy is focused on the development and improvements of the all staff of the enterprise, the Human Resource policy aim is to guarantee that the professionals who contribute to the development of the firm are treated properly and that all conditions of the effective employment are observed. Besides, this element of the business structure is to guarantee that all necessary conditions have been created in order to ensure that the brightest talents can be engaged and retained in the company.