Global Performance Reviews and the Challenge of Multiple Role Expectations and Firm Strategic Objectives: Lessons from Japan

Performance evaluations and expatriate assignments serve fundamental strategic purposes for organizations.  Alignment issues are paramount for firms in their quest to develop the dynamic capabilities needed in the human resource area.  These strategic objectives pose significant and challenging tasks for human resource and other managers in the global environment.  For example, two recent studies, one by Bruning, Bebenroth and Pascha (2011) and Tungli and Peiperl (2009) found that the perspective of the respondent (HR managers at home office in the Tungli & Peiperl study and expats and local managers in the Bruning et al. (2011) study) led to a different evaluation of functions that expats were expected to perform in their foreign location. In other words there was significant disagreement about the roles that expats should perform while on assignment.  The results of the Bruning et al. (2011) study of expatriates working in Japan will provide the basic empirical backdrop of this presentation on different role expectations and the challenge of developing reliable and valid global performance review systems of employees on expatriate assignments in different global locations.  These data also reaffirm the challenges that face managers in developing dynamic human resource capabilities and aligning those capabilities with the organizations strategic goals. Current research challenges in the area of global performance review systems will be explored and will include discussion of reasons why Japan presents a good context in which to examine global performance review systems.

N. Sue Bruning, Ph.D. is a Professor of Business Administration at the I.H. Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba in Canada.  Her teaching and research interests span a number of organizational behaviour areas with current research projects ongoing in the areas of health and safety climate; behavioural integrity and organizational change; global staffing strategies; workplace aggression; HRM practices in SME’s and organizational performance; and personality factors related to expatriate effectiveness.  She generally categorizes her research interests as studies on various aspects of work contexts, in particular management processes that are related to healthy organizations with a focus on individual outcomes.  Research design strategies have included quasi experimental designs, mixed methods, qualitative research and longitudinal survey designs.  Her research has been published in the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of International Business Studies, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Journal of Management and a number of other journals.