Strategic human resource management in the Asia pacific region: Similarities and differences?

This paper examines human resource management (HRM) policies within five countries in the Asia Pacific region – Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Philippines and Taiwan. We examine whether HRM in these countries is similar to the idealised model of strategic HRM, largely developed in the United States of America (USA), or whether HRM in this region has its own characteristics. We also investigate whether there are broad similarities or differences between the HRM policies of these countries. Drawing on data from the Cranet survey of comparative HRM, we found that HR practice within these five countries was indeed similar to strategic HRM, but that there were also important differences, both between Asia Pacific HRM and the general model of strategic HRM and between HRM in the five countries.