Examining the differential use of global integration mechanisms across HRM practices: Evidence from China

This paper examines how multinational corporations use different mechanisms to integrate four HRM practices in their foreign subsidiaries: financial compensation, performance appraisal, training and development, and recruitment and selection. Our analysis of 76 European-owned subsidiaries located in China reveal systematic differences in the use of integration mechanisms across the four HRM practices. The findings suggest that the usage of global integration mechanisms is contingent on the purposes of integration - headquarters control, and inter-unit coordination - as well as on the degree to which the mechanism is capable of responding to needs for local adaptation of the individual HRM practice in question. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.