HRM in Transition Economies: The Case of Serbia

• Authors: Biljana Milikić , Nebojša Janićijević , Mirjana Petković
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

While the convergence vs. divergence debate has gained broad recognition among both HRM scholars and practitioners, it seems that a closer insight into current HRM developments in the South Eastern European transition economies has yet to be achieved. This paper, therefore, aims to highlight current HRM practices in Serbia and address possibilities for implementing the North American HRM model in a highly incompatible cultural setting. Investigation of HRM practices in Serbia is based on the "CRANET survey on Strategic International HRM" (Brewster et al., 2004) and on interviews with the HR managers of 38 randomly selected companies operating in Serbia. The Serbian national culture has been included a priori in the initial research design as an explanatory variable. Research findings suggest that both the incompetence of HR managers and professionals, as well as a slow-moving transition, need to be carefully considered to explain the distinctiveness of HRM in transition economies. On the other hand, national culture seems to be a key obstacle to the achievement of full convergence of performance appraisal and performance-related pay.

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: South East European Journal of Economics and Business
• Year: 2008
• Volume: 3
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 75-88

Dates

published

2008-11-01

online

2008-12-22

Contributors

author

Biljana Milikić

• Faculty of Economics, Kamenička 6, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia

author

Nebojša Janićijević

• Faculty of Economics, Kamenička 6, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia

author

Mirjana Petković

• Faculty of Economics, Kamenička 6, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10033-008-0017-5