Abstract
Business across national borders has become inevitable for companies whose activities are expanding internationally. In the twenty-first century, international businesses must necessarily employ the cross cultural differences to ensure business success and generate competitive advantages. China as a major emerging market offers MNEs huge potential for their future growth. Cross cultural business functions have proved to be a major challenge for many Western based businesses, operating in China. This research paper examines are cultural factors affecting the western companies HRM practices transfer to China through three main hypotheses. The studies of Hofstede's five cultural dimensions, organizational cultural dimensions and practical cultural differences between Ireland and China, and Tompenaar's basis of cultural differences, along with theoretical HRM practices are the main literature reviews in support of this research, all of which have identified the importance of cultural differences and awareness cross national borders. Kerry Group Ireland is taken as a case study to examine the actual HRM practices transferred to its Chinese subsidiary influenced by the cultural differences. By employing qualitative research methodology and in-depth and telephone interview, the researcher has obtained relatively large amount and high quality of data from HR managers, assistant managers, operational managers, employees in Kerry Ireland and China, also valuable information is generated from staff in organizations who are members in Ireland-China Society. It takes more than three months for the researcher to collect, compile and analyze the research data, the findings are discussed under hypothesis 1 and 3, which are supported and separately with hypothesis 2, that is not fully supported and the overall research findings can be described as certain cultural forces lead Kerry group to adopt local practices to a point, they also point to a considerable degree of HRM transfer.
