Cultural Value Orientations and Employee Preference for HRM Practices in Northern European Countries: A Research Agenda on the Swedish Perspective

Globalization accelerates the transfer not only of products and services among nations but also management know-how and practice. Running parallel with this increasing globalization has brought a heightened sense of awareness about the importance of cultural values as a part of company’s personnel mission and an understanding of an impact of these values has become an operational necessity (David, 1989; Starkey, 1998). At the organisational level research highlights that employees working for similar firms regardless of their national origin are likely to culturally converge (Trompenaars, 1994). However, there is less empirical evidence to support this convergence debate, especially in the context of highly developed countries, like Sweden. Indeed, there is a need for understanding the behaviour of employees in developed countries by conducting empirical studies to highlight the cultural orientations associated with human resource management practices in organisations existing within a national context (Kluckhohn and Strodbeck, 1961). The intention of this abstract paper is to propose a future research agenda that examines the impact that individual national cultural value orientations have on the preference for HR policies and practices in Swedish organisations. Underlying patterns of Swedish value orientations will be thoroughly examined as well as the extent to which they explain employee work preference.