Abstract
Nowadays, each country has its own management style and possesses a culture which influences its decisions and business strategies. Moreover, organizations have to face a business environment that keeps getting more and more complex, where firms need to reply quickly and efficiently to changes in order to survive.
Indeed, the actual international context and the recent globalisation have a strong impact on the natures and the differences of HRM systems and practices in different countries.
In order to understand the importance of human resource management in today's modern economy, and to figure out how this latter can be influenced by national cultures, we are going to compare HRM systems and practices of two countries: France and Singapore.
In 1819, a British lieutenant governor named Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles arrived in the small island of Singapore and established a free trade port. Singapore grew in population and prosperity, and in 1824 came under the control of the British. Singapore's independence occurred in 1963, and new elections took place.
By the 1970s, after being largely dependent on Malaysia in terms of natural and also non-natural resources, the city-country became a world leader in shipping, air transport and oil refining, and has managed to maintain a good economic prosperity so far.
Singapore is now a parliamentary Republic, based on a Westminster system. The Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Hsien Loong, and his father, former Prime Minister, managed to develop Singapore into one of the safest, cleanest and most economically prosperous countries in Asia.
However, Singapore is well known for its strict rules, and many people believe that the country's prosperity has been achieved at the expense of individual freedoms.
Moreover, it is important to notice that there is only one major party in Singapore. Indeed, S. R. Nathan was declared president in 1999 without even an election as he was the only eligible candidate. In 2004, his party, the People's Action Party (PAP), won 82 out of 84 seats in the parliamentary elections.
