Abstract
The success of the American firms and the rapid economic growth of the country seem to give significant emphasis on the US way of managing a business. Seen as part of management, the US strategic human resource management models are often considered to be the best practice and the key to success. However, US companies may experience difficulty while trying to settle abroad or foreign companies may face unexpected managerial difficulties when trying to implement the US models at home. Indeed Chris Brewster argues that the US human resource management (HRM) models are not exportable to Europe. In the first part we will explain why the US models can be difficult to export, what are the major differences between the organizational features and working habits in the US and in Europe; then we will try to find some evidence that in reality the US HRM model is exportable to Europe to some extent. As Chris Brewster argues, “generalization is inevitable in any internationally comparative work”. This essay is trying to show the differences between Europe and America but one must remain aware of the differences between organizations, within sectors or within a region or a country (Brewster, C (1995) first quarter, Towards a ‘European' model of human resource management, Journal of International Business Studies, pp1-21).
