Which Combinations of Human Resource Management and National Culture Optimize Government Effectiveness?

Phil Kim¹

, Ran Kim², Tobin Im³^,^*

¹Postdoctoral fellow, Center of Intelligent Society & Policy, Seoul National University, Email: feeling1@snu.ac.kr

²Ph.D, Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University, Email: rkim559@snu.ac.kr

³Professor, Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University, Email: tobin@snu.ac.kr

^*Corresponding author: Professor, Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University, Email: tobin@snu.ac.kr

ⓒ Copyright 2022 Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Sep 16, 2021; Accepted: Jan 09, 2022

Published Online: Mar 31, 2022

Abstract

Despite the need for culturally-grounded public sector management practices, only a few studies have empirically investigated the compatibility between HRM practices and national culture. This study used fsQCA to investigate ‘bundles’ of HRM practices (recruitment, appraisal, and compensation) and Hofstede’s original four dimensions of national culture as antecedent conditions for government effectiveness in 30 OECD countries. We found that performance-based appraisal, compensation and informal recruitment form a causal relationship with high individualism and low uncertainty avoidance for stronger government effectiveness. The results imply that local national culture is an important context for the transferability of public management practices.

Keywords: Human Resource Management; government effectiveness; national culture; Qualitative Comparative Analysis