BUSM4187 International HRM: how do you plan each assessment?

Direct answer: The course tests whether you can evaluate the strategic role of HR in international settings, identify the issues a multinational faces when it manages people abroad, and apply IHRM theory to recommend what a firm should do. Each of the three assessments targets a different mix of the five course learning outcomes.

The handbook entry frames the course around a business problem: "How to effectively manage global human resources is the key for business success" (RMIT University, n.d.). It names four functional areas, "staffing, performance management, management development, and reward and remuneration", and four trends, "global talent management, global mobility, global mentoring system, and managing global virtual teams" (RMIT University, n.d.). Those eight topics are a reliable map of what your task sheets will draw on.

The RMIT course handbook gives the assessment structure.

Source: RMIT University course handbook, course 001377, read 2026-10-27.

CLO4 appears in both written tasks and asks you to "Apply relevant International HRM theories and concepts in managing people in an international environment" (RMIT University, n.d.). The verb apply means a theory has to change your recommendation, so a theory section that sits apart from the case analysis earns little.

Direct answer: Start from the firm's strategy, then decide who should fill key roles in each subsidiary: staff from headquarters, local managers or the best person from any country. Argue the choice with the costs and risks of each option for that firm, and show what would make you change your recommendation.

Perlmutter (1969) described three orientations that still organise most IHRM textbooks. An ethnocentric firm sends parent-country managers to run subsidiaries, a polycentric firm hires host-country managers to run local units, and a geocentric firm looks for the best candidate regardless of nationality. In a BUSM4187 International HRM report, these labels are only a starting point, because real firms mix them by role and by market.

A practical test is to ask what each subsidiary needs from its manager. Where the parent company must protect technology or control quality, headquarters staff may be justified. Where success depends on local customers, regulation and language, a host-country manager is usually stronger. CLO3 asks you to "Assess the impact of International HRM strategy and practice on organisational goals, structures, and concerns" (RMIT University, n.d.), so state which goal the staffing choice serves.

Source: illustrative comparison written by MAAS for this guide, based on the orientations in Perlmutter (1969).

Direct answer: Treat an international assignment as a cycle with four stages: selection, preparation, support abroad and return. Identify the stage where the firm in your case is failing, use evidence to show the cost of that failure, and recommend a change at that stage rather than a general list of best practices.

An expatriate assignment fails for reasons that start long before the move. Caligiuri, De Cieri, Minbaeva, Verbeke and Zimmermann (2020) note that "Prior IHRM research has highlighted the difficulties presented by distance, in terms of employee selection, training, support, health and safety, as well as leadership and virtual collaboration." That sentence gives you an analysis checklist for any case.

Caligiuri et al. (2020) also argue that firms should select and develop people for cultural agility, naming "tolerance for ambiguity, resilience, and curiosity" as competencies to build. This lets you move from description to recommendation: if the firm selects expatriates mainly on technical skill, you can propose adding these competencies to selection and pre-departure training.

Global mobility now covers short assignments, commuter roles and remote work across borders, not only long postings. For culture, Hofstede's cultural dimensions are often used to compare the home and host country, but a strong answer explains which dimension actually affects the HR practice in question and acknowledges that national averages hide differences between individuals.

Direct answer: Decide which parts of the appraisal and pay system the multinational should standardise globally and which it should adapt locally, and justify each decision with the firm's goals and the host country's labour market. The balance between global consistency and local fit is the argument markers look for in this topic.

CLO1 asks you to "Evaluate the strategic and functional roles of HRM in various international contexts, especially in areas such as recruitment and selection, performance management, training and development, and compensation" (RMIT University, n.d.). For performance management, the useful question is who appraises a subsidiary manager, on what criteria and with what knowledge of local conditions. A target set at headquarters can punish a manager for a currency shock or a regulatory change outside their control.

Reward raises a similar tension. A global pay structure supports fairness and mobility between subsidiaries, while local pay keeps costs aligned with each labour market and matches what local competitors offer. A report on BUSM4187 International HRM earns credit when it picks a position for one job family, such as regional sales managers, and explains the trade-off, rather than describing every allowance a firm might pay.

Ground the analysis in documents you can cite, such as the company's annual report, its published code of conduct or credible business journalism. If your case firm operates in Vietnam, our BUSM2716 Managing Multinational Enterprises guide covers how to read its wider strategy before you judge its HR choices.

Direct answer: Choose one IHRM issue, such as leading a team spread across several countries, and divide the argument among members instead of dividing topics. End with a recommendation the firm could act on, because CLO5 asks for a "creative outcome" and CLO2 asks you to identify challenges, not only describe them.

CLO5 asks you to "Effectively work with others and communicate about a well-informed, theory-supported, timely, and creative outcome" (RMIT University, n.d.). Virtual teams are a strong topic for this task, because the evidence on preparation gaps is recent and specific.

Caligiuri et al. (2020) cite a 2018 survey of 1,620 employees from 90 countries in which "only 22% received training on how best to work in their geographically distributed teams, 90% of which had two or more cultures represented." Among team leaders in the same survey, "only 15% described themselves as 'very effective'" (Caligiuri et al., 2020). Those figures let your group argue that training is the gap, then propose what the training should contain. The same editorial adds that fewer than 20% of those leaders had been trained to lead from a distance, that a 2019 EY survey of 500 board members and CEOs found only 20% believed their companies were prepared for a large adverse risk, and that a March 2020 Gartner survey of 800 global HR executives found 88% of organisations had encouraged or required staff to work from home (Caligiuri et al., 2020).

One workable structure: define the team and its countries, present the evidence on the gap, apply a cultural or staffing framework, and finish with a costed training or selection change. Our graded presentation rubric guide explains how markers usually split marks between content and delivery.