Divergence

1. Definition
This slide talks about divergence. If convergence can be described as organizations who are becoming more similar, divergence is about organizations who are maintaining their culturally based dissimilarities. (McGaughey & De Cieri, 1999). Webber (1969: Cited in Ralston, 2008, p. 29) defined divergence as "... socio-cultural influence is the driving force that will cause individuals from a society to retain the specific values system of the societal culture through time, regardless of other possible influences, such as technological, economic and political change".

2. Examples of divergence
Divergence means the opposite, which is about organizations becoming dissimilar. The emphasize of this concept is in the importance of national management in the cultural and institutional context which disclaims the concept of 'best practices' in the convergence theory (Pudelko & Harzing, 2007). So, in the transfer of HR policies/practices to a subsidiary in a foreign country, divergence of HR is about recognizing the local environment and can be divided in two schools of thought.

American HRM has shareholder perspective, and European HRM has stakeholder perspective. This creates divergence between HRM of both markets. This divergence makes social context important in European HRM. European HRM aims to protect interests of society; therefore, there is involvement of social partners in European HRM. American HRM aims to protect interests of shareholders in firms. Thus,