IB SEMINAR FEEDBACK

BY DINH THI NGOAN – PHD08

Ngoandt@ftu.edu.vn

I took part in the international Business Seminar with my dear professor and
classmates and the following ideas are feedbacks for the IB Seminar.

Regarding the first point, I think “international” dimension developed in the seminar
is important to me with my research field of human resources. Firstly, international
dimension is useful from the side of human resources management. For example,
human resources managers have to pay attention to human resources policies in
international economic environment and global context. Secondly, in International
Business, firms go through roughly five stages from domestic operations, export
operations, subsidiaries or joint venture, multinational operations to transnational
operations, which are five main stages of a company internationalizing their business.
Accordingly, human resources managers need to know how to utilize glogal human
resources to achieve the objectives of the organzation regardless of geographic
bounderies. In each stage, the human resources must have certain qualities which
enable companies to achieve their goals, which can be done through human resouces
process of panning, recruitment and selection. Moreover, because each company is
different and is a specific case, each company needs a different global training and
development based on the type of staff member that the company is employing. This
is also a very challenging task for human resources managers. Besides, there are many
other aspects which should be viewed from international dimension from companies
to companies like global compensation and benefits, global safety and health and so
on.

During the seminar, there are several concepts which are useful to my own research of
human resources. The concepts that I find impressive are first landing, go native and
multinational. These are cocepts I know from my teacher when he shares knowledge
with us in the seminar. First landing is a stage in which the company capitalizes its
specific advantages by using its capabilities and competences to succeeed in domestic

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market. And in this stage, technological, marketing or finanancial strength can be such
advantages. In the second stage, companies can move their production and selling
capacities into different markets. Therefore, they have to adapt to the characteristics of
each market by using particular strategies and operating modes. And the last one is
multinational. It is when companies have to utilize global advantages and use global
strategy to become a multinational. Accordingly, human resources managers of
companies also need to adjust the human resources management of the companies
according to the stage that the company is in. Understanding this, HR managers can
help to choose the right people for the right position, which leads to lower level of
turnover, which is one aspect of my research. Moreover, for fresh graduates whose
experence is thin, good HR management can bring them suitable training to make
them qualified in their job.
The article I find the most interesting is the presentation of Ms Tu with the article
named the cultural relativity of organizational practices and theories by Geert
Hofstede. The issues addressed in the article are very critical including four cultural
dimensions and how to develop culture score index that compares cultures between
different countries using scores for each dimension. Regarding cultural dimensions,
there are strong differentiations between 4 pairs of individualism vs collectivism,
small vs large power distance, weak vs strong uncertainty avoidance, masculinity vs
femininity. These mean that people are separate individuals and should be treated as
separate individuals. One of the important point from culture score index in the
emphasis on the importance of cultural differences. Specifically, managers , including
HR managers need to be culturally sensitive. This means that all the policies they set,
all the actions they take needs the consideration of cultural issues even if it is the way
they choose employees or treat them to boost the performance of the companies in the
global competitve economic environment. The article also brings about the
implication for employee motivation which is one of the important issues in my
research topic because it is the factor which partly affects fresh graduates’ job
statisfaction and it may lead to turnover intention.
From my presentation about my doctoral research, I have gained a new way of
looking at my research thanks to my teachers’ comments which I find very useful and

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highly appreciate. What I intended to do is using quantitative research method with
400 questionnaires with fresh graduates of IT major In the study, 400 fresh graduate-
new employees will take part in answering questionnaires in two periods: before
graduating and a quarter later when they have become newly recruited employees.
Just before graduating (period 1), fresh graduates will complete questionnaires
answering factors related to some aspects like payment and working condition that
they expect to get. A quarter later (period 2), follow-up questionnaires will be sent to
them. This time, they will answer all questions related to the actual situation of some
factors such as payment and working environment. The discrepancy between
expectation in period 1 and the actual situation in period 2 will be proposed as the
unmet expectation for new employees. In the same time, questions related to job
satisfaction and turnover intention would also be addressed on them. However, thanks
to the teachers’ feedbacks, now I have made some changes. Firstly, for the period of
study – period 2, a quarter seems to be not enough, 1 year or more after fresh
graduates have done their job is the suitable amount of time for more acccurate
information and an 1-year period is long enough for fresh graduates to five their
correct feelings and thoughts about their unmet expectations, job satisfaction and
turnover intention. The second change is that I will combine quantitative with
qualitative research method for a better result and have a bettter look from both sides:
fresh graduates and HR managers. I will deliver questionnairs based on the available
framwork to fresh graduates as my initial intention. Apart from that, I will choose to
use in-depth interviews with HR managers to exploit their observation and experience
to know more about the phenomenon of leaving attention that managers can observe
from fresh graduates and the average amount of time that fresh graduates stay in the
organization ect. By doing this, I can provide comprehensive implications for HR
managers in retaining fresh graduates and limit turover rate in companies as well
implications for higher education institutions in making changes in their curriculum to
equip fresh gradutes with better knowledge, experience and adaption skills.
I like the way the instructor designs the seminar with mini-lectures with Q & A and
learners’ presentations with power point files shown with the help of head projector. It
is a good way for people to make their own presentations and link their own doctoral

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research with the subject and spend more time considering their topic of research
seriously to make changes and improvements. However, the number of hours for the
whole course is only 12 hours in two day makes both instructor and learners feel short
of time for discussion and exchanging ideas. All articles were sent beforehand and all
slides were sent after the lesson had finished helped us a lot in understanding the
subject as well as the related issues. To sum up, I think it is a useful subject for me,
and I have learnt quite a lot from the professor and the other classmates. Thank you
for the time, efforts and enthusiasm you spent with us.