IBUS2002 International Human Resource Management
The Complete Exam Bible · S2 2026IBUS2002 Overview
- University of Adelaide
- Semester 2 2026
- Level 2
- 6 units
- In-person final exam
What IBUS2002 teaches
International Human Resource Management examines how multinational enterprises manage people across countries whose institutions differ. It begins with globalisation and asks whether the economy is truly global or only highly internationalised.
- Institutions explain the differences Law, bargaining, training and ownership explain why the same multinational manages people differently in each country.
- Two sections, two skills Short concept answers test breadth; the single essay tests depth supported by readings.
- Weeks 6 to 10 feed the essay Staffing, pay, supply chains, participation and diversity supply the Section B questions.
What you get in the full IBUS2002 Exam Bible
- 8 chapters, 46 pages — every examinable topic, week by week
- 21 original practice questions, each with a model answer in the Exam format
- 8 worked examples, solved the way IBUS2002 marks
- 13 computed figures, redrawn from the course’s own numbers
- Exam-morning plan for the Exam (50%) — what to revise last, where marks are lost
Free on this page: assessment table, chapter map, one worked example, key terms, FAQ. The rest is in the full exam bible.
How IBUS2002 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Case Study | 50% | Written analysis of a supplied multinational case, 2,500 words across three questions |
| Exam | 50% | Two-hour in-person exam: Section A short answers and Section B essay, each worth half |
The University of Adelaide 2026 course page lists Case Study at 50% and Exam at 50% for Semester 2, and the course materials describe a two-hour in-person exam with two equally weighted sections.
Assessment structure
What other students are asking about IBUS2002
- Where can I find lecture notes or study guides for IBUS2002 at adelaide?
- The IBUS2002 study guide in AskSia Library covers International Human Resource Management in 8 chapters, with the assessment table, a chapter-by-chapter topic map, key terms and a worked example, free to read on this page.
- Is there a final exam in IBUS2002, and how much is it worth?
- Yes. In the offering this AskSia Library guide is built from, Exam carries 50% of the IBUS2002 mark; the full split is Case Study 50%, Exam 50%.
- What does IBUS2002 cover on mnc strategy and human resource management?
- In AskSia Library's IBUS2002 guide, the MNC Strategy and Human Resource Management chapter explains orders of strategy, expansion motives, efficiency-seeking models and multinationals as political actors.
- What does IBUS2002 cover on comparing national systems of work and management?
- In AskSia Library's IBUS2002 guide, the Comparing National Systems of Work and Management chapter explains national business systems, varieties of capitalism, coordinated and liberal economies and why differences persist.
- What does IBUS2002 cover on home and host country effects on multinationals?
- In AskSia Library's IBUS2002 guide, the Home and Host Country Effects on Multinationals chapter explains perlmutter orientations, which practices follow home or host, forced ranking abroad and greenfield entry.
Current IBUS2002 dates
| Date | Item | Control |
|---|---|---|
| 16 September 2026 | Case study submission | Closing time 11:59pm, as stated in the case study brief. |
| 9 to 13 November 2026 | SWOT VAC | Study week before the exam period on the course roadmap. |
| 16 to 29 November 2026 | Exam period | Your individual exam session comes from the University timetable. |
Dates come from the Semester 2 2026 course roadmap and case study brief; confirm your exam session in the University timetable.
What IBUS2002 covers
Eight chapters move from globalisation and multinational strategy through national systems and practice transfer to staffing, pay and supply chain regulation.
Globalisation and Employment
Trade concentration, convergence and divergence, supply chains and who wins or loses from global workIs the economy really global?
The course starts by testing a familiar claim.
- Regional concentration of world trade
- Supply chains and the employment relationship
- Free market and race to the bottom readings
- Convergence and divergence
- Winners and losers in offshored professional work
MNC Strategy and Human Resource Management
Orders of strategy, expansion motives, efficiency-seeking models and multinationals as political actorsStrategy before people
Multinationals matter as employers because they control investment and job creation and choose where both go.
- Levels and orders of strategy
- Reasons for international expansion
- Labour-intensive and capital-intensive efficiency seeking
- Workforce segmentation
- Multinationals as political actors
Comparing National Systems of Work and Management
National business systems, varieties of capitalism, coordinated and liberal economies and why differences persistInstitutions still matter
Despite globalisation, national economic systems remain significantly different, and those differences shape how human resource management is carried out.
- National business systems
- Coordinated and liberal market economies
- Five spheres of coordination
- Complementarity, path dependency and comparative advantage
- Home institutions inside a Swedish multinational
Home and Host Country Effects on Multinationals
Perlmutter orientations, which practices follow home or host, forced ranking abroad and greenfield entryDo all multinationals follow one model?
The Week 4 materials answer no. Perlmutter's typology describes ethnocentric, polycentric and geocentric orientations, with a regiocentric orientation added later.
- Perlmutter's orientations
- Home and host country effects
- German and US ideal types
- Forced ranking across European subsidiaries
- Greenfield and brownfield entry
Transferring HR Practice Across Subsidiaries
Centralisation versus standardisation, coercive comparison, forward and reverse diffusion and HR centres of excellenceWho decides, and how alike?
Week 5 asks how multinationals coordinate HRM across countries. The first step is to separate two ideas the slides insist are related but different.
- Centralisation and decentralisation
- Standardisation and localisation
- Coercive comparison and benchmarking
- Forward and reverse diffusion
- HR centres of excellence and shared services
Global Staffing and Talent Management
Parent, host and third country nationals, assignment purposes, expatriate success factors and alternativesFilling key positions across borders
Global staffing, in the definition used on the Week 6 slides, concerns whether key jobs at headquarters and in subsidiaries go to parent, local or third-country staff.
- Parent, host and third country nationals
- Drivers of the staffing mix
- Demand-driven and learning-driven assignments
- Individual, organisational and contextual success factors
- Alternatives to long-term expatriation
Pay and Compensation in Multinationals
Forms and levels of pay, collective and legislative regulation, standardisation trends and staff group logicsWhy pay is contested
The Week 7 slides treat pay as mostly zero-sum between workers and owners or managers.
- Why pay is political
- Forms and levels of pay determination
- Collective, legislative and deregulated regulation
- The trend towards standardisation
- Pay logics for different staff groups
Regulating Work in Global Supply Chains
Public regulation, codes and audits, framework agreements and the Bangladesh Accord and Alliance comparedResponsibility at arm's length
Week 8 shifts from well-paid managers to the lower-paid workers who make goods in multinational supply chains.
- Arguments for and against MNC responsibility
- Power in production and consumption relations
- Public regulation, private governance and framework agreements
- The Rana Plaza collapse
- The Accord and the Alliance compared
It then explains how multinational strategy decides where firms locate and why human resource choices usually follow from those decisions.
The course compares national business systems through the varieties of capitalism lens, contrasting coordinated and liberal market economies, and uses that comparison to explain why practices change shape when they cross borders.
From systems to practice
The middle of the course studies home and host country effects, Perlmutter's orientations, the difference between centralisation and standardisation, and the way practices diffuse forward from headquarters or backward from subsidiaries.
Cases include a US engineering firm whose global forced ranking system was bent by British, French and German institutions, a Swedish multinational that imported Anglo-American pay, and an Irish subsidiary whose HR reorganisation became a global shared services model.
Managing the global workforce
The second module turns to global staffing, expatriate success and talent management, pay and compensation across national regulatory regimes, and how work is regulated along global supply chains.
The supply chain topic uses the Rana Plaza disaster to compare public regulation, private codes and audits, and international framework agreements, including the binding Bangladesh Accord and the voluntary Alliance. Throughout, the course asks students to avoid culture as a catch-all explanation and to show how institutions shape what managers can do and what workers experience.
Worked example · free
Classify three headquarters approaches with Perlmutter's orientations
- 2Classify Firm A from its home country orientation.
- 2Classify Firm B from its host country orientation.
- 2Classify Firm C and contrast it with a global orientation.
- 2State one limit of the typology with an example.
Key terms
- Globalisation
- Globalisation is the growing integration of economies through trade, investment, production and technology, which in this course is shown to be uneven and concentrated by region.
- Convergence
- Convergence is the expectation that global competition pushes national work practices and employment relations towards a common model.
- Divergence
- Divergence is the persistence or growth of national differences in work practice because institutions filter global pressures.
- Unit labour cost
- Unit labour cost combines the level and adjustability of labour costs with labour quality and productivity to measure cost efficiency.
- Varieties of capitalism
- Varieties of capitalism is a comparative approach that classifies national economies by how firms coordinate wages, training, finance, inter-firm and employee relations.
- Path dependency
- Path dependency means earlier institutional choices constrain later options, so national systems change along existing tracks.
- Country of origin effect
- A country of origin effect is the influence of a multinational's home business system on how it manages people abroad.
- Reverse diffusion
- Reverse diffusion is the bottom-up transfer of a practice from a foreign subsidiary to headquarters or other units of the multinational.
- Coercive comparison
- Coercive comparison is the use of cross-site performance benchmarking to reward strong subsidiaries with investment and pressure weak ones.
- Parent country national
- A parent country national is an employee from the multinational's home country working in a foreign subsidiary.
- Psychic distance
- Psychic distance is an individual's perception of the cultural differences between home and host country and their effect on the assignment.
- International framework agreement
- An international framework agreement is a negotiated accord between a multinational and international union federations setting labour standards for its operations.
- Political CSR
- Political CSR describes multinationals setting and monitoring standards themselves, for example through codes of conduct and social audits, where public regulation is weak.
IBUS2002 FAQ
How hard is International Human Resource Management?
The difficulty lies in analysis rather than memory. Half the course mark is an in-person exam where Section B expects an essay of at least about 500 words supported by readings, and the exam briefing says repeating lecture notes is insufficient. Section A then tests precise definitions across nine weekly topics, of which you answer five.
How is the course assessed in Semester 2 2026?
The University course page lists two components. The Case Study is worth 50% and required written analysis of a supplied airline group case across three questions. The Exam is worth 50% and runs for two hours in person, with Section A short answers and a Section B essay each carrying half of the exam.
What does Section A of the exam involve?
Section A offers nine questions, roughly one from each week, and you answer five. Only your first five answers are marked. Each answer should be about 100 to 150 words and is worth up to 10 per cent of the exam, so precise definitions with a mechanism and an implication score best.
Which topics feed the Section B essay?
Section B draws its five questions from Weeks 6 to 10, the topics not covered by the case study. That means global staffing, pay and compensation, supply chain regulation, workplace participation and representation, and equality and diversity. You answer one question and should support it with core and several supplementary readings.
Why does the course avoid culture as an explanation?
The course focuses on the relationship between HRM and institutional factors, and the opening workshop explicitly warns against using culture as the explanation. Law, collective bargaining, training systems and ownership patterns give testable reasons why multinationals manage people differently, which makes arguments sharper than appeals to national character.
What is the difference between home and host country effects?
Home effects come from the multinational's country of origin, where its practices and many senior managers developed. Host effects come from the countries it enters. Research cited in the course finds home influence strong for training, direct involvement and payment systems, and host influence strong for wage setting, hours, contracts and employee representation.
Why is pay difficult for multinationals to standardise?
Pay is regulated differently in each country, collectively through bargaining, legislatively through minimum wages and equality law, or individually under employment at will. Multinationals also run separate logics for expatriate managers, local managers and non-managerial staff, so the course describes a trend towards standardisation rather than standardisation itself.
Questions students ask in each IBUS2002 chapter
- Why do the slides say the economy is not truly global?
- Trade is concentrated in a few regions and much of it stays within them. Western Europe, Asia and North America dominate world merchandise exports, and Western Europe trades most heavily with itself, so integration is real but uneven. Chapter 01 · Globalisation and Employment
- Why are human resources described as a third-order issue?
- Multinationals first decide what they will do and then how to organise the business. Decisions about managing people come afterwards, when plans are put into action, so employment practice usually reflects earlier strategic choices rather than driving them. Chapter 02 · MNC Strategy and Human Resource Management
- What are the five spheres in the varieties of capitalism approach?
- The slides list industrial relations, vocational training and education, corporate governance, inter-firm relations and relations with employees. Four of these relate directly to the human resource management regime, which is why the approach suits comparative HRM. Chapter 03 · Comparing National Systems of Work and Management
- What are Perlmutter's orientations?
- Ethnocentric firms follow a home country orientation, polycentric firms a host country orientation and geocentric firms a global orientation. A later addition, regiocentric, manages operations according to a regional model. Real firms mix orientations across different practices. Chapter 04 · Home and Host Country Effects on Multinationals
- Can a decentralised multinational still have common HR policies?
- Yes. Common policies can emerge when managers coordinate many local choices, backed by benchmarking across countries and the transfer of best practice. Performance comparisons then pressure local managers to adopt what the firm presents as the best solution. Chapter 05 · Transferring HR Practice Across Subsidiaries
- What factors lead to more parent country nationals in a subsidiary?
- The slides link more parent country nationals to Japanese and German parents, newer subsidiaries driven by control needs, scarce trainable local staff and larger cultural distance. US multinationals use fewer than similar countries, and the share tends to level out as subsidiaries age. Chapter 06 · Global Staffing and Talent Management
- Why is pay described as a zero-sum game?
- What workers gain in pay, management and owners lose in costs, and labour is usually a firm's largest single cost. That makes pay central to price competition and turns it into a political issue inside the organisation. Chapter 07 · Pay and Compensation in Multinationals
- Should multinationals be responsible for supplier working conditions?
- The slides treat this as complex. Suppliers are legally independent, which argues against responsibility, but multinationals exert huge power over them, are often in effective control and benefit economically, which argues for it. Strong answers weigh both and state conditions. Chapter 08 · Regulating Work in Global Supply Chains
How to study for the exam
Build two revision tools in parallel. The first is a concept bank for Section A: for each lecture topic, write three or four key terms with one sentence of definition, one of mechanism and one of implication, in your own words. Test yourself by writing 120-word answers under a three-minute limit, and practise all four command words: explain, compare, contrast and evaluate.
The second tool is a set of essay plans for Section B covering staffing, pay, supply chains, participation and diversity. Each plan should state a position, list three mechanisms, name at least two case examples and four or five readings beyond the core chapter, and end with a judgement.
In the final fortnight, write one full essay under timed conditions every few days and review it against the case study marking criteria: focus on the question, application of literature, critical analysis and competing perspectives. Keep linking topics back to institutions, because that is the course's explanatory thread.
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