Pinoy-style HRM: Human Resource Management in the Philippines
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Abstract
About 76 million people live in the Philippine archipelago where more than 70 mutually unintelligible languages and dialects are spoken. The national language is Tagalog, originally the Luzon dialect; but the English language was introduced to the islands by American occupiers in the early 1900s. Despite an increasing preference for the local language (Lopez, 1998), Filipinos are still educated in English and Tagalog, thereby comprising one of the largest English-speaking countries in the world. Augmenting the westernization initiated by a distinctly Spanish heritage, Americanization has penetrated deeper into the Pinoy (local colloquialism for ‘Filipino’) society than into any other Asian country. ‘The influx of American ideas and social patterns in a broad range of institutions and the Filipinos’ receptivity to them are well-known’ (Arce and Poblador, 1977: 6). Consequently, the Philippines stands unique as a Christian, Englishspeaking democracy in Asia (Lopez, 1998; Engholm, 1991). The purpose of this article is first to identify and describe the essence of human resource management (HRM) practices in the Philippines. The intention is to highlight the enduring and distinguishing features of Pinoy HRM and its determining circumstances. This is important since the Philippines was not included in recent research which studied variations in HRM in Asian countries (cf. Bae, Chen and Lawler, 1998). Neither can much be found in the international academic literature on HRM in the Philippines. This article aims to rectify that shortcoming. Drawing on a multitude of mostly domestic sources for secondary data, the article attempts to provide a generalized picture of HRM practices in the Philippines. The analytical framework utilized in doing so includes three determining forces. First, the substantial cultural influence on Pinoy HRM through the prevalence of indigenous core values is discussed in detail. These values remain central to how modern Filipinos think, believe, feel and act (Jocano, 1989, 1997). Second, the specific economic/political situation in the Philippines is examined as the restricting context to Pinoy HRM. Third, the forces of globalization, not least in the form of multinational corporations operating in the country, are highlighted. The enduring resilience of Pinoy HRM is indicated by demonstrating to what extent foreign multinationals in the Philippines have adjusted their HRM