Human Resource Management and Communication in Africa
The book is the result of working experience, sharing with experts and teaching at the Catholic University of Central Africa in Yaounde, Cameroon. It is a practical response to the very nature and purpose of the human resource function.
Is there a human resource management specific to Africa? The human resource manager’s approach developed in this book shows that, if principles and techniques can be practiced in every socio-cultural environment, they need to duly take the prevailing local situation into consideration for the sake of effectiveness.
It is important for the practitioner to be aware of the specificities of the environment to make a judicious use of expertise, with due respect for the human being and labour ethic in a bid to achieve the company’s performance related-objectives. He is presently faced with a few major stakes among which personal improvement in a community-based society and the management of diversity in a world characterized by influential clannish networks.
The purpose of this book is not to study the contribution of human resource management in an African environment, but rather to put forwards a possible use of the tools of a function currently evolving in our context. Indeed, the requirements of competitiveness and globalization impose on companies and their leaders to strengthen their management by valorising their human resources. The integration of the human and socio- cultural factors is one of the prerequisites of a successful company and its leaders.
Jean-Bernard Bruneteaux has been in charge of the various aspects of human resource management in French, Anglo-Saxon and European companies dealing with service delivery, manufacturing, marketing and distribution. He carried out this activity for more than 30 years of which 22 as Director, including to set up an European Human resource department grouping 40 000 people and more than 500 institutions in 8 European countries, as well as an Executive group in Mexico: thus experiencing intercultural management. He also has been Coordinator of Communication and human resource Management at the Catholic University of Central Africa. He has equally been training company senior staff in Cameroon and Tunisia.