International Comparisons Method

In the 1960s, a few developing countries of the world looked around the developed world in search of models of development. For instance, South Korea examined the profile of development of a few industrialised nations of the world such as Japan, the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany. Other illustrations are: Puerto-Rico used the coefficients arrived at by the United States while Italy used those of France.

Even a model firm of one country can be taken as a model for a similar firm in another country. On a comparative and summative analysis, Korea realised that every increase in national income by one per cent was associated with an increase in participation of high-level manpower by 1.038 per cent. Likewise, the corresponding increase in participation of second level manpower was 1.655 percent.

Based on this information, South Korea planned its manpower supply by adopting the same ratios. This approach of looking to one country as a model cannot be followed by all countries. The chief parameter that controls the process of development in a country is its geographical location. For instance, a country like Nepal which is landlocked cannot think of modelling after Japan or France. Further, apart from geographical factors there are other factors related to the history and culture of the people. For instance, one of the factors associated with Japan’s rise as an industrial power is the quality of the people, their work-culture, self-discipline, entrepreneur-behaviour, etc. Hence, international comparisons as an approach for manpower planning has limited value.