Strategic Dilemmas: How Managers Use HR Practices to Meet Multiple Goals

Contrary to the classic assumptions in the business and human resource (HR) strategy literatures, real‐world organizations often pursue multiple and potentially contradictory performance goals. They may adopt ‘hybrid’ strategies to maximize both differentiation and low cost — leading middle managers to face dilemmas in how to achieve different goals using the same HR practices. We link employee‐level surveys of HR practices to establishment‐level data on service quality, labour efficiency and profitability to examine the effects of HR practices on these outcomes. We find that establishments with greater use of high involvement practices have significantly higher service quality, which mediates the relationship between HR practices and profitability. Findings for labour efficiency are positive, but generally not significant. These findings also have implications for the quality of jobs.     

Extensification of agriculture and deforestation: empirical evidence from Sudan

Extensification of agriculture is one of the major factors contributing to the destruction of forests in Africa. In Sudan, such horizontal expansion comes at the expense of land devoted to trees and other vegetation, thereby inducing conditions that are inimical to sustainable agricultural production. Different factors have contributed to extensification. Although high economic returns from crop (mainly sorghum) production was an important factor encouraging extensification of rainfed mechanized farming, other factors outside agriculture have also contributed to that expansion. This paper uses data from eastern Sudan and an acreage response model, to identify the most important factors influencing acreage expansion. Different measures and forms of risk were used in the acreage response model. The paper shows how policies in the energy sector can indirectly influence acreage expansion in the agricultural sector.     

The ‘demographic timebomb’ and how some hospitality employers are responding to the challenge

The phrase ‘demographic timebomb’ has taken on the aura of a shibbholeth and that everyone knows they ought to be fearful about. But is it really understood and what needs to be done? This article seeks to answer these questions and to shed some light on the employment strategies being developed by some British hospitality employers to counteract the demographic changes of the 1990s. As a result, some of the myth that the hospitality industry is lagging behind other industries can be dispelled but other findings support popular testimony that the industry faces special problems.     

The Economics of Teams among Technicians

This paper examines the economic logic of organizing field technicians into self‐managed teams, an approach to work organization that shifts the division of labour from a hierarchical to horizontal one. Economic efficiencies arise through the integration of direct and indirect labour tasks and the alignment of'the organizational structure with the occupational logic of communities of practice among technicians. Self‐managed teams absorb the monitoring and co‐ordination tasks of supervisors, substantially reducing indirect labour costs but without adversely affecting objective measures of quality and labour productivity. For technicians, team membership means longer work hours, but higher wages through overtime pay.     

STUDIES OF MANAGERIAL JOBS AND BEHAVIOUR: THE WAYS FORWARD

The main achievements and limitations of studies of managerial jobs and behaviour are summarized drawing upon the review articles of Martinko and Gardner (1985) and Hales (1986). Ways forward are explored by developing a map of the field for future studies, which is shown in figure 1. The figure has three aims: to show different areas for research; to help in identifying neglected areas that could be fruitful ways forward; and to show the interrelationship between different aspects of the study and thus to act as a guide for data collection. The main purpose of the article is to be a guide to what can, and what might most fruitfully, be studied, but some suggestions are also made about methods.     

Empirical analysis of up-or-out rules for promotion policies

Previous research in the areas of tournaments, human capital, and learning theory have shown that promotion is a function of human capital, experience, ability, and wage growth. These variables were used to estimate a Cox regression using data from a single firm. The survival rates for a Cox regression and an up-or-out regression model are computed. The results suggest that certain up-or-out models are valid even when the firm does not have such a policy and show that an up-or-out procedure predicts the promotion and exit survival rates as well as a Cox regression.     

Human Resources Practices as Predictors of Work-Family Outcomes and Employee Turnover

Drawing on a nonrandom sample of 557 dual-earner white-collar employees, this article explores the relationship between human resources practices and three outcomes of interest to firms and employees: work-family conflict, employees' control over managing work and family demands, and employees' turnover intentions. We analyze three types of human resources practices: work-family policies, human resources incentives designed to induce attachment to the firm, and the design of work. In a series of hierarchical regression equations, we find that work design characteristics explain the most variance in employees' control over managing work and family demands, whereas human resources incentives explain the most variance in work-family conflict and turnover intentions. We also find significant gender differences in each of the three models. Our results suggest that the most effective organizational responses to work-family conflict and to turnover are those that combine work-family policies with other human resources practices, including work redesign and commitment-enhancing incentives.