The impact of HR practices on the performance of business units

This article examines the impact of HR practices and organisational commitment on the operating performance and profitability of business units. Using a predictive design with a sample of 50 autonomous business units within the same corporation, the article reveals that both organisational commitment and HR practices are significantly related to operational measures of performance, as well as operating expenses and pre‐tax profits.     

完善我国中小企业融资环境的思考

文章指出我国政府对中小企业的重视程度日趋增强,已陆续出台了一系列扶持中小企业发展的措施,但是目前我国中小企业融资难的问题并没有从根本上解决,资金缺乏仍旧是制约我国中小企业进一步发展的首要问题,其重要原因是我国中小企业融资的法律、政策、中小企业信用担保体系和其自身的组织管理体系仍不完善,且缺乏相应的融资社会服务体系,所以,当前加紧建立和完善我国中小企业融资环境已迫在眉睫。     

The adoption of high performance work practices in small businesses: the influence of markets,business characteristics and HR expertise

This paper explores the extent to which the adoption of high performance work practices (HPWPs) in UK small businesses with less than 50 employees is associated with the nature of the market in which the business operates, its business characteristics and its access to HR expertise. Drawing on data from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey, the analysis suggests that, where market-related factors are concerned, the uptake of HPWPs is higher in small businesses that require a highly skilled workforce but is unrelated to either the degree of market competition or the presence of large dominant customers. In terms of access to HR expertise, the analysis finds greater use of HPWPs in small businesses that have contact with external sources of HR advice via membership of business advisory networks or Investors in People (IiP) recognition. However, uptake is unrelated to the presence of personnel/HR specialists. Overall, the findings suggest that rather than depicting employment practices in small businesses as the inevitable consequence of market circumstances, encouraging greater small business involvement with business advisory networks and IiP may have the potential to increase the adoption of HPWPs in the sector.     

HR outsourcing: the impact on HR role,competency development and relationships

The business benefits of an outsourcing strategy are well documented, and HR is encouraged to outsource in order to add value. Yet little is known about how HR outsourcing affects the HR role, competencies and relationships with senior management. These issues are examined through 27 semi‐structured interviews with senior HR professionals, comparing HR departments engaged in HR outsourcing with those maintaining full in‐house HR provision. The findings indicate that HR outsourcing stymies HR role transformation. HR outsourcers experienced limited skill development and an increased focus on cost reduction at the expense of their strategic position. In contrast, non‐HR outsourcers actively engaged in other parts of the business, developing competencies that garnered trust and support of senior managers. The benefits of an external HR community appear limited. The study suggests that an ‘internal’ HR community is better placed to enhance HR departmental roles.     

Gender‐based equal opportunities policy and practice in small firms: the impact of HR professionals1

This article assesses the impact of HR qualified professionals on the adoption of gender‐based equal opportunities policies and practices in small businesses. Earlier research has shown a low level of take‐up of equal opportunities initiatives in small firms. This article explores whether the presence of an HR professional in small to medium‐sized enterprises is associated with a greater level of take‐up of (a) gender‐based equality policies and (b) gender‐based equality practices than in small to medium‐sized enterprises that do not have such expertise. In doing so, the authors draw on empirical data from a recent European Social Fund sponsored study of equal opportunities policy and practice in small to medium‐sized enterprises in the UK. The main finding is that the presence of an HR professional is associated with a greater level of take‐up of formal equality policies, but not with the implementation of equality practices. The authors explore possible reasons for this and consider the implications for the HR profession and the promotion of equality of opportunity in the small business sector.     

HR business partner competency models: re‐contextualising effectiveness

The rise of ‘HR business partnering’ over the last decade has led to an enormous growth in HR competency models. Competencies are believed to provide a mechanism for reinventing traditional HR roles and improving the effectiveness of HR professionals as business partners. But are they effective? The survey and interview evidence presented here suggest that the effectiveness of competency models is disappointing, and they appear to be particularly weak at predicting performance in a business partner role. There are also significant contextual variations in effectiveness based on the degree of change experienced by the HR function, how consistently business partnering is implemented, overall levels of reduction in transactional HR, and the patterns of centralisation–decentralisation of the HR function. The findings highlight the intrinsic limitations of competency models, as well as the powerful influence of contextual factors, and they raise important questions about the future direction of HR business partnering.     

论企业会计报表的分析

企业的财务状况和经营成果最终体现在财务会计报告上,所以财务会计报告是企业经营者、股东、债权人及潜在的投资者了解和掌握企业生产经营情况和发展水平的主要信息来源。文中论述了企业里的会计报表分析方法。     

The impact of the global business cycle on small open economies: A FAVAR approach for Canada

Building on the growing evidence on the importance of large data sets for empirical macroeconomic modeling, we use a large factor-augmented VAR (FAVAR) model to analyze how global developments affect the Canadian economy. We focus on several sources of shocks, including commodity prices, foreign economic activity, and foreign interest rates, and evaluate the impact of each shock on key Canadian macroeconomic variables. Results indicate that Canada is primarily exposed to shocks to foreign activity and to commodity prices. In contrast, the impact of shocks to global interest rates and global inflation is substantially lower.     

Expectations,effectiveness and discrepancies: exploring multiple HR roles in the Chinese business context

One of the strategic issues in human resource management (HRM) research is the recognition of HR professionals' roles, yet how effective HR professionals are performing these roles has seldom been studied. This article conducts a two-phase study to explore the role expectations, role effectiveness and discrepancies of HR professionals in the Chinese business context. In the first phase, six roles in three domains were determined using a qualitative method. In the second phase, hypotheses were proposed and tested empirically. The results highlight that the value of role effectiveness is significantly lower than that of role expectation. In terms of perceptive discrepancies between HR and non-HR individuals, significant differences exist on the expectations of the roles in the strategic domain (i.e. facilitator and supporter), and also on the effectiveness of the roles in all three domains, except for that of facilitator in the strategic domain. The results also indicate that the effectiveness of each different role has a distinctive weighting in explaining the overall effectiveness of HRM, and that different groups hold diverse views on the relationship between role effectiveness and overall effectiveness.     

浅谈企业的预算管理

推行全面预算管理不仅是推行企业内部管理规范化和科学化的基础,而且也是促进企业各级经营管理人员自我约束、自我发展能力培养的有效途径。文中主要论述了企业如何推行全面预算管理,以管理求发展,提高企业的综合管理水平,增强企业的市场竞争和抗风险能力。     

内部控制体系在AB企业运营中的实际应用

本文以内部控制体系概念为基本出发点来讲内部控制在合资企业中的实践及运用：首先以临全球化竞争的中国企业需要提高企业的经营管理水平，而内部控制体系建设是企业经营管理水平提高重中之重引出内部控制体系建设的必要性；其次阐述了内部控制的定义、框架、作用和其自身的局限性最後以AB企业合资工厂的实践浅论内部控制体系在企业运营中的实际运用。     

规范小企业会计核算之思考

小企业在促进市场竞争、增加就业机会、推动国民经济发展和保持社会稳定等方面发挥着重要作用,但小企业会计核算制度不健全,产生会计风险的可能性较大。文章分析了小企业会计核算存在的问题,阐述了国家颁布的《小企业会计制度》特点及其对规范小企业会计核算起到的积极作用。     

HR flexibility: Precursors and the contingent impact on firm financial performance

Using data from 170 for‐profit U.S. firms with 100 or more employees from 27 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) industry subsectors, we investigated firm‐level precursors of HR flexibility and industry‐level boundary conditions of the HR flexibility—firm financial performance relationship. The findings denote that a contingency illumination is warranted in which consideration should be given to firm‐level factors such as flexibility business strategy and high‐performance work systems, which may play a key role in engendering HR flexibility, and external factors such as industry dynamism and growth, which may serve as boundary conditions that influence the relevance and impact of HR flexibility. This study is an important extension of extant HR flexibility research and adds clarity regarding the roles and relevance of HR flexibility and the circumstances in which HR flexibility and/or its focal factors may augment (or diminish) firm competitiveness and performance.     

Transnational HR network learning in Korean business groups and the performance of their subsidiaries

This study explores (1) how two distinct dimensions of transnational human resources (HR) network learning, i.e. globally linked and locally leveraged learning, are related to the performance of the foreign subsidiaries of Korean business groups (chaebols) and (2) how strategic HR learning mediates the relationship between these two dimensions of transnational HR network learning and the performance of foreign subsidiaries. We propose that each dimension of transnational HR network learning is related independently and jointly to the performance of a chaebol's foreign subsidiaries. Our results suggest that locally leveraged HR learning has a stronger relationship with the performance of sales subsidiaries, whereas globally linked HR learning has a stronger relationship with the performance of manufacturing subsidiaries. In addition, we find that the interaction between the two dimensions of transnational HR network learning has a weaker positive relationship with the performance of foreign manufacturing subsidiaries than that of foreign sales subsidiaries.     

Assessing people-driven factors for circular economy practices in small and medium-sized enterprise supply chains: Business strategies and environmental perspectives

Globalisation and technological advancements have increased the pressure on small businesses to increase their productivity and to gain competitive advantages. That pressure has been placed on the resources available, resulting in increased environmental degradation as a result of the traditional linear model of make-use-dispose. Circular economy (CE) practices offer the opportunity for sustainable production based on the reuse-remanufacture and recycling of resources for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to increase their sustainability, resulting in enhanced performance levels in terms of business strategies and environmental perspectives. But in academic literature, the role of people-driven factors (PDFs) in the adoption of CE practices in the supply chains (SCs) of SMEs is limited. Therefore, to fill this literature gap, this research looks at analysing PDFs for the implementation of CE in the SMEs in developing countries in two phases. PDFs are identified from an extensive literature review; a DEMATEL technique is then employed to understand the significant influence of each factor in the adoption of CE practices in SCs by dividing them into cause–effect groups. The findings show that PDFs such as training and knowledge sharing, employee participation, leadership and management plus strategic alignment are considered to be the most important significant factors in the adoption. The findings of this study will help industrial managers to understand the significance of the role of PDFs for enhancing business strategies; these findings can reduce the negative environmental impact in the adoption of CE practices in the SCs of SMEs.     

International entrepreneurship and the small business

The topic of ‘international entrepreneurship’ is becoming increasingly popular with researchers concerned with examining how international and entrepreneurial activities intersect when people in organizations engage in pro-active brokering and risk-taking behaviour in cross-border contexts. Some caution is needed in over-generalizing the meaning and significance of international entrepreneurship – especially in relation to small businesses. Not all entrepreneurial risk-taking, brokering and opportunity-seeking activities lead to internationalization (as the statistics on small business international activities indicate). This might suggest then that the only truly internationally entrepreneurial firms are those that are ‘born global’. However, their entrepreneurial activities are more ‘spatial’, concerned with what can be constructed again in relation to global markets rather than in relation to the local/regional context in which the business is located. For small firms that internationalize a few years after start-up (late starters), processes of international entrepreneurship are different. For ‘later starters’, international entrepreneurship is distinctive in that it is characterized by extending and modifying entrepreneurial understandings and practices that have been socially constructed in relation to the local and regional context in which the small firm is located.     

Understanding how HR systems work: the role of HR philosophy and HR processes

Despite the proliferation of studies of HR systems, there are still substantial gaps in our understanding of how such systems actually work. This article, by focusing on the neglected areas of HR philosophy and HR processes in the composition of HR systems, and by using a qualitative, employee‐centred approach in the collection and analysis of data, provides new insights into the working of HR systems. Using data from interviews with 56 knowledge workers employed in the information and communications technology sector in Ireland and the UK, we explore employee‐level reactions to two different types of HR systems. We highlight the various ways in which HR processes interact with HR practices and the different outcomes that may result, and we identify the key role of HR philosophy in HR system operation.     

企业智能化网络管理系统

企业智能化网络管理系统是信息技术运用于现代化的最新研究成果。文章指出,企业智能化网络管理系统是在企业统一规划和组织下,在生产、营销、决策、管理及后勤服务各个方面应用现代信息技术,深入开发、广泛共享各种信息资源,在现实企业基础之上,建立全面实现数字化的虚拟企业。