Strategic HRM: Too Important for an Insular Approach

Strategic human resource management (SHRM) is the choice, alignment, and integration of an organization's HRM system so its human capital resources most effectively contribute to strategic business objectives. Kaufman's review (this issue) of four books in the field revealed key differences in two areas: the intended audience (academics and general managers versus researchers only) and orientation (the use of field observer and participant observation methods versus ivory tower scientism). Overemphasis on the latter produces research that is relevant only to academics and that is not used in organizations. I argue, as have others, that in addition to rigor, a successful scientific discipline must prove itself relevant to the society in which it is embedded. Hence, the objectives of SHRM should be twofold: to influence academic thinking and conceptualizing, but also to alter the way managers set priorities and make decisions. To do that, researchers have to work directly with managers. The challenge is to create models that reflect a broader view of performance as well as more complete taxonomies of internal and external factors that help shape business and HR strategies. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Market orientation,HRM importance and competency: determinants of strategic HRM in Chinese firms

This study examined three factors leading to a firm's adoption of strategic human resource management (SHRM): market orientation, HRM importance and HRM competency. Using a sample of firms from China, empirical results showed that the three factors are significantly related to a firm's adoption of SHRM. Given the transitional nature of the Chinese economy, the moderating effects of ownership types and firm size were also investigated. However, the moderating effects were not as strong as predicted. Managerial implications and directions for future research of SHRM in an emerging economy context are discussed.     

The ambiguities and tensions in creating and capturing value: Views from HRM consultants in a leading consultancy firm

Creating and capturing value in knowledge‐intensive organizations is often marked by a high degree of ambiguity. The resource‐ and knowledge‐based views of the firm assume that this ambiguity enhances an organization's competitive advantage, but do not acknowledge or address the problems and tensions it creates for employees. This study contributes to developing these views by providing new insights based on analyzing how HRM consultants perceive their contribution and standing in the context of this ambiguity. These findings shed light on the importance of addressing consultants' perceptions of this ambiguity in seeking to manage and motivate them to maximize the creation and appropriation of value for consultancy practices. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A theory of the firm's demand for HRM practices

Empirical data are presented that reveal a large variation in the pattern of HRM practice adoption across firms. The paper then develops an economics-based theory that explains this pattern. The model broadens the HRM concept; models the linkage between HRM practices and firm performance (the ‘black box’); generates an HRM input demand function and demand curve; formalizes the concept of strategic HRM; suggests a new empirical tool for HRM research; generates new hypotheses and insights on the nature of the HRM–firm performance relationship; suggests that existing theories of the HRM–firm performance relationship are seriously mis-specified; and posits that on theoretical grounds the effect of more HRM on firm performance in long-run competitive equilibrium is not positive but zero.     

HRM at a Crossroads: Comments on “Evolution of Strategic HRM Through Two Founding Books: A 30th Anniversary Perspective on Development of the Field”

I agree with Bruce Kaufman's evaluation of the HRM field and the danger to its relevance if change does not take place in the field's almost exclusive use of normal science, lack of focus on organizational change and development and indifference to the development of useful and usable knowledge. I use the development of the Harvard Business School's first‐ever required course in HRM and Managing Human Assets, the book that grew from the course, to illustrate why and how the strategic HRM perspective of the book emerged. I go on to argue that we do not need more proof that HRM practices are associated with financial performance. The best CEOs already believe this, though they need knowledge and practices that will enable them to develop a positive sustainable HRM system. HRM research, both normal and action science, must answer the question of how a “great” HRM system—practices, leadership, organization design, culture, and change processes—might be developed over time (its takes years) and how great companies can avoid the liquidation of intangible assets in the face of pressures for short‐term performance. I describe my own work to illustrate the future direction HRM should take methodologically and conceptually. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Evolution of Strategic HRM as Seen Through Two Founding Books: A 30th Anniversary Perspective on Development of the Field

Two pioneering books published in 1984 arguably launched the field of strategic human resource management (SHRM). The first is Strategic Human Resource Management by Fombrun, Tichy, and Devanna; the second is Managing Human Assets by Beer, Spector, Lawrence, Mills, and Walton. This article provides a 30th anniversary review of the two books, partly to honor their pioneering contributions but also to use them as a lens for examining how the field has subsequently evolved and developed. Two recently published SHRM books are used as a benchmark for this analysis. The review identifies areas of SHRM constancy and change, major theoretical and empirical innovations, and newly developed research questions and directions, largely in an American context. Diagrammatic models of SHRM are synthesized and compared from the four books; also, nine specific dimensions of evolution in the field are highlighted with discussion of advances and shortcomings. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The theory and practice of strategic HRM and participative management: Antecedents in early industrial relations

A diversity of opinion exists about the definition, intellectual boundaries, and major premises of the fields of human resources management (HRM) and industrial relations (IR). To help provide a common frame of reference for discussion and debate on the symposium topic, I endeavor in this paper to flesh out a consensus position on these matters. The method used is largely historical. Based on a review of the origins and evolution of the two fields from the early 20th century to the present day, I show that human resources (HR) up to the early 1960s was typically considered to be a subfield of IR. In more recent years, however, HR has largely severed its links with IR and now is widely regarded as a separate, sometimes competing and sometimes complementary field of study. In the last part of the paper I use this historical analysis, together with a review of the literatures in the two fields and the findings and conclusions of the other papers in this symposium, to identity both the commonalities and differences that distinguish the two fields in terms of their approach to science building (research) and problem solving (policy/practice).     

Cross‐boundary working: Implications for HRM theory,methods, and practice

Major changes have taken place in work organisation, which originate predominantly from working across organisational boundaries. This paper argues for a more sophisticated approach to HRM that includes three types of cross‐boundary working, that is, intraorganisational, interorganisational, and transorganisational. Herein lies the contribution of our paper; we argue that we cannot assume a transition from one type of working to another because cross‐boundary forms of working coexist. We also need to understand the tensions of this simultaneity at the levels of the organisation/network, HRM systems, and the individual. We consider the impact of the simultaneous existence of these types of cross‐boundary working for the following: (a) theory, especially the development of HRM systems; (b) methods, including an activity‐based unit of analysis; and (c) practice, where we pay attention to the challenges of control, collaboration, and consistency.     

Understanding environmental management practices: integrating views from strategic management and ecological economics

This paper proposes an integrating framework, based on theoretical concepts from the fields of strategic management and ecological economics, to enhance our understanding of environmental management practices (EMPs) and their relationship to sustainable competitive advantage. Starting with an expansion of the resource‐based view of the firm to include the natural environment, the article next engages the interdisciplinary field of ecological economics and its thermodynamic approach to ‘joint production’ to provide additional insights into the challenges and opportunities brought by a bio‐physically constrained economy. Informed by this understanding, the article then categorizes examples of EMPs drawn from the literature and discusses their potential impact on competitiveness. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for future research in the hope that the proposed framework will stimulate debate and lead to a fuller understanding of the impact of environmental management in the 21st century. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

MNC practice transfer: institutional theory,strategic opportunities and subsidiary HR configuration

Human resource (HR) practice transfer is an important topic in the domain of strategic international human resource management (SIHRM). Previous research in practice transfer has emphasized the challenges arising from the institutional distance between the home and host countries. However, potential opportunities due to this distance have been largely overlooked. Shifting the focus away from looking at institutional distance as a constraint, we examine the possibilities of strategic opportunities that exist because of institutional distance. We argue multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiaries can exploit these opportunities to gain competitive advantage. Building upon SIHRM literature, institutional theory and the resource-based views, we propose a conceptual framework explaining how institutional environments present strategic opportunities. We argue that these strategic opportunities are most abundant in the case of moderate institutional distance between the two countries. Building upon the conceptualization of strategic opportunities, we propose a model of subsidiary HR configuration, and then we explain how an HR configuration could be a source of competitive advantage. Further, we examine the role of MNCs' overall SIHRM orientation in relation to the identification and exploitation of strategic opportunities.     

HRM Systems for Knowledge Workers: Differences Among Top Managers,Middle Managers,and Professional Employees

This theoretical study contributes to the debate in the field of strategic HRM on whether HRM systems should differ across employee groups within the firm. It explores differences in the efficacy of two HRM systems—high‐involvement HR and internal labor market systems—across top management teams, middle managers, and professional employees. In addition, it examines factors that may prevent the adoption of effective HRM systems for these groups of knowledge workers. A model is proposed depicting how four job‐level moderators influence the HRM‐performance relationship and how these moderators apply to each of the three employee groups. Short‐term performance pressures and favoritism in staffing are proposed as factors that may hinder the adoption of effective HRM systems. Finally, HRM systems for different employee groups are classified based on their gains potential and barriers to implementation, yielding four categories of strategic HRM activity metaphorically labeled low‐hanging fruits, high‐hanging fruits, peanuts, and barren land. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Alternative balanced scorecards built from paradigm models in strategic HRM and employment/industrial relations and used to measure the state of employment relations and HR system performance across U.S. workplaces

This paper constructs alternative balanced scorecards based on high‐performance work system (HPWS) and employment relations system (ERS) models. The models are depicted and compared in diagrams and used as framework skeletons for building separate HPWS and ERS scorecards, intended to provide a detailed data picture of the operational health and performance of an organization's employment/HR system and its operations, processes, and inputs/outputs. The scorecards are filled in with nationally representative data from 2,000+ U.S. workplaces using more than 50 employment/HR indicators, as reported by separate panels of managers and employees. The indicators for each workplace are aggregated into an overall HR/employment system score, ranked from low‐to‐high, and graphed as frequency distributions. These distributions provide a unique snapshot picture of the mean and dispersion of the state of employment relations and HR system performance for companies across the United State. They also reveal that “models matter” since the HPWS and ERS scorecards provide distinctly different evaluation assessments.     

Standardize or Customize: The Interactive Effects of HRM and Environment Uncertainty on MNC Subsidiary Performance

This study examines the impact of customizing (as opposed to standardizing) human resource management (HRM) practices on subsidiary performance in multinational corporations (MNCs). We examine how this relationship is influenced by environmental uncertainty. Hypotheses were tested using data from 92 subsidiaries of a large MNC operating in 27 countries. The results showed an interactive relationship between the customization of HRM practices and subsidiary environmental uncertainty on both financial (net profit) and nonfinancial (customer satisfaction) objective measures of subsidiary performance. The results of this study provide important empirical insights for researchers and practitioners into how HRM can be best configured to drive multiple performance outcomes for MNC subsidiaries. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The complementarity of IT and HRM capabilities for competitive performance: a configurational analysis of manufacturing and industrial service SMEs

ABSTRACT

Building on the resource-based view (RBV) perspective, we analyse the combined effects of two highly-valued organizational resources, namely information technology (IT) capabilities and human resource management (HRM) capabilities, on the competitive performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Three resource configurations are derived from data on 227 SMEs (121 from the manufacturing sector and 106 from the industrial services sector) through a cluster analysis. These resource configurations are labelled IT Capabilities-dominant Configuration (ITC), e-Business Capabilities-dominant Configuration (e-BC), and HRM Capabilities-dominant Configuration (HRC). This last configuration is the best-performing, followed by the e-BC, with the ITC as the worst-performing. The results also show that manufacturing and service firms are very unevenly distributed within HRC and ITC configurations, suggesting notable differences between the two sectors regarding their respective IT and non-IT capability-building. The fact that service SMEs are overwhelmingly represented (93%) in the worst-performing configuration and completely absent (0%) in the most effective configuration while displaying the strongest IT infrastructure capabilities confirms that the IT productivity paradox is aggravated in service SMEs and calls for further research on this issue.     

Effects of Information Technology Capabilities on Strategic Alliances: Implications for the Resource‐Based View

This paper adopts a contingency approach to the resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm and seeks to establish boundary conditions for the value of certain information technology (IT) capabilities. We first identify inter‐organizational alliances as a specific strategy context in which IT capabilities are particularly valuable. We then consider more detailed boundary conditions that can shape the value of these capabilities within the alliance context. Our study shows that firms with better IT capabilities can derive greater value from an alliance, yet this effect also varies across different types of alliances depending on an individual alliance's characteristics. Specifically, IT capabilities are more valuable for alliances with a non‐equity governance structure, as well as those involving a high degree of interdependence between partners. We highlight the implications of our findings for opportunities to advance the RBV.     

The real problem: The deadly combination of psychologisation,scientism, and normative promotionalism takes strategic human resource management down a 30‐year dead end

This paper engages with Troth and Guest (2019) on psychology in HRM. I argue they misframe the central issue in debate. The real problem is not psychology per se but psychologisation—the drive to reduce explanation of macro‐level HRM outcomes to individual‐level psychological‐behavioural factors and individual differences. Accordingly, the most visible and harmful effects of psychologisation are in strategic HRM and the HRM‐performance literature but Troth and Guest's defence of psychology does not cover them. I use this response to re‐establish that it is psychologisation, not psychology per se, that is the critics' focal concern and describe how the three‐decade advance of psychologisation, along with scholastic scientism and normative promotionalism, have created severe theoretical and empirical problems in the high‐performance research programme and taken the strategic HRM field down a 30‐year dead‐end. Suggestions for a turn‐around are provided.     

The scope and trajectory of strategic HR research: evidence from American and British journals

Many have argued that the field of human resource (HR) management has successfully transformed itself from the functional orientation of personnel management to a strategic orientation that is more relevant to the goals and effectiveness of business in the current competitive landscape. In this article, we assess that proposition by reviewing almost 1000 award-winning papers and articles published in leading US and British management journals since the mid-1990s. We use this data to evaluate the scope of HR research in the field, the extent to which it has changed, and whether changes in this research have kept pace with changes that organizations face in the current global economy. Consistent with the strategic HR framework, we find that the question of the link between HR and performance has, indeed, become the dominant one among both micro- and macro-organizational scholars. Contrary to expectations, however, micro-level research continues to be more prevalent than macro-organizational studies; and we find little change in the subjects and sites of research or theoretical approaches adopted. These characteristics of HR research are in sharp contrast with the dramatic changes occurring in the world of work – suggesting a mismatch between what HR scholars study and what issues and dilemmas organizations face. Finally, by assessing similarities and differences between the American and British scholarship, we are able to suggest a research agenda, more relevant to the current global economy, which builds on the strengths of each tradition.     

Institutional Pressures and Environmental Management Practices: The Moderating Effects of Environmental Commitment and Resource Availability

With the deterioration of the environment and the shortage of natural resources, firms are facing increasing pressures to implement environmental management practices in their daily operation management. Drawing on institutional theory and environmental management literatures, this research tries to explore how institutional pressures motivate firms to implement environmental management practices, and how such effects are moderated by firms' environmental commitment and resource availability. The results of a survey of 188 Chinese firms suggest that regulatory pressures and normative pressures are positively and significantly related to firms' propensity to implement environmental management practices. Moreover, the results indicate that firms' environmental commitment positively moderates the relationships between institutional pressures and environmental management practices, while firms' resource availability plays different roles depending on the types of pressure (regulatory or normative pressures). Implications and suggestions for future research are provided. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

The adoption,character and impact of strategic human resource management: a case study of two large metropolitan Vietnamese public hospitals

In this paper the researchers set out to explore the adoption, character and impact of strategic human resource management (SHRM) in two large metropolitan Vietnamese public hospitals using a multi-level qualitative research design. Data are analyzed from 21 interviews and 5 focus groups with key players from the hospitals and government authorities. Findings show that the State controls many of the core day-to-day HR functions of public hospitals, curtailing local autonomy and management innovation. This is compacted by inadequate government funding, poor training of medical staff, and inadequate management and business skills of hospital managers. Inhibiting greater experimentation with SHRM is the fear of developing management initiatives out of sync with the State. Consequently, many managers and clinicians held negative views of the HR department and their relevance for the day-to-day management of healthcare services. Respondents reported that they perceived these factors had a negative impact on the well-being of medical staff and the quality of patient care. The paper concludes with a discussion on the necessity for continued State reforms that can enable greater autonomy of the hospitals' HRM functions and greater investment in local HR capabilities to materialize the link between SHRM, employee well-being and quality of patient care.     

High‐involvement HRM,job satisfaction and productivity: A two wave longitudinal study of a Spanish retail company

The strategic human resource management literature lacks longitudinal studies, and the causal associations between human resource management (HRM) and organisational performance (OP) remain underexplored. We tested cross‐lagged relationships between high‐involvement work systems (HIWS), job satisfaction, and store productivity based on a large longitudinal dataset from the retail sector comprising two waves of data. The first wave (2011) included 6,016 employee responses from 104 stores, and the second wave (2015) included 5,842 employee responses from 94 stores. The quantitative study suggested counterintuitive negative associations. A subsequent qualitative study indicated that the association may have been conditioned by the recessionary action taken by the company in response to financial difficulties. The longitudinal research design, the compilation of data during difficult economic situations, and in a relatively unexplored sector such as the retail industry help to shed some light on the universalism of the HRM‐OP relationship and its boundary conditions.