Beyond strategic human resource management: is sustainable human resource management the next approach?

Strategic human resource management (SHRM) emerged as a dominant approach to human resource management (HRM) policy during the past 30 years. However, during the last decade, a new approach to HRM has evolved. This approach has been labelled sustainable human resource management (sustainable HRM). It is an approach that seeks to link HRM and sustainability. The term sustainability is fraught with semantic difficulties, as is conceptualising its relationship to HRM. Consequently, sustainable HRM is viewed in a variety of ways. This paper examines the major features of SHRM, some of the meanings given to sustainability and the relationship between sustainability and HRM. It then outlines the major characteristics of sustainable HRM. Although there are a diversity of views about sustainable HRM, this approach has a number of features which differentiate it from SHRM. It acknowledges organisational outcomes, which are broader than financial outcomes. All the writings emphasise the importance of human and social outcomes. In addition, it explicitly identifies the negative as well as the positive effects of HRM on a variety of stakeholders; it pays further attention to the processes associated with the implementation of HRM policies and acknowledges the tensions in reconciling competing organisational requirements. Such an approach takes an explicit moral position about the desired outcomes of organisational practices in the short term and the long term. Sustainable HRM can be understood in terms of a number of complimentary frameworks.     

Bridging knowledge in ambidextrous HRM systems: empirical evidence from hidden champions

Managing the tension between efficiency and flexibility is one of the core challenges that organizations must tackle in order to survive in the global competitive environment. Ambidexterity has been identified in the literature as a key way of managing this tension. Despite the enormous popularity of the concept of ambidexterity, the questions of how HR practices influence exploration and exploitation and support organizational ambidexterity remain underexplored. Drawing on our empirical case studies of three mid-sized ‘hidden champions’ in different high-tech manufacturing industries, we show how an ambidextrous human resource management (HRM) system works. We demonstrate that ambidextrous HRM systems can be regarded as a special type of high-performance work system (HPWS) that facilitates the continuous integration of exploration and exploitation in the pursuit of flexibility and efficiency. In particular, we elucidate how firms apply integrative employment practices and integrative work practices to facilitate collaboration and to create and strengthen a common frame of reference that fosters knowledge integration. Finally, setting up an ambidextrous HRM system supports the complementary interplay between a common frame of reference and a firm's ability to integrate knowledge in order to manage the conflicting demands of exploration and exploitation.