Reducing intentions to resist future change: Combined effects of commitment‐based HR practices and ethical leadership

Change management, and particularly the human side of change, is a central tenet of the strategy of contemporary organizations. However, there is little evidence concerning how strategic HR practices influence how individuals anticipate and react to the implementation of a major change and how direct supervisors influence that process. With a sample of 191 employees from multiple organizations, who completed two surveys with a four‐week lag, we examined the role of commitment‐based HR practices on employees’ intentions to resist future change. We found that commitment‐based HR practices contribute to a decrease in intentions to resist future change, measured four weeks later, via increased affective commitment to change. Moreover, we found that this relationship is conditional on ethical leadership, in that it is significant when ethical leadership is high but not when it is low. Building on social exchange and uncertainty reduction theories, our findings contribute to the literature by examining how and under what boundary conditions HR practices are an effective means for organizations to anticipate and manage change.     

Paying the piper: choice and constraint in changing HR functional roles

HR directors are often exhorted to play a more ‘strategic’ role in their organisations. However, it is not necessarily clear what is meant by this, or whether it is possible for departments to change their role at a whim. In this article we examine the changing role of the HR function within two contrasting organisations – an NHS trust and a bank – over a period of seven years. Drawing on role‐set theory and concepts of negotiated order, we illustrate how HR functional roles are located within a complex and dynamic social setting, and present a model that seeks to map these interrelationships.     

HR and analytics: why HR is set to fail the big data challenge

The HR world is abuzz with talk of big data and the transformative potential of HR analytics. This article takes issue with optimistic accounts, which hail HR analytics as a ‘must have’ capability that will ensure HR's future as a strategic management function while transforming organisational performance for the better. It argues that unless the HR profession wises up to both the potential and drawbacks of this emerging field and engages operationally and strategically to develop better methods and approaches, it is unlikely that existing practices of HR analytics will deliver transformational change. Indeed, it is possible that current trends will seal the exclusion of HR from strategic, board‐level influence while doing little to benefit organisations and actively damaging the interests of employees.     

The Role of Human Resource Management in Strategy Making

Among the strategy scholars, there is general consensus that responsive‐integrative strategy making is essential for ensuring a competitive advantage in contemporary dynamic environments. What is the role of HR in this process, and how can HR support responsive‐integrative strategy making? To answer these questions, we use illustrative experiences from Chr. Hansen, a global supplier of bioscience‐based ingredients to the food, health, and animal feed industries. We argue that HR's strategic role lies in providing support for both centralized and decentralized strategy making by offering aspirations for strategic decisions and by gathering various sources of inspiration for strategy discussions. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

How HR measures support risk management: The Deutsche bank example

Are there concrete examples of how the “soft” HR factors can be made tangible and, what's more, meaningful to the business? In this article we give an answer to this frequently asked question. We show how Deutsche Bank's HR function consistently developed the range of employee surveying instruments to become pivotal to the Group's success. This is part of a wider effort in recent years to achieve a change of direction for the HR function, making it a strategic partner to the business. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Understanding the Change–Cynicism Cycle: The Role of HR

Employee change cynicism is an unintended consequence of organizational change, which can undermine the effectiveness of change initiatives. Based on social information processing theory, we examine the impact of two human resource roles (administrative expert and strategic change agent) on the relationship between the quantity of organizational change and employee change cynicism. Using multilevel data from 1,831 employees in 70 organizations, we find employees who are exposed to more organizational change report higher levels of change cynicism. However, the strength of the organizational change–cynicism relationship is affected by the role of HR in the employees’ organizations. When HR undertakes an administrative expert role, change is more likely to generate change cynicism. When HR undertakes a strategic change agent role, change is less likely to generate change cynicism. Our results suggest that organizations need to think carefully about the role of HR during organizational change and encourage HR to adopt a strategic change agent role. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Human Resource Systems and Ethical Climates: A Resource‐Based Perspective

We know very little about how ethical climates are built and the potential role of a firm's HR system in facilitating the development of this resource. The resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm suggests that human resource systems directly influence a firm's performance through the development of resources that are deeply woven in a firm's history and culture. How this occurs though has not been thoroughly considered in the research literature. Drawing on the theoretical insights from the resource‐based view of the firm, this article explores how HR systems can foster the development and maintenance of five types of ethical climates. In so doing, this article improves our conceptual understanding of why ethical climates may be seen as having strategic value for firms and how HR systems may influence that value. In addition, it contributes to theory by extending the domain of the resource‐based view of the firm by exploring its integration with the varied types of ethical climates. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The changing face of HRM: in search of balance

Current models of HRM suggest that expectations about HR roles are changing as organisations are striving to make the HR function leaner and more ‘strategic’. In our article we explore the changing roles of HRM as they are perceived by different stakeholder groups within the HR profession through the medium of a study examining the diffusion of the concept of ‘the thinking performer’ launched by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development in 2002. We explain how the concept of business partnering dominates respondents' talk about HR policy and practice and raise questions about the impact of this in terms of HRM's relationship with employees, employee well‐being and the career paths of HR professionals. We argue that the profession needs to reflect seriously on the consequences of a dominant business/strategic partner framing of HR work, which fails to address the duality that has historically always been inherent in HR practice. We conclude that there is a need for a more balanced HR agenda addressing human and economic concerns in current and future models of HRM.     

Becoming an evidence‐based HR practitioner

Evidence‐based HR (EBHR) is a decision‐making process combining critical thinking with use of the best available scientific evidence and business information. We describe how to get started as an evidence‐based HR practitioner. Actively managing professional decisions is a key aspect of EBHR. Doing so involves making decisions, especially consequential or recurring ones, using practices supported by high‐quality research. We present a step‐by‐step set of approaches to becoming an evidence‐based HR practitioner: from getting started, through everyday practices and continuous learning to integrating EBHR into your organisation. In offering guidance for evidence‐based practice, this article underscores the connection between effective practice and organisational research.     

Feminisation of the medical profession: a strategic HRM dilemma? The effects of family‐friendly HR practices on female doctors' contracted working hours

Health‐care institutions face a strategic HR dilemma. They need to attract female doctors from a tight, feminised labour market by offering family‐friendly HR practices (e.g. part‐time employment), often based on collective labour agreements, while trying to contain their labour costs by employing as many full‐timers as possible. In this study, we investigate which family‐friendly arrangements serve health‐care institutions' HR strategies best in terms of retaining female doctors' working hours. Data collected in 2008 from 1,070 Dutch female doctors indicate that offering family‐friendly HR practices such as flexible working hours (in contrast to part‐time working) minimise the strategic HR dilemma, since it offers scope for improving the work–life balance without encouraging female doctors to work less hours. However, the effect of family‐friendly arrangements on working hours is dependent on the family‐friendly workforce philosophy: only with proper support for career goals do women using family‐friendly arrangements work more hours.     

Emerging competency methods for the future

Competency‐based applications have gained a foothold in HR practice worldwide; however, changes in the business environment and the structure of work itself are challenging the value of traditional competency methods in achieving strategic organizational benefits. The key question facing HR executives and practitioners today is how to leverage existing competency practices to greatly increase the impact of competency development on business results. The authors identify five emerging trends in the evolution of competency methods, identify the implications for HR practice, and propose several new directions for the application of competency methods to improve organizational learning and business performance. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

To be strategic in the new public sector,HR must remember its operational activities

This article examines the level of operational and strategic involvement by human resource departments, the influence of HR departments, and the level of strategic integration as predictors of human resource management per‐formance. Surveys from 146 senior line managers and HR executives in com‐mercialized and noncommercialized public‐sector agencies in Australia were the basis of organizational‐ and individual‐level analyses. Results indicate positive relationships between the degree to which operational HR activities are transferred to line managers, HR influence, strategic integration, and the performance of the HRM function. Interestingly, no relationship was found between the level of strategic involvement by HR departments and the per‐ceived performance of the function. Analysis of the individual‐level data sup‐ports the multiple‐constituency approach to HRM, with differences in the evaluation of HRM by respondents from different job functions. The study highlights challenges faced by HR practitioners needing to be operational, to be valued strategically. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

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.     

The human resource department's role and conditions that affect its development: Explanations from Austrian CEOs

Using a qualitative approach, this study fills a void in the literature on strategic HRM by analyzing Austrian CEOs' perceptions of the role of the HR department in their organizations, and the conditions that affect the development of a strategic role. The results suggest that even if CEOs have an overall positive evaluation of their HR departments and are willing to delegate responsibility for higher‐level decision‐making, to develop the HR department's role, CEOs must also feel they have the scope to do so. A framework for future research and practical implications for opportunities and constraints confronting HR managers are discussed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Transforming multinational enterprises: towards a process model of strategic human resource management change

How MNEs control and co-ordinate their subsidiaries' human resources has been a mtter of some debate in recent years. The corporate centre's human resource (HR) department is frequently accorded a key role in shaping direction through programme of strategic change involving best practice transfer or culture change. Such programmes, however, have been questioned by academics and practitioners for their ability to deliver on the promises made for them and for the failure to recognize the problems of top-down programmes of change. In this paper, we address the question of what it might take to deliver a coherent and acceptable corporate-wide strategic HR change initiative whilst allowing for simultaneous subsidiary development and innovation? Drawing on our direct experience of case studies and building on the more general strategic change literature, we develop a process model of strategic HR changes in MNEs, which identifies the key factors that lead to successful change outcomes. The main contribution of this work is to fill existing gaps in the literature and to provide some advice to practitioners who seek to implement universal HR change programmes in MNEs.     

Private equity and HRM in the British business system

Who owns the firm? Do changes in owner matter? Will change affect the operational and strategic role of the HR function? For some, the answer will be no precisely because mergers and acquisitions, takeovers, buyouts and privatisations are central activities for a British‐based business where short‐term value for shareholders and financial engineering are key management objectives that structure and inform the work of HR professionals. For other readers, the answer may well be yes; ownership and owner strategies do matter, particularly if a firm is acquired by a relatively new actor in the market for corporate control – the private equity firm.     

When Do Outsider CEOs Generate Strategic Change? The Enabling Role of Corporate Stability

When academic researchers, business commentators, and boards of directors have debated the merits of hiring new CEOs from outside the firm, the implicit or explicit assumption typically made is that outsider CEOs will provide an advantage in achieving strategic change. In this study, we challenge this assumption by employing a duality perspective on stability/change, and we provide an original conceptual framework to posit that it is the presence of corporate stability (ordinary succession, a long‐tenured predecessor CEO, and good firm performance) that allows outsider CEOs to generate a greater degree of post‐succession strategic change. We use extensive longitudinal data from US airline and chemical industries between 1972 and 2010 to test our hypotheses, and we discuss how our supportive findings challenge long‐standing assumptions regarding the outsider succession–strategic change relationship, and we advocate embracing the non‐intiutive notion that stable (unstable) conditions can be enablers (barriers) of strategic change for outsider CEOs.     

Recruitment and selection services: Efficiency and competitive reasons in the outsourcing of HR practices

While human resource (HR) activities have traditionally been performed internally, the outsourcing of HR practices is a rapidly increasing phenomenon. The accelerated rate of HR outsourcing also corresponds to a sweeping change in which non-transactional activities, such as recruitment, selection and training, are among the most outsourced HR practices. This article investigates the outsourcing decisions of recruiting and selection (R&S). It develops a predictive model based on efficiency drivers, rooted in transaction cost economy (TCE), and competitive motivations, derived from the resource-based view. The model has been tested in a sample of 276 medium and large enterprises in two specific contexts: the outsourcing of administrative R&S practices (job advertisement and pre-screening) and that of the more strategic R&S practices (colloquia and selection). Findings confirm the relevance of both categories of predictors, but they reveal how efficiency motivations are more important for the decisions to outsource administrative R&S practices while competitive issues matter more for the strategic side of R&S activity. Theoretical and managerial implications are offered on the basis of such evidence.     

Moving beyond a legal‐centric approach to managing workplace romances: organizationally sensible recommendations for HR leaders

The goal of this article is to encourage human resource (HR) leaders to think more strategically about managing workplace romances. The traditional legal‐centric management approach focuses on minimizing risks of workplace romances. We advocate embedding the legal‐centric approach within a broader and more strategic organizationally sensible approach that provides a balanced focus on minimizing risks and maximizing rewards of workplace romances. Drawing from the empirical workplace romance literature, we derive a set of organizationally sensible best‐practice recommendations that HR leaders can adopt to manage risks and rewards of romantic relationships in organizations. Implementing our more strategic recommendations should provide the added benefit of elevating HR professionals' roles as organizational leaders. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.