Armstrong's Handbook of Strategic Human Resource Management

Michael Armstrong

• Editore: Kogan Page
• Anno: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780749476830
• Edizione: 6
• Argomento: Negocios y empresa
• Categoria: Gestión de recursos humanos

Strategic human resource management has been taken up by academics, consultants and practitioners alike. However, the integration of human resource strategy with overall business strategy is often easier in theory than in practice. Armstrong's Handbook of Strategic Human Resource Management provides a bridge between theory and practice, serving as a guide both to formulating human resource strategies and to implementing them.This completely revised sixth edition examines HRM and SHRM as well as organizational and functional strategies from a practical standpoint. It includes brand new chapters on developing and delivering HR strategy, implementing individual performance strategies, creating and executing a corporate social responsibility strategy as well as a new discussion of international HRM strategies. Full of case studies, checklists and practical examples, Armstrong's Handbook of Strategic Human Resource Management is an indispensable resource for all those who are involved in putting complex strategy into practice to effect positive and productive change. Online supporting resources include lecture slides, an instructor's manual and a student's manual complete with a bibliography and glossary.

PART ONE
The framework of strategic HRM

Human resource management 01

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KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS

Added value

Contextual model of HRM

European model of HRM

5-P model of HRM

Hard HRM

Harvard framework

HRM architecture

HR philosophy

Human resource management (HRM)

Matching model of HRM

Resource-based theory

Soft HRM

Strategic alignment

Strategic human resource management (SHRM)

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LEARNING OUTCOMES

On completing this chapter you should be able to define these key concepts. You should also know about:

• the fundamental concept of HRM and how it developed;

• the goals of HRM;

• the philosophy of HRM;

• models of HRM;

• the HRM architecture;

• the impact of HRM on organizational performance;

• the ethical dimension of HRM;

• HRM in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

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Introduction

Human resource management (HRM) is concerned with all aspects of how people are employed, managed and developed in organizations. As Boxall (2013: 13) pointed out: ‘Human resources include the knowledge, skills, networks and energies of people and, underpinning them, their physical and emotional health, intellectual capabilities, personalities and motivations.’ HRM is delivered through the human resource (HR) architecture of systems and structures, the HR function and, importantly, line management.

Some people criticize the notion of referring to people as resources as if they were any other factor of production. Osterby and Coster (1992: 31) argued that: ‘The term “human resources” reduces people to the same category of value as materials, money and technology – all resources, and resources are only valuable to the extent they can be exploited or leveraged into economic value.’ People management is sometimes preferred as an alternative but HRM, in spite of its connotations, is the term that is most commonly used.

HRM emerged in the 1980s as a philosophy of how people should be managed. As Hendry and Pettigrew (1990: 20) observed: ‘What HRM did at this point was to wrap around some of the observable changes, while providing a focus for challenging deficiencies – in attitudes, scope, coherence and direction – of existing personnel management.’ They also commented (1990:25) that HRM can be perceived as a ‘perspective on personnel management and not personnel management itself’. HRM can therefore be regarded as a concept and this is discussed in the first section of this chapter. But HRM is manifested in a set of practices. These are examined in the second section of this chapter and include the overarching framework of strategic human resource management (see Chapter 3) within which HR strategies are formulated and implemented (see Part 2). Four other aspects of HRM are dealt with in this chapter: first, the implications of the context in which HR takes place; second, the impact that HRM makes on organizational performance; third, its ethical dimension; and fourth, the special considerations affecting HRM in small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The concept of HRM

HRM as originally conceived had a conceptual framework consisting of a philosophy underpinned by a number of theories drawn from the behavioural sciences and from the fields of strategic management, human capital management and industrial relations. The HRM philosophy has been heavily criticized by some academics as being managerialist and manipulative but this criticism has subsided, perhaps because it became increasingly evident that the term HRM had been adopted as a synonym for what used to be called personnel management. As noted by Storey (2007: 6): ‘In its generic broad and popular sense it [HRM] simply refers to any system of people management.’

HRM practice today is no longer governed by the original philosophy, if it ever was. It is simply what HR people and line managers do.

HRM defined

Human resource management is defined as a strategic, integrated and coherent approach to the employment, development and well-being of the people working in organizations. It was defined more pragmatically by Boxall and Purcell (2003: 1) as ‘all those activities associated with the management of employment relationships in the firm’. A more comprehensive definition was offered by Watson (2010: 919):

HRM is the managerial utilization of the efforts, knowledge, capabilities and committed behaviours that people contribute to an authoritatively co-ordinated human enterprise as part of an employment exchange (or more temporary contractual arrangement) to carry out work tasks in a way that enables the enterprise to continue into the future.

The goals of HRM

The goals of HRM are to:

• support the organization in achieving its objectives by developing and implementing HR strategies that are integrated with the business strategy (strategic HRM);

• contribute to the development of a high-performance culture;

• ensure that the organization has the talented, skilled and engaged people it needs;

• create a positive employment relationship between management and employees and a climate of mutual trust;

• encourage the application of an ethical approach to people management.

The philosophy of HRM

The following explanation of HRM philosophy was made by Legge (1989:25), whose analysis of a number of HRM models identified the following common themes:

That human resource policies should be integrated with strategic business planning and used to reinforce an appropriate (or change an inappropriate) organizational culture, that human resources are valuable and a source of competitive advantage, that they may be tapped most effectively by mutually consistent policies that promote commitment and that, as a consequence, foster a willingness in employees to act flexibly in the interests of the ‘adaptive organization’s’ pursuit of excellence.

Storey (2001: 7) noted that the beliefs of HRM included the assumptions that it is the human resource that gives competitive edge; that the aim should be to enhance employee commitment; that HR decisions are of strategic importance; and that therefore HR policies should be integrated into the business strategy.

Underpinning theories of HRM

The original notion of HRM had a strong theoretical base. Guest (1987:505) commented that: ‘Human resource management appears to lean heavily on theories of commitment and motivation and other ideas derived from the field of organizational behaviour.’ However, resource-based theory expressed as ‘the resource-based view’ has had the greatest influence on HRM. This theory states that competitive advantage is achieved if a firm’s resources are valuable, rare and costly to imitate. It is claimed that HRM can play a major part in ensuring that the firm’s human resources meet these criteria.

Models of HRM

Over the years a number of models (as summarized below) have defined what HRM is and how it operates. Of these, the matching model and the Harvard framework have been the most influential.

The matching model of HRM

Fombrun, Tichy and Devanna (1984) proposed the ‘matching model’, which indicated that HR systems and the organization structure should be managed in a way that is congruent with organizational strategy. This point was made in their classic statement that: ‘The critical management task is to align the formal structure and human resource systems so that they drive the strategic objectives of the organization’ (1984: 37). Thus they took the first steps towards the concept of strategic HRM.

The Harvard model of HRM

Beer et al (1984) produced what has become known as the ‘Harvard framework’. They started with the proposition that: ‘Human resource management (HRM) involves all management decisions and actions that affect the nature of the relationship between the organization and employees – its human resources’ (1984: 1). They believed that: ‘Today… many pressures are demanding a broader, more comprehensive and more strategic perspective with regard to the organization’s human resources’ (1984: 4). They also stressed that it was necessary to adopt ‘a longer-term perspective in managing people and consideration of people as a potential asset rather than merely a variable cost’ (1984: 6). Beer and his colleagues were the first to underline the HRM tenet that it belongs to line managers. They suggested that HRM had two characteristic features: 1) line managers accept more responsibility fo...