Search results

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of HRM philosophy for HPWS formulation and implementation, as well as to investigate its role to improve employee perceptions of HPWS.

A qualitative study of 55 interviews was conducted with managers (senior, HR, frontline) and employees from three telecommunication organisations based in Pakistan.

The findings indicate that a clear, well-developed HRM philosophy ensures clarity in HPWS formulation not only for managers, but also for employees. However, lack of strong philosophical foundations for HPWS can result into distorted HRM messages and negative employee perceptions.

Whilst there remains debate over the positive and negative influence of HPWS for employee outcomes, this study presents HRM philosophy as important HRM component to understand HPWS implementation. The article highlights the fact that the purpose of HPWS practices and its effective communication to employees can make a substantial difference in how employees perceive these practices. In sum, an employee centred philosophy is likely to be pre-condition circumstances for improving employee outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to develop understanding of the “HRM process” as defined by Bowen and Ostroff (2004). The authors clarify the construct of “HRM philosophy” and suggest it is communicated to employees through “HRM messages”. Interrelationships between these concepts and other elements of the HRM-performance relationship are explored. The study identifies commonalities in the HRM philosophy and messages underscoring high-performing HRM systems, and highlights the function of a “messenger” in delivering messages to staff.

Case study of eight Australian hospitals with top performing HRM systems. Combines primary interview data with independent healthcare accreditor reports.

All cases share an HRM philosophy of achieving high-performance outcomes through the HRM system and employees are provided with messages about continuous improvement, best practice and innovation. The philosophy was instilled primarily by executive-level managers, whereby distinctiveness, consensus and consistency of communications were important characteristics.

The research is limited by: omission of low or average performers; a single industry and country design; and exclusion of employee perspectives.

The findings reinforce the importance of identifying the HRM philosophy and its key communicators within the organisation, and ensuring it is aligned with strategy, climate and the HRM system, particularly during periods of organisational change.

The authors expand Bowen and Ostroff’s seminal work and develop the concepts of HRM philosophy and messages, offering the model to clarify key relationships. The findings underscore problems associated with a best practice approach that disregards HRM process elements essential for optimising performance.

Greenfield sites have been seen as the most favourable setting for the adoption of human resource management (HRM). Presents a study of two greenfield employers’ attempts to introduce and maintain HRM philosophy and practices. Contrasts one management’s creation of HRM philosophy with another’s efforts to replicate its principles in a new unit. Describes and assesses these managements’ practices over the ten years since start up. Demonstrates that in the face of market pressures, greenfield managers are no more capable of maintaining soft‐version practices than their brownfield counterparts. Shows how these managers attempted to legitimize hard‐version practices by continuing to rely on language which reflected the humanistic principles of HRM. Concludes that without a radical reappraisal of management’s values, the long‐term aims of HRM will elude greenfield and brownfield sites alike.

Human Resource Management (HRM) effects on firm performance can be examined at the systems architecture (i.e., guiding principles or philosophy), the policy, or practices levels. This paper suggests that, at least for small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries, it is the guiding principles that affect a firm’s performance. Using a unique dataset of 44 SMEs in Tamil‐Nadu, India, this paper presents a regression analysis of the relationship between HRM philosophies and measures of firm performance. It is shown that the attitude of the firm’s owner(s) towards its employees is a major determinant of the firm’s profitability. The effect of HRM philosophy on productivity is smaller, albeit still highly significant.

Human resource (HR) philosophy and an organization’s commitment to employees (OCE) are important components of a human resource management (HRM) system, yet the influences of these variables on the effectiveness of HRM implementation has been less evident. Similarly, few studies have examined the effect of intended and implemented HR practices on line managers’ perceptions of HR department effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to examine how these factors could result in a positive evaluation of HR department effectiveness in Vietnam.

Study 1 consisted of 405 line managers and the authors used this sample to test the proposed research model. Study 2, comprising 192 line managers, was used to validate the findings from Study 1.

The authors found empirical evidence of how HR managers should leverage their relationships with line managers to enhance HR department effectiveness in a developing economy such as Vietnam.

As data were from line managers in one point in time, this study could be affected by common method bias. However, the authors conducted three common method variance checks and the analyses showed that this issue was not a major concern. Future studies could extend the sample of respondents by collecting information from CEOs, employees, and HR managers.

This study contributes to the extant literature empirical evidence of determinants of HR department effectiveness. First, the study shows the simultaneous impacts of HR philosophy and OCE on the actual implementation of HR practices. Second, the authors provide an understanding of line managers’ evaluation of HR department effectiveness through their experience with implemented HR practices.

This chapter addresses employee ownership within a strategic human resource management (SHRM) framework that has gained increased attention. The study extends the configurational approach to SHRM and argues that the construct of the workforce philosophy is the primary factor that determines the coherence of HRM systems. In other words, the workforce philosophy propagates the idea that employees both deserve to be co-owners and must be taken seriously as such. In addition, the chapter argues that the HRM system should reflect this workforce philosophy: the HRM system should contain HRM practices that mirror the rights that comprise the very construct of “ownership.” We present the possible core HRM practices of the “ownership high-performance work system (O-HPWS),” which, similar to employee ownership, produces favorable outcomes. The chapter also addresses the important mediating role of employees’ perception and attributions related to employee share ownership in the relationship of the HRM system (with employee share ownership) to favorable outcomes.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between owner-manager or leader’s ambidextrous leadership style and its effect on human resource management (HRM) practices, contextual ambidexterity and knowledge-intensive small- and medium-enterprises (SMEs) strategic agility.

This study presents an in-depth qualitative case study analysis of two knowledge-intensive SMEs from India’s information technology and health-care products industry serving a range of global clients. Using the theoretical lenses of empowerment-focused HRM practices, ambidextrous leaders, contextual ambidexterity and strategic agility, semi-structured interview data of leaders, managers and employees of the case organizations were analysed. Through a two-staged analytical process, we abductively developed a novel conceptual framework at the intersection of the above theoretical lenses.

The findings suggest that the knowledge-intensive SME’s strategic agility, ambidexterity and empowerment-focussed HRM approach was influenced by the owner-manager or leader’s ambidextrous leadership style and their philosophy towards managing people and had a positive impact in creating a culture of trust, participation, risk-taking and openness, and led to delivering innovative products and services as well as several positive employee-level outcomes.

Recent literature reviews on HRM In SMEs highlight several gaps, including the impact of owner-manager or leader’s philosophy of managing people in shaping HRM practices and employee outcomes. This paper thus adds to the existing literature on HRM and knowledge-intensive SMEs.

Organisations increasingly implement self-managing teams (SMTs) to empower their employees. By drawing from the HRM process model and multilevel thinking, this paper explores how the HRM function changes in terms of actors and activities when introducing SMTs.

An in-depth, multilevel case study was conducted at a large healthcare organisation in The Netherlands, making use of 70 interviews, document analysis and observations.

The findings show that SMTs transform the HRM function by changing the responsibilities of teams, HRM professionals and line managers in the implementation of HRM activities. The analysis shows that many HRM responsibilities are devolved to SMTs, which are supported by the HRM department.

These changes in the HRM function influence the HRM implementation process and provide all actors with new roles and activities. Based on these findings, this paper presents an inductive model of HRM implementation.

The findings help HRM practitioners to transform the HRM function when deciding to introduce SMTs.

This article is one of the first that empirically explores how the HRM function changes as a consequence of introducing SMTs. This is important because more and more organisations are adopting SMTs, while knowledge about the role of HRM is lacking.

The paper seeks to focus on operationalising corporate social responsibility in the context of employee governance. Its purpose is to evaluate critically the ethics of “mainstream” human resource management (HRM) and to propose an alternative stakeholder systems model of HRM.

Stakeholder theory is utilised to critique modes of employee governance, in the light of concepts of stakeholder accountability and organisational justice. Conceptual analysis attests to the need for a different philosophy of employee governance – in particular within knowledge‐intensive organisations.

The paper identifies the concept of “the responsible organisation” as a means of assessing organisational maturity in employee governance, and relates this to dimensions of organisational justice. Linkage enables employee perceptions of equitable treatment to be combined with effectiveness measures in the employee governance model proposed.

The paper demonstrates the significance and application potential of a stakeholder systems development of current modes of managing people. Conclusions confirm instrumental and ethical rationales for the greater involvement of and accountability to employee stakeholders.

The paper demonstrates a business‐based rationale for the adoption of ethical corporate governance and HRM.

The stakeholder systems model represents a holistic approach to human resource management by its incorporation of employee perspectives at HRM system design, operation and evaluation stages. It responds to the need for a new philosophy of HRM in an era of stakeholder‐accountable organisations.

Transition by the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) from communism towards market economies has brought with it the introduction of Western management thinking. CEE since 1989 has been a kind of test‐bed for human resource management (HRM) – the concept that people management practice is central to the strategic direction and potential competitive advantage of the firm. This paper draws on 21 diverse company case‐study experiences in Croatia to review emerging HR practices and assess the relevance of Western management models. A matrix is designed, that categorises these organisations as “sleepers”, “doers”, “thinkers”, “strivers” or “leaders”, according to their strategic intent and their progress on policy implementation. The results suggest that subsidiaries of multinational corporations are leading the way towards HRM and other significant factors are industry sector and size of the company. There is evidence of “hijacking”of HRM amongst some Croatian companies by old style traditional forces to maintain the status quo. Young Croatian managers welcomed new HR progressive practices and identified with most of the philosophy of HRM, apart from suspicions associated with “mindset control” aspects that they saw underpinning HRM and associated with the previous regime.