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The purpose of this paper is to develop an “HRM-as-practice” research agenda. The authors suggest that the HRM-performance literature would benefit from an actor-centric approach and a focus on activities, and that the HR roles research needs to shift its attention toward a more dynamic perspective of HR work and link this further to performance.

The paper first provides an overview of strategy-as-practice (SAP) literature, and then review how extant HRM literature deals with three core notions of SAP: practices, praxis and practitioners. Based on this, the paper outlines an “HRM-as-practice” research agenda.

Focussing on the intersections between praxis, practitioners and practice, the paper suggests that an “HRM-as-practice” approach can give new insights into first, how people-related decisions are made, implemented and enacted in organizations; second, how employees and other HRM stakeholders interpret and engage with HRM; third, how HR actors become more effective and influential organizational agents; and fourth, what the short-term and long-term effects of these actions and activities are.

The authors acknowledge the fuzzy and intertwined nature of the practices, practitioners and praxis categories, but believe that their intersections provide a fruitful theoretical lens to examine the practice of HRM.

The authors use the HRM-as-practice lens to suggest novel research approaches that can shed new light on several open questions within the HRM field.

Human resource analytics (HRA) is an HR activity that companies and academics increasingly pay attention to. Existing literature conceptualises HRA mostly from an objectivist perspective, which limits understanding of actual HRA activities in the complex organisational environment. This paper therefore draws on the practice-based approach, using a novel framework to conceptualise HRA-as-practice.

The authors conducted a systematic literature review of 100 academic and practitioner-oriented publications to analyse existing HRA literature in relation to practice theory, using the “HRA-as-practice” frame.

The authors identify the main practices involved in HRA, by whom and how these practices are enacted, and reveal three topics in nomological network of HRA-as-practice: HRA technology, HRA outcomes and HRA hindrances and facilitators, which the authors suggest might actualize enactment of HRA practices.

The authors offer HR function and HR professionals a basic ground to evaluate HRA as a highly contextual activity that can potentially generate business value and increase HR impact when seen as a complex interaction between HRA practices, HRA practitioners and HRA praxis. The findings also help HR practitioners understand multiple factors that influence the practice of HRA.

This systematic review differs from the previous reviews in two ways. First, it analyses both academic and practitioner-oriented publications. Second, it provides a novel theoretical contribution by conceptualising HRA-as-practice and comprehensively compiling scattered topics and themes related to HRA.

This paper aims to respond to questions being raised about the challenges, risks and impacts of Human Resource Analytics (HRA). Based on a study of 40 companies, it discusses the implications of HRA for practitioners, praxis and practices in HRM and adds to this a concern with whether HRA is enhancing mutuality in employment relationships.

Using an abductive approach, the authors analyzed data from semistructured interviews with an HRA leader or specialist in 40 large organizations.

While wrestling with the challenge of data quality and integration, the practice of descriptive analytics is widely adopted in these companies and the majority can demonstrate improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of HR activities through predictive analytics. The analytical competence of HR specialists is an ongoing issue. While much more research is needed, the companies in the authors’ sample demonstrated some valuable examples of mutual gains from HRA.

Education in HRA must not only help to raise quantitative competencies among HR specialists but should also help them to ask critical questions about the theoretical propositions and subjective data points being built into HRA. Boundary spanning is important to enable effective HRA and processes for employee voice to be improved. Arguably, the time has come for a more formalized data analytics' strategy in large organizations.

This paper provides evidence on how HRA is being implemented in large companies, including how HRA leaders are managing its challenges and risks and the impacts it is having on business and employee outcomes.

This study aims to explore how human resource (HR) practitioners conceive of their practice, reveal challenges they grapple with in daily work and generate a conceptual framework of HR praxis.

The paper is based on interviews with HR practitioners in Sweden and a review of articles that examine aspects of HR practitioners' work.

The HR practitioners' work is fragmented and reactive, filled with meetings and affords few opportunities to work undisturbed. Operational tasks are prioritised over strategic work, and their work sometimes involves tasks that are not HR's responsibility. The nature of HR practitioners' daily work mimics the work of their main “customer”, i.e. managers within the organisations.

The HR practitioners were working mainly in the service of managers, which suggests that they have an internal focus. Consistent with current, prescriptive HR discourse, HR practitioners should adopt a multi-stakeholder perspective of human resource management (HRM) and a more external focus that is necessary to contribute to wider, organisational effectiveness. The findings could enrich what is taught in higher education by providing students with an account of the reality of HR practitioners' daily work.

The study provides a situated account of the daily work of HR practitioners, which is largely absent from the literature.

Poses the question whether, on an academic level, human resource management (HRM) is a scientific discipline of management. To arrive at an answer, brings together findings of a survey concerning the foundations of HRM then links them by four central hypotheses. The first (rather speculative) hypothesis claims that, in Germany at least, the discussion of HRM problems over the last 30 years has been selective and influenced by different and changing paradigms of HRM. The second hypothesis is that nearly all formulations of HRM concepts have to be embedded in a national context. The third hypothesis states that even given the restricting effect of hypotheses one and two, a theory pitfall exists preventing any theoretical foundation of effective HRM and forcing us to construct intelligent, but untested, HRM hypotheses. The fourth hypothesis links the problems of these untested hypotheses with the problem of ethical norms for HRM in theory and practice. The final judgement is that the high theoretical requirements of HRM as an academic discipline cannot be fulfilled.

Two research questions are asked in this paper: RQ1. How does line management involvement in PA work unfold in practice? RQ2. How does line management involvement contribute toward any divergence arising between intended and implemented PA work?

An in-depth case study from a multi-actor perspective based on interviews with HR managers, line managers and employees, and organizational documents.

The findings illustrate how line managers faced three types of complexities during implementation, i.e. dilemmas, understandings, and local adaptations. These jointly contributed to a divergence arising between the PA as intended and the PA as implemented. This divergence became associated with how line management involvement was restricted to the local context and the initial stages of the PA process, highlighting how HR practices can contain both devolved and non-devolved elements.

We respond to calls for more in-depth qualitative studies of how line managers are involved in HR work; this is done specifically by conceptualizing the complexities line managers face in practice when implementing HR practices. As such, we add to the understanding of HR practices as relational and social in nature. We also contribute to the processual understanding of HRM by highlighting how HR practices can contain both devolved and non-devolved elements. By stressing the limitations of binary conceptualizations of HR devolution, we add to the understanding of HR devolution as more complex and multifaceted than traditionally assumed.

Reviews three books in the field of employment relations, industrial relations and human resource management: Employment Relations: Continuity and Change: Policies and Practices by E. Rose; Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice by M. Salamon; and Human Resource Management A Critical Text, edited by J. Storey. The review highlights the tension between the academic requirement for rigour in research and the publisher's requirement for a text that will have commercial value. It raises the point that textbooks often define of a research discipline for those outside academic circles. The review provides a detailed account of each book and compares their strengths and weaknesses. Concludes with a call to debate further what is required in a good textbook.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of how talent management (TM) unfolds in practice in a public organization.

An exploratory single case study was conducted of a Swedish public hospital, based on interviews, observations and documents.

The findings illustrate that despite a highly egalitarian and collectivist context, the hospital adopted an exclusive approach to TM, and a talent was not considered or identified through formal performance appraisals, but through informal criteria. The rationale behind this approach is influenced by the surrounding context, including the implementation of an innovative and strategically important practice, and the highly professionalized context.

The study offered a rich view of how TM unfolds in practice, which may not always be possible using large sample, survey studies; however, it limited the generalizability.

The study points to important issues when designing TM.

The paper addresses two main shortcomings in the TM literature: the under-researched context of public organizations and the lack of contextual awareness. The empirically driven analysis constitutes an important step for further theory development regarding exclusive/inclusive approaches in TM.

In this study, scales were developed to measure the extent to which organisations exhibited “soft” or “hard” approaches to HRM, and the extent to which potential barriers to the effective operation of HRM were present. The sample comprised 549 employees, managers and HRM staff across a wide range of types of organisations in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, the UK and Canada. While the results supported the contention that HRM effectiveness can be achieved via both “soft” and “hard” approaches, several barriers to HRM take‐up were identified and there was little evidence that organisations generally operated HRM policies and practices that were seen as effective. Although very few differences between countries were found, the authors suggest the barriers identified and related ineffectiveness of HRM may be all the more detrimental to the competitiveness of Australian and New Zealand organisations in light of the recent economic downturn in the Asia‐Pacific region.