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Senior managements possess considerable discretion in making choices on personnel policy. Practice indicates a broad range of choice on a continuum from high strategic integration of human resource issues in strategic planning to more piecemeal ad hoc approaches to managing human resources. The particular approach adopted in organisations will reflect the interplay of internal and external factors in the organisation′s environment and establish the context for human resource development (HRD). A key external factor is the product market which affects managerial discretion in personnel policy choice. Important internal factors include competitive strategy and managerial values. Three benchmark dimensions underpin personnel policy choice in organisations – strategic integration, collectivism and individualism. Management positions on these dimensions become manifested in key areas of personnel policy such as the work system, communications, rewards, recruitment/employee development and the role of the personnel function. Looking at the Irish context a number of factors both encouraging and mitigating a greater strategic role for HRD may be identified.

This article aims to explore how understanding the challenges faced by companies' attempts to create competitive advantage through their human resources and HRM practices can be enhanced by insights into the concept of strategic groups within industries. Based within the international hotel industry, this study identifies how strategic groups emerge in the analysis of HRM practices and approaches. It sheds light on the value of strategic groups as a way of readdressing the focus on firm and industry level analyses.

Senior human resource executives and their teams across eight international hotel companies (IHCs) were interviewed in corporate and regional headquarters, with observations and the collection of company documentation complementing the interviews.

The findings demonstrate that strategic groups emerge from analysis of the HRM practices and strategies used to develop hotel general managers (HGMs) as strategic human resources in the international hotel industry. The value of understanding industry structures and dynamics and intermediary levels of analysis are apparent where specific industries place occupational constraints on their managerial resources and limit the range of strategies and expansion modes companies can adopt.

This study indicates that further research on strategic groups will enhance the theoretical understanding of strategic human resource management and specifically the forces that act to constrain the achievement of competitive advantage through human resources. A limitation of this study is the dependence on the human resource divisions' perspectives on realising international expansion ambitions in the hotel industry.

This study has implications for companies' engagement with their executives' perceptions of opportunities and threats, and suggests companies will struggle to achieve competitive advantage where such perceptions are consistent with their competitors.

Developments in strategic human resource management have relied on the conceptual and theoretical developments in strategic management, however, an understanding of the impact of strategic groups and their shaping of SHRM has not been previously explored.

The notion, that people management can be a key source of sustained competitive advantage, calls for the integration of Human Resource Management (HRM) and business strategy. Not surprisingly, the main debate in HRM is nowadays concerned with the relationship between strategic management and employee relations in the firm and therefore strategic HRM focuses on the overall direction of the organisation in pursuit of its stated goals and objectives. This paper explores the above relationship in the electronic manufacturing industry. It is based on empirical evidence and the findings of a survey of senior managers’ perception and views on strategic HRM.It is concluded that increasing core competencies of the firm, in particular HR, is one of the key elements to the success of the firm performance and that HR involvement in the development and implementation of business strategy leads to organisational effectiveness in this industry.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

There is growing evidence that Strategic Management Accounting (SMA) activities are being pursued in an interdisciplinary manner. One such discipline where management accounting could contribute is in Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM). The integration of business strategy and Human Resource Management minimises the risk of neglecting human resources as a vital source of organisational competitive advantage. It also provides a broader range of solutions for solving complex organisational problems and ensures that human resources are given consideration when setting company goals. This empirical study examines the current role of management accounting in relation to the SHRM process using data from surveys of Finance Directors and Human Resource Directors from both Canada and the UK. The results reveal that Canadian Finance professionals are more involved in providing information for developing, evaluating and controlling Human Resource (HR) strategy than UK Finance professionals. Both HR and Finance respondents considered that there was a need for a closer partnership between HR and Finance professionals.

The purpose of this paper is explore an organizational design that allows firms to invest in transferable strategic human capital. Strategic human capital requires considerable investment in training costs, effective compensation, opportunities for professional development and expectancy of long employment relationship within a firm. A firm can undertake investment in strategic knowledge and workers can engage in learning only in these circumstances. However, there are a number of risks that are associated with investment in strategic human capital within a firm. In this paper, the author argues that providing strategic human capital to other firms within alliances could be a strategy for leveraging resource. Strategic knowledge facilitates transactions between firms possessing co-specialized human capital and tangible resources. Organizational design of an alliance based on co-specialization allows to balance costs and returns for the human capital supplier, as well as for beneficiary and workers. Within an alliance, the human capital supplier provides workers to a beneficiary firm and coordinates their activities. Supplier specialized in human capital investment ensures improved performance, productivity and efficiency of workers. Possibility to form a greater pool of labor force and to centralize training allows optimizing cost and sharing risks associated with investment activity among alliance participants. Human resource practices in an alliance system foster long-term employment relationship. Entering an alliance increases number of job positions, professional development opportunities through horizontal mobility, promotion and learning opportunities for workers. Finally, alliances allow leveraging investment in human capital beyond a single organization.

This paper conceptualizes the use of alliance based on co-specialization as a strategy to optimize investment in strategic human capital resource. It draws upon the resource-based view (Barney, 1991; Wernerfelt, 1995) and transaction cost theory (Coase, 1937; Williamson, 1981) to examine an alliance as a strategy for leveraging the human capital resources for accessing new markets, building reputation and sharing the risks across more than one organization.

First, the paper reviews the theoretical literature on human capital as a strategic resource (Becker, 1962; Coff, 1997), its sourcing on internal and external labor markets and respective employment systems (Delery and Doty, 1996; Doeringer and Piore, 1971). Second, it focuses on the features of human capital resource (Barney, 1986; Chi, 1994; Doz and Hamel, 1998). Third, it conceptualizes the use of alliances based on co-specialization as organizational structures for investment in human capital across organizations and examines respective employment system and HR practices (Delery and Doty, 1996; Doeringer and Piore, 1971). As result, the author argues that an alliance can be an alternative mean to optimize returns on investment in human capital with strategic transferable knowledge. By consequence, the author describes an alliance employment system and illustrates the arguments with a case of human capital trading in a co-specialization alliance under a long-term management contract in the luxury hotel industry.

This paper discusses collaborative ventures as a sourcing strategy of the human capital. An alliance strategy is relevant for sourcing the strategic human capital resources. Human capital resource can be accessed by firms through transfer of skills and organizational routines within collaborative agreements, such as alliances based on co-specialization. In this case, alliance is an organizational architecture between organizations that improves the efficiency and productivity, reduces marginal cost on training due to larger scale of operations and reduces risk by splitting investment in human capital and by offering more career and development opportunities for strategic knowledge workers.

Describes a process through which an organization moved from traditional personnel management towards a more strategically oriented human resource management. Focuses on tracking down, periodically, the actions taken by the human resource manager and his/her relationships with the strategic management team within the context of major structural and strategic changes. Suggests that the internal dynamism of the human resource function led by an innovative leader, serves as a critical mechanism to keep the change process going after its start under favourable organizational and strategic circumstances.

Human resource management (HRM) theory has transitioned in recent decades towards “human capital” and “human assets” frameworks that emphasize strategic choice and “investment”, which are concepts borrowed from strategic management, accounting and economic theories. This paper aims to explore the perspectives of strategic human asset management theory, which involves strategic agility and knowledge management.

The research was based on semi‐structured interviews with 30 senior executives of multinational firms in Canada and the USA in 2009, following the global financial crisis. The qualitative findings were analyzed using the NVivo software (version 8) package.

The research findings suggest that many North American multinational firms recognize the value of this new interpretation of HRM and are attempting to implement it through “strategic human asset management” in their own firms. The paper concludes with some practical recommendations for line managers and HR professionals in their human assets management imperatives.

The generalizability of the findings is limited by the relatively small sample size and qualitative nature of the study. However, they provide some interesting implications for HR professionals who wish to transform their role into that of a strategic business partner through innovative human asset management strategies.

The paper builds on previous research by exploring the applications of the concepts of strategic human asset management, strategic agility, and knowledge management within the context of US and Canadian multinational firms.

This study uses structural equation modeling to test a model of the impact of human resources management practices on perceived organizational performance, on a large sample of European companies. The influences of competitive intensity, industry attractiveness, and strategic management are considered in the model, and their direct and indirect influence on organizational performance is assessed. The model produced an adequate fit, and results show that strategic management does influence human resource practices. Human resource flexibility practices and performance management have a positive impact on organizational performance, while training was not found to have a significant impact. A direct positive impact of competitive intensity and industry attractiveness on strategic management was supported by the data, as well as a direct positive effect of industry attractiveness on perceived organizational performance.

In recent years in Italy, as in the rest of Europe, new and profound changes have occurred in both the economic and political world as a whole. Such transformations in social and economic systems, typical of societies in the phase of transition to industrially advanced economies, have determined the need for the strategic and organization reorientation of Italian companies. Explains the strategic role of human resources in this new scenario, analysing some different models of HRM, the context of industrial relations, the differences between small and large companies in terms of HRM and the level of know‐how (technique and management systems) achieved by personnel managers.