The HRM evolutionary

perspectives and roles

Synthesis

Realized by:
El AHDAL Salma
Mr.GASSEMI

supervised by:

Synthesis of human resources management

Human Resource Management is a relatively new approach to managing people in
any organization. People are considered the key resource in this approach. It is
concerned with the people dimension in management of an organization. In fact,
Human Resource Management is a way of management that links people-related
activities to the strategy of organizational business. In this synthesis I will try to
analyze deeply this type of management according to two parts. In first time I will
describe the evolutionary and chronological perspective on the development of
Strategic human resource management, secondly I am going to show the advantage,
which can offers HRM in being source of creating value and competitivity in the
organization. So I will find a response to axial problematics, which are principally:
What the evolutionary perspective on the development of SHRM? And what is its
main role to create value and competitive advantage?
Like I precise previously the first part of this synthesis will be allocated to the
evolutionary perspective on development of strategic HRM, depending on seven
themes; in which one has his influence on it. Boxall, Purcell, and Wright (2007)
distinguish 3 major subfields of human resource management (HRM): microHRM
(MHRM), strategic HRM (SHRM), and international HRM (IHRM). The first one
microHRM covers the subfunctions of HR policy and practice; consists of two main
categories: one with managing individuals and small groups (e.g., recruitment,
selection, induction, training and development, performance management, and
remuneration) and the other with managing work organization and employee voice
systems (including union-management relations). The second one is the strategic
HRM that recovers the overall HR strategies adopted by business units and
companies and tries to measure their impacts on performance. Within this domain
both design and execution issues are examined. Finally, International HRM which
covers HRM in companies operating across national boundaries. In this first part I will
focal on the second subfield SHRM. This concept were described and discussed by
labor economists and industrial relations scholars whose divided the SHRM literature
into seven themes which had significant influence on the development of the field.
The first theme, explaining contingency perspectives and fit, refers to the
connection between HR policies and practices to various elements of strategy.
Snows & Miles (1984) presented a typology of strategy includes Analyzers
Defenders, prospectors, and Reactors that talked about matching specific sets of
human resource practices to each considered strategy. In the second theme, shifting
from a focus on managing people to creating strategic contributions, more
focus emphasizes on ensuring that employees had the capacity and motivation to
achieve organizational goals and targets. Concerning the third theme which is
Human resources management

elaborating HR system components and structure, Schuler (1992) defined and

identified components and structure by focusing on philosophy, policies, programs,
practices, and processes. Arthur (1994), Dyer and Reeves (1995), and Huselid
(1995) also work on HR bundles and its relation with high performance work systems.
On the other hand, some researchers such as Tsui et al (1997), Lepak and Snel
(1999, 2002), Liu, Lepak, Takeuchi, and Sims (2003) talked about human resource
architecture. For the fourth theme, expanding the scope of SHRM, It discusses
about the relationship between HR function and competitive advantage, including:
SHRM in an internal context and outside the focal organization. Schuler and
Mcmillan (1984), Lengnick-Hall (1999), Gardner (2005), Milliman et al. (1991),martin
& Beaumont (2001), Ngo, Lau, and Foley (2008). Some researchers such as Martin
and Beaumont (2001) Som (2007) and others developed SHRM concepts to
multinational and national environment. The fifth theme refers to achieving HR
implementation and execution and concern of firms to achieve HR implementation
motivated many researchers to pay more attention about this. Truss and Gratton
(1994) differentiated between intended business strategy and realized business
strategy. Boswell (2006) introduced a new construct as consisting of two
components: (1) understanding strategic objectives of an organization, and
(2) understanding how to help to specified objectives. One of the important concerns
in companies and firms is measuring SHRM activities which are the object of the
sixth theme, measuring outcomes of SHRM Definded that organizational outcomes
are a product of the interaction between the actual behaviors of human resources
(HR outcomes) and the other functional resources and inputs deployed and used by
the organization, and for the last theme, evaluating methodological issues,
Concerns methodological issues that have plagued research on the relationship
between HR systems and organizational performance by asserting that SHRM
researchers need to pay more attention to measurement error and construct validity
issues. And demonstrats the importance of generalizability theory to ameliorate this
problem. Argue also that the measurement focus should be directed more at the
omitted variables problem and what mediates the HR system to organizational
performance relationship rather than the reliability of raters
To understand as well the SHRM literature we have to consider its chronological
development. SHRM research published during the 19801990 period was primarily
conceptual and theoretical. In this same period , many ideas were developed as:
SHRM was expanded to include strategy formulation as well as strategy
implementation, at the same a distinction between fit and flexibility was established
that has had an enduring impact on the field, also the important role of context (both
internal and external) in SHRM research was specified. Additionally, knowledge
(public vs. private) was introduced as a source of competitive advantage that
organizations can use SHRM to exploit. After, in 20002005 many studies of the

Human resources management

relationship between HR systems and organizational performance identified

methodological issues such as the use of single raters, failure to account for omitted
variables, and issues of causality as needing greater attention by SHRM researchers.
To develop SHRM, several theories and researches have emerged to identify all
areas, but there are still a few domains where research is promising. Some domains
have not been treated by researchers but they require more attention, both in terms
of implementation of SHRM and the vertical and horizontal adjustment, or the
conception and architecture HR systems to connect them with the global strategy of
the organization. On the other hand, the optimization of human capital is a new area
of research that should be detailed, in order to develop a competitive advantage. The
organization must take on its consideration the influence of HR practices and the
implementation of SHRM because it has some effects that the organization should
control, and to master the role of HR in the development and institutionalization of
organizational identity and its impact on the social climate.
Finally, we should focus on the effect of the varied HR practices for different groups
of employees, and the complex interactions that occur within the organization
impacting the performance of the organization.
In the second part of this synthesis I will describe the role that the human resources
management process plays in being source of value creating and competitive
advantage in organization. In fact, managers are now asking whether and how HRM
can add economic value to the firm. Two paradigms in literature describe the
contribution of HRM to firm performance. The first one assigns value to a firms stock
of human capital as way as of measuring the contribution of human resources to firm
performance. The second paradigm attempts to identify and measure the typologies
of HRM practices associated with higher performance or labor productivity. In this
section I will introduce a new perspective on the contribution of HRM to a firms
performance which links the human capital and the best practices paradigms
discussed above. In the first time I will discuss the theoretical foundations of the
process view of HRM. In fact, the first theory called resource-based view (RBV) is
anchored in the notion that variability in performance is explained by a firms
resources and capabilities heterogeneity. The term of capabilities refers to the
tangible or intangible mechanisms and firm-specific used by organizations to
develop, combine, deploy and protect resources to convert them into outputs. All this
activities give a companys competitive advantage which is its strategic assets that
can enable the firm to realize superior economic performance. So firm must to
sustain its superior profitability by creating isolating strategies and mechanisms
inaccessible and inimitable. The second theory is based on the social context; it
Human resources management

means that managerial activities are justified by the culture of the firm and not
necessary based on financial or economic reasoning as well as its activities and
decisions become institutionalized by its habits, norms and traditions. Consequently,
fixed in a firms culture and social norms, HRM processes are the firm-specific
dynamic mechanisms by which a firm attracts, socializes trains, motivates, evaluates,
and compensates its human resources. All this complementary processes allow as
well as the information exchange and decision-exchanging which can improve
productivity and strategic flexibility; which in turn, create value and enable the firm to
carry out its chosen market strategy.
In this second section, I will precede whit comparisons between the HRM process
perspective, the human-capital and HRM best practices perspectives. First of all we
have to distinct between an HRM practices which refer to specific activities, such as
using a selection test. And the HRM processes which is more than collection of
activities or best practices. In fact the HRM processes are defined as firm-specific
ordered and coordinated transformational mechanisms that enable informationexchange and decision-making. In consequence the main difference between the
HRM practices approach and HRM process perspective one is that the first lists
prescriptions in isolations, despite the second process approach views activities as a
part of a larger process characterized by goal orientation, coordination, and
information exchange. So HRM process approach is about how these activities are
coordinated and combined. Concerning the confrontation between HRM process and
the human capital perspectives we can say that a sustainable a competitive
advantage results from a dynamic organizational HRM process that renews and
adjusts the way in which firm selects, trains, socializes, evaluates and compensates
its human-capital that enable a firm to effectively execute its strategy.
There are few characteristics of HRM processes that render them valuable. These
characteristics include: tactiness which means that HRM process become dynamic
rather than static and consequently hard to imitate by competitors; coordinated and
complimentary, because HRM process permit to attend organizational success by
establishing fit between organizational variables, learning is one of the
characteristics which can make HRM process valuable by making this one more
adapted to meet change organization needs and consequently to update processes
faster than competitors. Path dependency, this characteristic is based on the idea
that HRM processes build upon past experiences by reinforcing those activities that

Human resources management

work and eliminating those that lead to failures. Robustness, processes became
more robust witch use as the organizational experience grows.
To summarize all we said previously in this second part, the HRM process can
generate a competitive advantage by its tactic, dynamic, and evolutionary aspects. In
addition the HRM process approach generates the recognition that the source of a
firms strategic assets in internal and firm specific rather than external as well as it
pushes managers to focus on aligning these processes with strategy while auditing
their evolution to make them more effective.
To conclude, I can say that the human resources management followed a large
chronological evolution that make here a strategic and central function in the firm. Its
importance results from the advantages that it can offer to any organization, in being
one of the main axes which create a competitive advantage and a source of value
and development progress. For that reason, every company has to introduce the
process of HRM in its own strategy, to be more able to make better use of resources
and to mobilize them to execute successful market strategies.

Human resources management