BRM

RESEARCH PAPER ANALYSIS

N.Kiruthika [MBA-1st Year]

P201825,CUTN
NAVIGATING THE SHIFTING LANDSCAPES OF HRM

AUTHOR:
Brian Harney , David G. Collings
Dublin City University Business School, Dublin City University, Ireland
 ABSTRACT
A confluence of mega-trends mean that HR is experiencing disruption and change
on an un- precedented scale. This special issue is designed to inform our
understanding of these shifting landscapes of HRM. In this overview we detail the
broad contextual backdrop of key changes. The articles cover agile HR, HR
disruption, strategic human capital, employee health and safety, HR co-creation
and global flexible working arrangements. We conclude by threading key insights
together with suggestions on how theory and research might seek to better embrace
disruption and navigate the shifting landscapes of HRM. This includes striving for
interdisciplinary insight, finding motivation in practice, looking back to go
forward, using multiple pathways for understanding, challenging assumptions and
accommodating HR agency. The understanding and insight offered in this special
issue hold special relevance in the context of the COVID-19 crisis.
 OBJECTIVES
Gradual change and innovation on the periphery of HR practice can quickly overtake the centre.
The question is whether current theoretical understanding of HR is receptive to such changes,
especially those that might challenge core assumptions and entrenched research streams. Instead of
engaging with contemporary developments and challenges, a concern is that “much of SHRM
research is stuck still arguing about and addressing twentieth-century concerns” (Wright, Nyberg,
& Ployhart, 2018, p. 142). The theme of this special issue is how HR theory might seek to
acknowledge and accommodate its own ‘wisp of battering wind’ in order to better navigate the
shifting landscapes confronting the eld. Even before the dramatic occurrence of COVID-19
significant questions were being asked of HR including the applicability of current theories to the
new world of work enabled by technology (Connelly, Fieseler, Cˇerne, Giessner, & Wong, 2020),
the extent to which scholarship reflected the contemporary challenges confronted by practitioners
(Snell & Morris, 2019), and whether emergent forms of organisation might serve as a catalyst for
new theoretical approaches (e.g. see Baum & Haveman, 2020). Successfully navigating the shifting
landscape mandates challenging our existing theoretical compass in order to provide augmented
and alternative theoretical approaches more akin to dynamic global positioning systems (GPS).
 METHODOLOGY
We begin by reviewing the current state of play in HRM
highlighting some key deficiencies in dominant approaches.
We follow this by detailing the contextual backdrop to our
special issue in the form of significant changes and challenges
impacting how people are managed.
These papers cover a diverse range of cutting edge topics
including human capital, digital disruption, health and well-
being, agile HR, HR co-creation and International assignments.
The Final section brings together insights from these
contributions to outline prospects for HR theory and research.
The contextual backdrop for a re-assessment of HRM is profound. The global economy is at an
inflection point with significant implications for how we conceptualise and understand HRM.
Even prior to COVID-induced transformations, headline statements on the changing nature of
work and employment were commonplace. Megatrends including resurgent nationalism,
technological disruption, changing demographics and diversity have dramatic consequences for
how people are managed.Practitioner reports identify a range of fundamental challenges which are
impacting the legitimacy of the existing global order; asymmetry and wealth disparity,
technological disruption, ageing, polarisation and declining trust in institutions To this list one
could add the ecological crisis confronting the globe, specifically the implications of climate
change and broader stakeholder concerns for corporations and their objectives . In this section we
briefly capture some of the key aspects of these mega-trends and their likely implications for HR.
As a ‘people-based crisis’, the COVID-19 pandemic evidently provides an extremely relevant and
compelling backdrop to such considerations

There is much to explore in how HR can be part of a conversation to provide the best support to
acknowledge and redress inequality, discrimination and variability of access to employment and
differing modes of working. HR is not alone in this challenge, the OECD (2020) has recently
called for a ‘redefining’ of the growth narrative “to put the well-being of people at the centre of
our efforts”.
These key points offer a useful point of entry for
those seeking to advance understanding of the
shifting landscapes of HRM.

• Strive for interdisciplinary insights

• Offer multiple pathways to understanding
• Look back to go forward
• Recognise and accommodate agency
• Find motivation in practice
• Surface, challenge and revisit assumptions
This special issue set out to explore how scholarship might navigate the shifting landscapes
of HR. To navigate means to proceed carefully or to find one’s way. In order to successfully
engage in this task HR research needs to further embrace context and accommodate
uncertainty in the spirit of agile understanding. As per Alvarez and Porac uncertainty should
“be sought out for its generative capacity as much as it is avoided because of its
vicissitudes” . As a deep historical rupture, COVID-19 dramatically brings the topics
discussed in our special issue articles to the fore, notably employee health and well-being,
digitisation, agile HR, and a (re)focus on the human. While HR scholarship cannot predict
with certainty, it can foster understanding of the capabilities required to navigate, mitigate
and manage change and challenges. This is our grand challenge. The papers and insights in
this special issue provide us with confidence that we can navigate such change and continue
to build strong conceptual foundations and understanding of HRM which provides both
flexibility and stability. In this way HR scholarship can be sensitive to both the subtle ‘wisp
of wind’.
AGILE FOR HR, FINE IN
PRACTICE, BUT WILL IT
WORK IN THEORY?
JOHN MCMACKIN, MARGARET
HAFFERNAN.

DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY, DUBLIN 9

IRELAND
 ABSTRACT

Agile HR is a topic of growing interest among HR professionals, reflecting

pressures for greater organisational agility in response to environmental
uncertainty. However, agile HR has received virtually no attention in the academic
HR literature, typifying a divergence between the interests of HR practitioners and
strategic HRM research, something which has been a recurring concern in recent
reviews of SHRM literature. In this paper we offer a definition of agile HR as a
HR operational strategy and assess how the relationship between organisational
strategy, HR strategy and HR operational strategy has evolved over four waves
since the 1950s. Our analysis highlights the neglect of HR operating models in
SHRM research, and we propose a research agenda incorporating agile as a HR
operational strategy in models of SHRM. We propose that this has the potential to
mitigate some of the limitations highlighted in recent reviews of this literature.
The focus of this paper is on agile HR as a HR operational strategy. By developing a clear definition
of agile HR, we sought to resolve ambiguity concerning the meaning of agile HR in research and
practice. Our analysis of agile as a HR operational strategy places it firmly in the context of the
evolution of linkages between organisational strategy, strategic HRM and HR operational strategy
since the 1950s. Viewed through this lens, agile HR as a HR operational strategy is not a fad, but a
logical next wave in the evolution of HR operational strategy, aligned with parallel developments in
organisational strategy and strategic HRM; as such, it seems set to grow as an issue of strategic
importance for HR practitioners and researchers. Our analysis also links these developments to the
gap between SHRM academic research and practice that has been a recurring theme in recent reviews
of SHRM research. Our review of the four waves of SHRM research clarifies the way, when the HR
function and operating models have been examined, it has been very much separate from the SHRM
literature. HR operational strategy has, however, remained of central strategic concern to HR
practitioners, often dominating debate in practitioner magazines, consultancy workshops and
professional conferences. We agree with Wright, Guest and Paauwe (2015) that HR researchers and
practitioners have much to offer one another in advancing SHRM research and practice. Today’s HR
professionals are faced with a unique set of challenges, and agile HR presents an exceptional
opportunity for SHRM research to provide evidence based insights on the challenges of HR
Agile HR is a substantive example of divergence between the priorities of practitioners and
researchers, or simply a practitioner fad arising from the “empty workings of hungry consultants”, is
one of importance to both research and practice. Conceptually, “Agile for HR” as a HR operating
strategy merits research attention, as envisaged in early models underpinning much SHRM research.
This paper posits that the HR function, and more specifically, the HR operating model, can influence
the SHRM causal chain and should be incorporated as a key variable; further, recent empirical research
highlights the need for research into the impact of HR operational strategy on organisational
performance; and growing practitioner interest emphasises the need for rigorous research on the topic.
The divergence between research and practice has been particularly striking in respect of HR
operational strategy, and we argue in this paper that the re-introduction of HR operational strategy to
models of SHRM, as envisaged in early research, will help to address this neglect.
Based on the above logic, this paper offers a threefold contribution. First, we offer a definition of agile
HR as a HR operational strategy, thereby addressing some of the conceptual ambiguities surrounding
agile HR for researchers and practitioners. Second, we situate agile HR as a HR operational strategy
not only in a historical context but also within the SHRM literature by examining how HR operating
models have evolved through waves of strategy and HRM literature. The intent is not to present a
comprehensive review but rather an overview that highlights the potential of agile HR as a HR
operating model in increasingly irregular, complex and uncertain competitive environments.
 STEPS
Finally, we illustrate how HR research and HR practice would bene t from a re-
integration of HR operational strategy in SHRM research, as originally envisaged by
We conclude that recent practitioner interest in agile HR as a HR operational strategy
is neither fad nor fashion but rather the next stage of evolution of HR operational
strategy, with important implications for SHRM research as well as HR practice.
The remainder of this paper is laid out as follows. First, we discuss the concept of
Agile HR and how it links to the concept of HR operational strategy and SHRM
research, concluding by offering a definition of agile HR as a HR operational strategy.
We then trace the origins of HR operational strategy in the context of the evolution of
organisational strategy and HR strategy through four waves, the early 1950’s to the
present day. We then describe case studies of Agile HR in practice. Finally, based on
this review, we look ahead, and suggest important ways in which agile HR as a HR
operational strategy can contribute to a more complete understanding of how HRM
can deliver value for the organisation.
AGILE AS A HR OPERATIONAL
STRATEGY
Definition of agile HR as an operating strategy for the HR function, The term “Agile HR” is
widely used in practice to refer to two distinct concepts; “HR for Agile” refers to the design
and implementation of HR systems to support agile implementation in the organisation,
while “Agile for HR” refers to applying agile principles to the operation of the HR function .

Although the development of agile as a HR operational strategy has been practice led, the
concept has important theoretical foundations that can contribute to our understanding of the
concept. comprehensive review of lean research summarises studies in which 17 different
theoretical perspectives, ranging from Actor Network Theory to Universal Theory, have been
applied in recent lean studies We suggest that two of those perspectives, Resource Based
Theory and Transaction Cost Economics, have particular relevance to our understanding of
Agile as a HR operational strategy. Resource Based Theory has not only been key to the
development of the SHRM literature but has been noted as “particularly useful in agile
research
Despite a significant level of practitioner interest, the topic of agile HR as a HR
operational strategy remains underdeveloped in SHRM research. Our paper sought
to address this by reviewing the evolution of agile HR as a HR operational strategy
in a way that surfaces important linkages between organisational strategy, HR
strategy and HR operational strategy. In doing so we contribute to progressing an
agile HR research agenda by offering conceptual clarity on what agile HR as an
operational strategy is. We also presented a clear definition and positioned agile for
HR in the context, and at the likely forefront, of key waves of HR development.
This paper can also open opportunities for researchers to partner with practitioners
to understand and solve “messy” problems.
We hope that this article will spur interest in agile HR as a HR operational strategy
by strategic HR researchers and encourage them to (re)visit the HR operating
model and horizontal within SHRM research. We strongly believe that by doing so
it can help address the science-practice divide and reinvigorate both research and
practice in the new wave of SHRM research in the new decade.