STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
HOOFDSTUK 1
HRM: involves management decisions related to policies and practices that together shape the employment
relationship and are aimed at achieving individual, organizational and societal goals.
SHRM: pays extra attention to the organizational context reflected in special attention to potential alignment of
the business strategy and HRM, the alignment of the institutional context and HRM, the linkage between business
systems and HRM and the fit between HR practices.
1. Micro HRM
Sub-functions of human resource policy and practice, including recruitment and selection, induction and
socialization, and training and development.
Impact of single HR practices on employee attitudes and behaviors
2. International HRM:
in multinational corporations and across borders
transferability of HR practices across business units in different countries, the optimal management of
expatriates and the impact of different institutional country contexts on HRM.
3. Strategic HRM
Issues of linking HRM to the business strategy, designing high-performance work systems and adding
value through good people management in an attempt to gain sustained competitive advantage.
Fit
Multi-actor perspective
Multiple stakeholders
Broad societal view
Different institutional contexts
Multi-level perspective
Individual employee perspective and strategic organizational perspective
Paauwe:
- Human resources are more than just resources
Gedrag van mensen is niet alleen gedetermineerd door economic rationality, er zijn meer beinvloedingen zoals bereidheid,
persoonlijke normen etc.
- Hrm is not concerned alleen with financial performance
Hr functie is breder. Stakeholder management en relating legislation to the employment relationship.
- Hrm focuses on the exchange relationship between employee and organization
Legal aspects (vakantiedagen), economic aspects (workingdays, salary), psychological contract (niet geschreven regels),
sociological contract (teamcommitment)
- The shaping of the employment relationship takes place in an era of continuous tension between the
added value and moral values
Added value: economic side of organizing work, creating value and increasing financial performance
Moral value: notion of employees as human beings with feelings, emotions, opinions, norms and values
Legge: verschil tussen hard (economic, focus op resources) en soft (moral, focus op human) HRM
Boxall and Purcell:
- HRM covers all workforce groups, including core employees, peripheral employees and contingent
workers
Niet alleen de uitblinkers, maar iedereen. Is Paauwe het mee eens.
- HRM involves line and specialist managers, and is not solely aimed at employees
- HRM is all about managing work and people, collectively and individually
- HRM is embedded in industries and societies
Anglo-saxon / anglo-american models: mainly focus on creating shareholder value in terms of profits and
market value with little or no attention to other stakeholders including trade unions and work councils.
Rhineland models: labelled edge multiple stakeholders and their interests explicitly taking into account
employee interest in terms of well-being and societal interest. Door institutional context heeft dit model een
richer tradition in stakeholder acknowledgement.
1
,Balanced approach:
Financial performance and societal performance need to be above average in the particular population the
organization is operating. Exclusive high scores on one of those are bad for the long-run. Dus beide moeten
boven gemiddeld zijn, als eentje heel hoog is dan zal nadelig zijn voor andere.
The definition of good and bad people management can be linked to the balanced approach.
Good= taking into account multiple stakeholder interests and a broader societal view in the design of the
employment relationship
Bad= using a narrow and unitarist perspective.
Bolman and Deal. Framing HRM.
1. Structural frame: gain an understanding of various parts of an organization. Technical and functionalistic
way. Rules, roles, goals, policies, technology and environment. Strong links with strategic contingency
approaches of 1960s and 1970s
2. HR frame: employment relationship. Metaphor is family. Needs, skills and relationships. Strong
psychological background and profile. Not the same as HRM
3. Political frame: issues of power. Metaphor is jungle. Power, conflict, competition and organizational
politics. Heavy nadruk on different parties.
4. Symbolic frame: meaning and identity. Culture, meaning, metaphor, ritual, ceremony, stories and heroes.
Closely related to the cultural approaches of 1980s and 1990s. Metaphors are carnival, temple, theatre.
Mainstream SHRM: Structural frame, Mintzberg en Porter-like structural approaches or HR frame. Political and
symbolic are neglected.
Balanced approach of HRM: implies explicit inclusion of multiple frames. Mainstream is te veel gefocused op de
eerste 2.
2
,HOOFDSTUK 3
Reversed approach of HR value chain:
1. Determine competitive advantage and sustained competitive advantage
2. Determine critical factors that create competitive advantage
3. Determine employee attitudes, behaviours and cognitive factors that positively affect the critical success
factors
4. Determine HR practice that positively affect employee attitudes and behaviours.
Delery and Shaw:
1. Human capital can be a source of competitive advantage
2. HR practices have the most direct influence on the human capital of an organization
3. The complex nature of HR systems of practice can enhance the inimitability of the system
Late 1990: creating competitive advantage through development of core competences, tacit knowledge and
dynamic capabilities.
Penrose, Wernerfelt and Barney - Resource-based view. From outside-in to inside-out approach. Barney:
competitive advantage is determined by internal resources that are valuable, rare, inimitable and non-
substitutable. Financial, physical, organizational and human resources are potential sources of success when the
four criteria are met.
Porter en mintzberg = outside-in
Barney = inside-out
Value: economic condition.
Rare: scarcity.
Inimitability: degree to which resources are very hard to copy or imitate.
Non-substitutability: very hard to neutralize with other resources which will meet the same ends.
Barney and Wright: VRIO Framework. Framework for determining potential organizational success through
internal resources.
- Internal resources without value are a source of competitive disadvantage. Valuable = normal
performance. Niet perse negatieve invloed, sommige resources moeten aanwezig zijn voor
legalisatie.
- Valuable and rare resources can take it to the next level, creating temporary competitive advantage
and above-average performance.
- Highest level: valuable, rare and difficult to imitate. Caused by intensive organizational support.
Above-average performance and sustained competitive advantage.
Without any structural support by the organization, the framework suggest these three resource
qualities are not likely to result in long-term success.
Inimitability is one of the most important qualities of desirable resources.
Path dependency: unique historical conditions. Competitief succes is resultaat van chain en niet van bepaalde
keuze. Unique networks of internal and external connections are natural barriers for imitation by rivals.
Causal ambiguity: link between resources possessed by an organization and its sustained competitive advantage.
It is difficult for people who have not been involved in the decision-making process to assess the specific cause-
effect relationships.
Social complexity: resource generating an organization’s advantage is socially complex and difficult to
understand.
3
, Competitive advantage = valuable, rare and difficult to imitate
Sustained competitive advantage = valuable, rare, difficult to imitate and supported by organization.
Next step: linking competitive advantage to firm performance.
Boxall and Purcell: link competitive advantage to:
1. UBGs. Are twofold:
1.1 creating and maintaining viability with adequate returns to shareholders
1.2 striving for sustained competitive advantage.
2. Organizational performance represented by critical HR goals and critical non-HR goals.
Level 2 (average performance through value) and level 3 (above-average performance through value, rare,
difficult to imitate) create and maintain viability with adequate returns to shareholders. Without these criteria,
organizations go bankrupt.
Disadvantage of the VRIO approach: it only focuses on profit organizations. Public organizations don’t have
shareholders. The UBGs approach can easily be adapted to a broad range of organizations.
Next step: linking UBGs to critical HR and critical non-HR goals.
Some of the critical non-HR goals (reputation, corporate image) might become the domain of the critical HR goals
in the years to come because of the behavior of employees.
Critical HR goals:
- Labour productivity (cost effectiveness) most popular variable
Amount of output per unit of input.
Quality isn’t a critical HR goal. Quality = effectiveness of the organization’s services and products, often directly
linked to customer demands and satisfaction. Can be linked to productivity. Productivity + quality = cost-
effectiveness : efficient and optimal way of delivering products or services that meet the demands of customers.
- Organizational flexibility
Capacity to change and/or adapt.
1. Numerical flexibility: in the use of employees.
2. Functional flexibility: performing multiple tasks and functions. Job rotation, teamwork, job
enlargement, job enrichment
3. Mental flexibility: employees ability and willingness to change without resistance. Agility:
reflecting the organizations capability of adapting easily to changes in its external environment.
- Social legitimacy and employment citizenship
Macro level: legitimacy of an organization to the outside environment. Micro level: organization’s legitimacy to
its own employees. Paauwe micro: fairness to individuals. He considers the macro element (legitimacy) and the
micro element (fairness) to be part of the moral side of managing people, essential for creating unique
approaches through HRM and not just an obligatory part of the critical goals.
Social legitimacy is highly undeveloped in the majority of SHRM literature. Paauwe places much more value on
social legitimacy, emphasizing the potential added value to success.
Boxall and Purcell about the 3 goals: there is a natural tension between those 3. High cost effectiveness might be
negatively associated with flexibility because of its efficiency focus and negatively associated with social
legitimacy because of its potential neglect of human issues. Too exclusive focus on flexibility might damage the
financial performance from an efficiency point of view. Too much focus on social legitimacy does not meet
efficiency and flexibility standards. There appears to be an optimum point at which the three critical goals are
balanced.
4
HOOFDSTUK 1
HRM: involves management decisions related to policies and practices that together shape the employment
relationship and are aimed at achieving individual, organizational and societal goals.
SHRM: pays extra attention to the organizational context reflected in special attention to potential alignment of
the business strategy and HRM, the alignment of the institutional context and HRM, the linkage between business
systems and HRM and the fit between HR practices.
1. Micro HRM
Sub-functions of human resource policy and practice, including recruitment and selection, induction and
socialization, and training and development.
Impact of single HR practices on employee attitudes and behaviors
2. International HRM:
in multinational corporations and across borders
transferability of HR practices across business units in different countries, the optimal management of
expatriates and the impact of different institutional country contexts on HRM.
3. Strategic HRM
Issues of linking HRM to the business strategy, designing high-performance work systems and adding
value through good people management in an attempt to gain sustained competitive advantage.
Fit
Multi-actor perspective
Multiple stakeholders
Broad societal view
Different institutional contexts
Multi-level perspective
Individual employee perspective and strategic organizational perspective
Paauwe:
- Human resources are more than just resources
Gedrag van mensen is niet alleen gedetermineerd door economic rationality, er zijn meer beinvloedingen zoals bereidheid,
persoonlijke normen etc.
- Hrm is not concerned alleen with financial performance
Hr functie is breder. Stakeholder management en relating legislation to the employment relationship.
- Hrm focuses on the exchange relationship between employee and organization
Legal aspects (vakantiedagen), economic aspects (workingdays, salary), psychological contract (niet geschreven regels),
sociological contract (teamcommitment)
- The shaping of the employment relationship takes place in an era of continuous tension between the
added value and moral values
Added value: economic side of organizing work, creating value and increasing financial performance
Moral value: notion of employees as human beings with feelings, emotions, opinions, norms and values
Legge: verschil tussen hard (economic, focus op resources) en soft (moral, focus op human) HRM
Boxall and Purcell:
- HRM covers all workforce groups, including core employees, peripheral employees and contingent
workers
Niet alleen de uitblinkers, maar iedereen. Is Paauwe het mee eens.
- HRM involves line and specialist managers, and is not solely aimed at employees
- HRM is all about managing work and people, collectively and individually
- HRM is embedded in industries and societies
Anglo-saxon / anglo-american models: mainly focus on creating shareholder value in terms of profits and
market value with little or no attention to other stakeholders including trade unions and work councils.
Rhineland models: labelled edge multiple stakeholders and their interests explicitly taking into account
employee interest in terms of well-being and societal interest. Door institutional context heeft dit model een
richer tradition in stakeholder acknowledgement.
1
,Balanced approach:
Financial performance and societal performance need to be above average in the particular population the
organization is operating. Exclusive high scores on one of those are bad for the long-run. Dus beide moeten
boven gemiddeld zijn, als eentje heel hoog is dan zal nadelig zijn voor andere.
The definition of good and bad people management can be linked to the balanced approach.
Good= taking into account multiple stakeholder interests and a broader societal view in the design of the
employment relationship
Bad= using a narrow and unitarist perspective.
Bolman and Deal. Framing HRM.
1. Structural frame: gain an understanding of various parts of an organization. Technical and functionalistic
way. Rules, roles, goals, policies, technology and environment. Strong links with strategic contingency
approaches of 1960s and 1970s
2. HR frame: employment relationship. Metaphor is family. Needs, skills and relationships. Strong
psychological background and profile. Not the same as HRM
3. Political frame: issues of power. Metaphor is jungle. Power, conflict, competition and organizational
politics. Heavy nadruk on different parties.
4. Symbolic frame: meaning and identity. Culture, meaning, metaphor, ritual, ceremony, stories and heroes.
Closely related to the cultural approaches of 1980s and 1990s. Metaphors are carnival, temple, theatre.
Mainstream SHRM: Structural frame, Mintzberg en Porter-like structural approaches or HR frame. Political and
symbolic are neglected.
Balanced approach of HRM: implies explicit inclusion of multiple frames. Mainstream is te veel gefocused op de
eerste 2.
2
,HOOFDSTUK 3
Reversed approach of HR value chain:
1. Determine competitive advantage and sustained competitive advantage
2. Determine critical factors that create competitive advantage
3. Determine employee attitudes, behaviours and cognitive factors that positively affect the critical success
factors
4. Determine HR practice that positively affect employee attitudes and behaviours.
Delery and Shaw:
1. Human capital can be a source of competitive advantage
2. HR practices have the most direct influence on the human capital of an organization
3. The complex nature of HR systems of practice can enhance the inimitability of the system
Late 1990: creating competitive advantage through development of core competences, tacit knowledge and
dynamic capabilities.
Penrose, Wernerfelt and Barney - Resource-based view. From outside-in to inside-out approach. Barney:
competitive advantage is determined by internal resources that are valuable, rare, inimitable and non-
substitutable. Financial, physical, organizational and human resources are potential sources of success when the
four criteria are met.
Porter en mintzberg = outside-in
Barney = inside-out
Value: economic condition.
Rare: scarcity.
Inimitability: degree to which resources are very hard to copy or imitate.
Non-substitutability: very hard to neutralize with other resources which will meet the same ends.
Barney and Wright: VRIO Framework. Framework for determining potential organizational success through
internal resources.
- Internal resources without value are a source of competitive disadvantage. Valuable = normal
performance. Niet perse negatieve invloed, sommige resources moeten aanwezig zijn voor
legalisatie.
- Valuable and rare resources can take it to the next level, creating temporary competitive advantage
and above-average performance.
- Highest level: valuable, rare and difficult to imitate. Caused by intensive organizational support.
Above-average performance and sustained competitive advantage.
Without any structural support by the organization, the framework suggest these three resource
qualities are not likely to result in long-term success.
Inimitability is one of the most important qualities of desirable resources.
Path dependency: unique historical conditions. Competitief succes is resultaat van chain en niet van bepaalde
keuze. Unique networks of internal and external connections are natural barriers for imitation by rivals.
Causal ambiguity: link between resources possessed by an organization and its sustained competitive advantage.
It is difficult for people who have not been involved in the decision-making process to assess the specific cause-
effect relationships.
Social complexity: resource generating an organization’s advantage is socially complex and difficult to
understand.
3
, Competitive advantage = valuable, rare and difficult to imitate
Sustained competitive advantage = valuable, rare, difficult to imitate and supported by organization.
Next step: linking competitive advantage to firm performance.
Boxall and Purcell: link competitive advantage to:
1. UBGs. Are twofold:
1.1 creating and maintaining viability with adequate returns to shareholders
1.2 striving for sustained competitive advantage.
2. Organizational performance represented by critical HR goals and critical non-HR goals.
Level 2 (average performance through value) and level 3 (above-average performance through value, rare,
difficult to imitate) create and maintain viability with adequate returns to shareholders. Without these criteria,
organizations go bankrupt.
Disadvantage of the VRIO approach: it only focuses on profit organizations. Public organizations don’t have
shareholders. The UBGs approach can easily be adapted to a broad range of organizations.
Next step: linking UBGs to critical HR and critical non-HR goals.
Some of the critical non-HR goals (reputation, corporate image) might become the domain of the critical HR goals
in the years to come because of the behavior of employees.
Critical HR goals:
- Labour productivity (cost effectiveness) most popular variable
Amount of output per unit of input.
Quality isn’t a critical HR goal. Quality = effectiveness of the organization’s services and products, often directly
linked to customer demands and satisfaction. Can be linked to productivity. Productivity + quality = cost-
effectiveness : efficient and optimal way of delivering products or services that meet the demands of customers.
- Organizational flexibility
Capacity to change and/or adapt.
1. Numerical flexibility: in the use of employees.
2. Functional flexibility: performing multiple tasks and functions. Job rotation, teamwork, job
enlargement, job enrichment
3. Mental flexibility: employees ability and willingness to change without resistance. Agility:
reflecting the organizations capability of adapting easily to changes in its external environment.
- Social legitimacy and employment citizenship
Macro level: legitimacy of an organization to the outside environment. Micro level: organization’s legitimacy to
its own employees. Paauwe micro: fairness to individuals. He considers the macro element (legitimacy) and the
micro element (fairness) to be part of the moral side of managing people, essential for creating unique
approaches through HRM and not just an obligatory part of the critical goals.
Social legitimacy is highly undeveloped in the majority of SHRM literature. Paauwe places much more value on
social legitimacy, emphasizing the potential added value to success.
Boxall and Purcell about the 3 goals: there is a natural tension between those 3. High cost effectiveness might be
negatively associated with flexibility because of its efficiency focus and negatively associated with social
legitimacy because of its potential neglect of human issues. Too exclusive focus on flexibility might damage the
financial performance from an efficiency point of view. Too much focus on social legitimacy does not meet
efficiency and flexibility standards. There appears to be an optimum point at which the three critical goals are
balanced.
4
