Managing People Strategically
Table of Contents
WEEK 1: INTRODUCTION TO MANAGING PEOPLE STRATEGICALLY ................................................. 1
INTRO TO STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (SHRM) & AMO-THEORY................................................. 1
STRENGTH OF THE HR SYSTEM ...................................................................................................................... 4
HR ARCHITECTURE .................................................................................................................................... 7
WEEK 2: MANAGING PERFORMANCE ............................................................................................ 9
HR PERCEPTIONS: ROLE OF MANAGERS AND EMPLOYEE PERCEPTIONS ................................................................... 9
MANAGER’S ROLE IN ENHANCING ENGAGEMENT & IMPROVING PERFORMANCE (THEORIES OF MOTIVATION & APPLYING
THEORIES) .............................................................................................................................................. 12
POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL (& SOME WELL-BEING) ............................................................................. 15
WEEK 3: MANAGING DIVERSITY & INCLUSION ............................................................................. 21
WHAT IS DIVERSITY................................................................................................................................... 21
GETTING TO DIVERSITY (BIAS & STEREOTYPES) ................................................................................................ 21
AWARENESS & INTERVENTIONS................................................................................................................... 23
MANAGING DIVERSITY (THEORIES & INTERVENTIONS) ...................................................................................... 23
WEEK 4: MANAGING CREATIVITY & INNOVATION.......................................................................... 30
MEASURING CREATIVITY & INNOVATION ........................................................................................................ 30
PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY ........................................................................................................................... 30
CREATIVITY THEORIES: INFLUENCES ON CREATIVITY & INNOVATION ON DIFFERENT LEVELS ...................................... 32
BRAINSTORMING & THREATS TO GROUP CREATIVITY ........................................................................................ 34
DARK SIDE OF CREATIVITY & INNOVATION ..................................................................................................... 34
MANAGING CREATIVITY ............................................................................................................................. 34
WEEK 5: MANAGING THE BRIGHT SIDE: HAPPINESS & WELL-BEING.............................................. 38
WHAT IS WELL-BEING AT WORK ................................................................................................................... 38
HRM, PERFORMANCE, AND WELL-BEING RELATIONSHIPS (OPTIMISTIC & PESSIMISTIC PERSPECTIVES) ...................... 38
JOB DEMANDS & JOB RESOURCES ............................................................................................................... 39
ENHANCING WELL-BEING VIA JOB DESIGN & JOB CRAFTING ............................................................................. 39
WEEK 6: MANAGING THE DARK SIDE: IMMORALITY & COUNTERPRODUCTIVE WORK BEHAVIOURS 41
DYSFUNCTIONAL BEHAVIOR AT WORK ........................................................................................................... 41
THREE MODELS OF CWB (MARCUS ET AL., 2016) .......................................................................................... 41
ANTECEDENTS OF DYSFUNCTIONAL WORK BEHAVIOURS ................................................................................... 42
PREVENTING DYSFUNCTIONAL WORK BEHAVIOR.............................................................................................. 45
Week 1: Introduction to Managing People Strategically
Intro to Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) & AMO-Theory
What is Human Resource Management (HRM)?
• All those activities associated with the management of employment relationships in the firm.
• The management of work and people in organizations
• An inevitable process that accompanies the growth of organizations.
o HRM refers to all the activities involved in managing employment relationships within a firm. It
encompasses the management of both work and people in organizations. Fundamentally, HRM is an
inevitable process that arises with the growth of organizations, ensuring that work is structured and
people are effectively managed.
,What is Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM)?
• The pattern of planned human resource deployments and activities intended to enable an
organization to achieve its goals.
• SHRM aims to align the workforce’s skills and behaviours with the strategic needs of the business.
• Using human capital to achieve sustained competitive advantage.
o SHRM is the strategic approach to managing human resources to align workforce skills and behaviors
with the overarching goals of the organization. It focuses on planned human resource deployments and
activities designed to achieve sustained competitive advantage by leveraging human capital effectively.
SHRM integrates HRM with strategy to create a unified framework aimed at maximizing organizational
performance.
What is the difference between HRM and SHRM?
• “Strategy”
o HR practices are strategically aligned with business goals
o Uses HR to support competitive advantage
o Focus is on systems of HR practices, not isolated practices
o Integrates HR with the firm’s long-term strategy (cost leadership, innovation, service excellence)
▪ HRM is mainly operational, focusing on people management tasks. SHRM is strategic,
focusing on using HR practices to support and drive business strategy. HRM may involve
individual practices, but SHRM emphasizes integrated HR systems that are aligned with
strategic priorities. HRM improves employee skills and behavior, while SHRM ensures that
those skills and behaviors contribute to competitive advantage. HRM deals with daily people-
related processes; SHRM ensures those processes collectively reinforce the organization’s
long-term goals.
Delivery of HRM
- HRM can be delivered in two primary ways:
o Traditional form → individual practices that are not linked.
o Strategic approach → all practices integrated, bundled and strategically
aligned with strategic goals, so they reinforce each other.
▪ Ex: innovation strategy → Hiring on creativity, training to
develop innovation skills, rewards that encourage risk-taking, job
design gives autonomy
- Layers of HRM delivery (how HRM gets implemented from top to bottom)
o HR strategies: Provides direction, by outlining organization’s HR
objectives.
▪ Build workforce that drives innovation in healthcare technology (Philips)
o HR policies: Guidelines how values, principles, strategies should be applied.
▪ Encourage risk-taking, experimentation; support cross-functional teamwork; reward idea
generation.
o HR processes: Formal procedures to put strategies and policies into action.
▪ Innovation-focused recruitment procedures, Performance appraisals including “innovation
contribution”, Promotion processes rewarding experimentation and learning
o HR practices: Practical approaches for managing people, linked to organizational objectives.
▪ Day-to-day approaches → Training in creativity and design thinking, idea-labs, Team-
based rewards, Autonomy and flexible working arrangements
o HR programs: enable the implementation of strategies, policies, and practices.
▪ Innovation Leadership Program for high-potential employees, Bright Ideas Program
where employees submit innovations and receive rewards, Internal rotations to stimulate new
perspectives
Different approaches
SHRM represents the intersection of HRM and strategy. By integrating the two, SHRM seeks to position human resources as
a source of competitive advantage.
- Contingency approach → alignment of HR policies with the firm's strategy
→ vertical fit (best fit). The alignment of capabilities at all three levels (organizational, group, individual) with the
firm’s strategic goals.
o Innovation strategy, HR practices must encourage creativity, autonomy, flexibility.
o Cost-leadership strategy, HR must focus on efficiency, standardization, performance control.
- Configurational theory → internal consistency of HR practices, where practices are related and mutually
supportive (work well together and not contradict)
→ horizontal fit (bundling): The internal consistency among the HRM practices themselves.
o If training develops teamwork → rewards should also reward teamwork.
o If recruitment selects innovators → performance appraisal should evaluate innovative behaviors.
o If autonomy is encouraged → supervisors cannot micromanage.
,How Human Resources (people) CONTRIBUTE to Sustained Competitive Advantage
- Human Capital Advantage → When workforce is of high quality: skilled, motivated, and adaptable.
- Human Process Advantage → When firm has established effective firm processes: your people work effectively
and cohesively together.
o Both are influenced by HRM practices/systems, which must be
strategically designed and implemented
- Pool → important who we have in the pool and their skills
o HCA = human capital advantage)
- Behavior → important how they work together
o HPA = human process advantage.
- Practices → focused on pool and behavior
How HR LEAD to Sustained Competitive Advanatge
- Resource-based view of the firm
- The firm’s unique internal resource configuration can be a source of sus comp adv
- Competitive advantage only possible when:
o Resources/capabilities must vary significantly across firms (= firm heterogeneity)
o These differences must be stable and difficult to transfer or replicate (= resource immobility)
- VRIO Framework (EXAM) provides criteria for assessing whether resources can sustain competitive advantage.
HR need to develop & maintain sources of competitive advantage, by considering that resources must be:
o Value: → competitive parity
▪ HR task: decreasing cost or increasing revenue. Increase employee satisfaction, is related to
organizational performance.
• Link reward/punishment on to employee satisfaction levels for managers, if they are
happy, customers are happy, thus create value.
• On-time bonus for employees if airplane was on time, moved up in ranking.
Decreased late costs & increased revenue.
o Rareness: → temporary competitive advantage, not widely possessed by competitors.
If not inimitable, competitors will copy and becomes parity again.
▪ HR task: develop & exploit rare characteristic of firm’s human resources. View labour pool not
as homogenous, but everyone with differences to exploit rareness.
• Nordstrom focused on individual salesperson as key source of advantage, make
heroic efforts to customers satisfaction (changing tires), engrained in their recruiting,
compensation practices, and culture.
o Imitability: → competitive advantage, not easily replicated or substituted.
▪ HR task: Unique story & culture ‘firms’ personality’. Develop & nurture characteristics of
firms’ human resources that cannot be imitated by others.
• Southwest airlines: strong culture has differentiated services. culture of fun and trust
and everyone motivated to customers need. Casting call, tell stories of most
embarrassing experience, then compared to past outstanding flight attendants.
o Organization: → sustained competitive advantage firm must be organized to exploit the resource
Resources alone insufficient without effective organization. Important of systems of management
practices for effective utilization.
▪ HR task: systems instead of single HR practices, coordinated HR activities across
subfunctions. Combine/integrate compensation, selection, training, appraisal systems. The
more complex an HR system, the more source of sustained comp. adv.
• Ford vs General Motors: both hired same skilled people, but Ford more cooperative
team culture by HR systems that allowed employees in decision-making and utilize
cognitive skills. And extensive hiring assessment process.
- Starbuck example:
o Valuable → YES. Customer analytics & tailored marketing is valuable to customer (increased efficiency & customer
satisfaction), thus goals & strategy of firm.
o Rare → YES. 31 million users & richness of data is rare.
o Inimitable → YES. Only Starbucks has this data and unique loyal customers. Their firm-specific skills developed
over the years. They can foresee certain trends.
o Organized → YES. Is it leveraging all resources? They use data to decide on important decisions (opening locations),
on staffing of personnel, timing of product launches, personalized marketing etc. they turn data into behavior.
Clustering of HR Practices (HRP’s)
HR systems can be comprised in 2 ways: Either control vs commitment, or 3 subsystems focused on skill enhancing,
motivation enhancing, and opportunity enhancing (AMO)
- Control vs Commitment (not on exam)
o Control: emphasis on rules, punishment, close supervision
o Commitment: focus on fostering employee loyalty through training, rewards, and empowerment, to
inspire loyalty and discretionary effort.
, ▪ Continuum? No, independent, can be simultaneously implemented
- AMO Theory (EXAM) black box (mechanism) between HRM & performance, explained by HR practices that
increase employees’ abilities, motivation & opportunities. Each subsystem can have independent outcomes on
performance.
o Ability/skill enhancing → HR practices aim to ensure a skilled workforce: comprehensive recruitment,
rigorous selection, extensive training (human capital)
o Motivation enhancing → HR practices ensure motivated employees: developmental performance
management, competitive compensation, incentives and rewards, extensive benefits, promotion and
career development, and job security.
o Opportunity enhancing → HR practices empower skilled and motivated employees to achieve
organizational objectives: flexible job design, work teams, employee involvement. So, they feel they can
use their skills.
- Meta- analysis on AMO effects:
o HRM practices (that enhance skills, motivation, opportunities) improve performance indirectly by
building human capital and employee motivatio
o These people outcomes improve operations, reduces turnover, and good operations improve financial
results. (AMO practices therefore create performance through mediating mechanisms.
o but stay critical about reverse causality. Good operational/financial results might ALSO cause firms to
invest in HR. (rich firms can afford more training, rewards, autonomy). So, the relationship is not always
purely HRM → performance. Sometimes performance → HRM.
Important:
- SHRM is about aligning HRM with Strategy
o Horizontal and vertical alignment are important!
- Managing HR (people!) is important as they provide human capital advantage and human process advantage
(which can be source of sustained competitive advantage)
- Competitive advantage through VRIO
- Who is in the pool (capital) and how they behave (process) is influenced by HRPs
- HRPs are clustered in HR systems
o Control versus commitment
o AMO
Strength of the HR system
Features of the HRM system
- Content (what)
o This dimension defines what HR systems include. The individual practices and policies designed to
achieve organizational objectives objective (e.g. innovation, diversity & inclusion, well-being). Content
is driven by the organization’s strategic goals and may include high-performance work systems
(HPWS) or best practices tailored to achieve a best fit.
▪ Article Bowen (2004): “the specific set of HRM practices necessary for achieving an
organizational goal”
• Especially when there is vertical alignment, these practices are all aligned with
processes.
- Process (how)
o This dimension explains how HR systems are designed and administered. Strong systems create “strong
situations” with consistent and unambiguous messages about desired behaviors, creating shared
meaning across the workforce about the content (everyone on the same page). Effective design and
implementation ensure that HR systems are impactful and aligned with organizational goals.
Table of Contents
WEEK 1: INTRODUCTION TO MANAGING PEOPLE STRATEGICALLY ................................................. 1
INTRO TO STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (SHRM) & AMO-THEORY................................................. 1
STRENGTH OF THE HR SYSTEM ...................................................................................................................... 4
HR ARCHITECTURE .................................................................................................................................... 7
WEEK 2: MANAGING PERFORMANCE ............................................................................................ 9
HR PERCEPTIONS: ROLE OF MANAGERS AND EMPLOYEE PERCEPTIONS ................................................................... 9
MANAGER’S ROLE IN ENHANCING ENGAGEMENT & IMPROVING PERFORMANCE (THEORIES OF MOTIVATION & APPLYING
THEORIES) .............................................................................................................................................. 12
POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL (& SOME WELL-BEING) ............................................................................. 15
WEEK 3: MANAGING DIVERSITY & INCLUSION ............................................................................. 21
WHAT IS DIVERSITY................................................................................................................................... 21
GETTING TO DIVERSITY (BIAS & STEREOTYPES) ................................................................................................ 21
AWARENESS & INTERVENTIONS................................................................................................................... 23
MANAGING DIVERSITY (THEORIES & INTERVENTIONS) ...................................................................................... 23
WEEK 4: MANAGING CREATIVITY & INNOVATION.......................................................................... 30
MEASURING CREATIVITY & INNOVATION ........................................................................................................ 30
PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY ........................................................................................................................... 30
CREATIVITY THEORIES: INFLUENCES ON CREATIVITY & INNOVATION ON DIFFERENT LEVELS ...................................... 32
BRAINSTORMING & THREATS TO GROUP CREATIVITY ........................................................................................ 34
DARK SIDE OF CREATIVITY & INNOVATION ..................................................................................................... 34
MANAGING CREATIVITY ............................................................................................................................. 34
WEEK 5: MANAGING THE BRIGHT SIDE: HAPPINESS & WELL-BEING.............................................. 38
WHAT IS WELL-BEING AT WORK ................................................................................................................... 38
HRM, PERFORMANCE, AND WELL-BEING RELATIONSHIPS (OPTIMISTIC & PESSIMISTIC PERSPECTIVES) ...................... 38
JOB DEMANDS & JOB RESOURCES ............................................................................................................... 39
ENHANCING WELL-BEING VIA JOB DESIGN & JOB CRAFTING ............................................................................. 39
WEEK 6: MANAGING THE DARK SIDE: IMMORALITY & COUNTERPRODUCTIVE WORK BEHAVIOURS 41
DYSFUNCTIONAL BEHAVIOR AT WORK ........................................................................................................... 41
THREE MODELS OF CWB (MARCUS ET AL., 2016) .......................................................................................... 41
ANTECEDENTS OF DYSFUNCTIONAL WORK BEHAVIOURS ................................................................................... 42
PREVENTING DYSFUNCTIONAL WORK BEHAVIOR.............................................................................................. 45
Week 1: Introduction to Managing People Strategically
Intro to Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) & AMO-Theory
What is Human Resource Management (HRM)?
• All those activities associated with the management of employment relationships in the firm.
• The management of work and people in organizations
• An inevitable process that accompanies the growth of organizations.
o HRM refers to all the activities involved in managing employment relationships within a firm. It
encompasses the management of both work and people in organizations. Fundamentally, HRM is an
inevitable process that arises with the growth of organizations, ensuring that work is structured and
people are effectively managed.
,What is Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM)?
• The pattern of planned human resource deployments and activities intended to enable an
organization to achieve its goals.
• SHRM aims to align the workforce’s skills and behaviours with the strategic needs of the business.
• Using human capital to achieve sustained competitive advantage.
o SHRM is the strategic approach to managing human resources to align workforce skills and behaviors
with the overarching goals of the organization. It focuses on planned human resource deployments and
activities designed to achieve sustained competitive advantage by leveraging human capital effectively.
SHRM integrates HRM with strategy to create a unified framework aimed at maximizing organizational
performance.
What is the difference between HRM and SHRM?
• “Strategy”
o HR practices are strategically aligned with business goals
o Uses HR to support competitive advantage
o Focus is on systems of HR practices, not isolated practices
o Integrates HR with the firm’s long-term strategy (cost leadership, innovation, service excellence)
▪ HRM is mainly operational, focusing on people management tasks. SHRM is strategic,
focusing on using HR practices to support and drive business strategy. HRM may involve
individual practices, but SHRM emphasizes integrated HR systems that are aligned with
strategic priorities. HRM improves employee skills and behavior, while SHRM ensures that
those skills and behaviors contribute to competitive advantage. HRM deals with daily people-
related processes; SHRM ensures those processes collectively reinforce the organization’s
long-term goals.
Delivery of HRM
- HRM can be delivered in two primary ways:
o Traditional form → individual practices that are not linked.
o Strategic approach → all practices integrated, bundled and strategically
aligned with strategic goals, so they reinforce each other.
▪ Ex: innovation strategy → Hiring on creativity, training to
develop innovation skills, rewards that encourage risk-taking, job
design gives autonomy
- Layers of HRM delivery (how HRM gets implemented from top to bottom)
o HR strategies: Provides direction, by outlining organization’s HR
objectives.
▪ Build workforce that drives innovation in healthcare technology (Philips)
o HR policies: Guidelines how values, principles, strategies should be applied.
▪ Encourage risk-taking, experimentation; support cross-functional teamwork; reward idea
generation.
o HR processes: Formal procedures to put strategies and policies into action.
▪ Innovation-focused recruitment procedures, Performance appraisals including “innovation
contribution”, Promotion processes rewarding experimentation and learning
o HR practices: Practical approaches for managing people, linked to organizational objectives.
▪ Day-to-day approaches → Training in creativity and design thinking, idea-labs, Team-
based rewards, Autonomy and flexible working arrangements
o HR programs: enable the implementation of strategies, policies, and practices.
▪ Innovation Leadership Program for high-potential employees, Bright Ideas Program
where employees submit innovations and receive rewards, Internal rotations to stimulate new
perspectives
Different approaches
SHRM represents the intersection of HRM and strategy. By integrating the two, SHRM seeks to position human resources as
a source of competitive advantage.
- Contingency approach → alignment of HR policies with the firm's strategy
→ vertical fit (best fit). The alignment of capabilities at all three levels (organizational, group, individual) with the
firm’s strategic goals.
o Innovation strategy, HR practices must encourage creativity, autonomy, flexibility.
o Cost-leadership strategy, HR must focus on efficiency, standardization, performance control.
- Configurational theory → internal consistency of HR practices, where practices are related and mutually
supportive (work well together and not contradict)
→ horizontal fit (bundling): The internal consistency among the HRM practices themselves.
o If training develops teamwork → rewards should also reward teamwork.
o If recruitment selects innovators → performance appraisal should evaluate innovative behaviors.
o If autonomy is encouraged → supervisors cannot micromanage.
,How Human Resources (people) CONTRIBUTE to Sustained Competitive Advantage
- Human Capital Advantage → When workforce is of high quality: skilled, motivated, and adaptable.
- Human Process Advantage → When firm has established effective firm processes: your people work effectively
and cohesively together.
o Both are influenced by HRM practices/systems, which must be
strategically designed and implemented
- Pool → important who we have in the pool and their skills
o HCA = human capital advantage)
- Behavior → important how they work together
o HPA = human process advantage.
- Practices → focused on pool and behavior
How HR LEAD to Sustained Competitive Advanatge
- Resource-based view of the firm
- The firm’s unique internal resource configuration can be a source of sus comp adv
- Competitive advantage only possible when:
o Resources/capabilities must vary significantly across firms (= firm heterogeneity)
o These differences must be stable and difficult to transfer or replicate (= resource immobility)
- VRIO Framework (EXAM) provides criteria for assessing whether resources can sustain competitive advantage.
HR need to develop & maintain sources of competitive advantage, by considering that resources must be:
o Value: → competitive parity
▪ HR task: decreasing cost or increasing revenue. Increase employee satisfaction, is related to
organizational performance.
• Link reward/punishment on to employee satisfaction levels for managers, if they are
happy, customers are happy, thus create value.
• On-time bonus for employees if airplane was on time, moved up in ranking.
Decreased late costs & increased revenue.
o Rareness: → temporary competitive advantage, not widely possessed by competitors.
If not inimitable, competitors will copy and becomes parity again.
▪ HR task: develop & exploit rare characteristic of firm’s human resources. View labour pool not
as homogenous, but everyone with differences to exploit rareness.
• Nordstrom focused on individual salesperson as key source of advantage, make
heroic efforts to customers satisfaction (changing tires), engrained in their recruiting,
compensation practices, and culture.
o Imitability: → competitive advantage, not easily replicated or substituted.
▪ HR task: Unique story & culture ‘firms’ personality’. Develop & nurture characteristics of
firms’ human resources that cannot be imitated by others.
• Southwest airlines: strong culture has differentiated services. culture of fun and trust
and everyone motivated to customers need. Casting call, tell stories of most
embarrassing experience, then compared to past outstanding flight attendants.
o Organization: → sustained competitive advantage firm must be organized to exploit the resource
Resources alone insufficient without effective organization. Important of systems of management
practices for effective utilization.
▪ HR task: systems instead of single HR practices, coordinated HR activities across
subfunctions. Combine/integrate compensation, selection, training, appraisal systems. The
more complex an HR system, the more source of sustained comp. adv.
• Ford vs General Motors: both hired same skilled people, but Ford more cooperative
team culture by HR systems that allowed employees in decision-making and utilize
cognitive skills. And extensive hiring assessment process.
- Starbuck example:
o Valuable → YES. Customer analytics & tailored marketing is valuable to customer (increased efficiency & customer
satisfaction), thus goals & strategy of firm.
o Rare → YES. 31 million users & richness of data is rare.
o Inimitable → YES. Only Starbucks has this data and unique loyal customers. Their firm-specific skills developed
over the years. They can foresee certain trends.
o Organized → YES. Is it leveraging all resources? They use data to decide on important decisions (opening locations),
on staffing of personnel, timing of product launches, personalized marketing etc. they turn data into behavior.
Clustering of HR Practices (HRP’s)
HR systems can be comprised in 2 ways: Either control vs commitment, or 3 subsystems focused on skill enhancing,
motivation enhancing, and opportunity enhancing (AMO)
- Control vs Commitment (not on exam)
o Control: emphasis on rules, punishment, close supervision
o Commitment: focus on fostering employee loyalty through training, rewards, and empowerment, to
inspire loyalty and discretionary effort.
, ▪ Continuum? No, independent, can be simultaneously implemented
- AMO Theory (EXAM) black box (mechanism) between HRM & performance, explained by HR practices that
increase employees’ abilities, motivation & opportunities. Each subsystem can have independent outcomes on
performance.
o Ability/skill enhancing → HR practices aim to ensure a skilled workforce: comprehensive recruitment,
rigorous selection, extensive training (human capital)
o Motivation enhancing → HR practices ensure motivated employees: developmental performance
management, competitive compensation, incentives and rewards, extensive benefits, promotion and
career development, and job security.
o Opportunity enhancing → HR practices empower skilled and motivated employees to achieve
organizational objectives: flexible job design, work teams, employee involvement. So, they feel they can
use their skills.
- Meta- analysis on AMO effects:
o HRM practices (that enhance skills, motivation, opportunities) improve performance indirectly by
building human capital and employee motivatio
o These people outcomes improve operations, reduces turnover, and good operations improve financial
results. (AMO practices therefore create performance through mediating mechanisms.
o but stay critical about reverse causality. Good operational/financial results might ALSO cause firms to
invest in HR. (rich firms can afford more training, rewards, autonomy). So, the relationship is not always
purely HRM → performance. Sometimes performance → HRM.
Important:
- SHRM is about aligning HRM with Strategy
o Horizontal and vertical alignment are important!
- Managing HR (people!) is important as they provide human capital advantage and human process advantage
(which can be source of sustained competitive advantage)
- Competitive advantage through VRIO
- Who is in the pool (capital) and how they behave (process) is influenced by HRPs
- HRPs are clustered in HR systems
o Control versus commitment
o AMO
Strength of the HR system
Features of the HRM system
- Content (what)
o This dimension defines what HR systems include. The individual practices and policies designed to
achieve organizational objectives objective (e.g. innovation, diversity & inclusion, well-being). Content
is driven by the organization’s strategic goals and may include high-performance work systems
(HPWS) or best practices tailored to achieve a best fit.
▪ Article Bowen (2004): “the specific set of HRM practices necessary for achieving an
organizational goal”
• Especially when there is vertical alignment, these practices are all aligned with
processes.
- Process (how)
o This dimension explains how HR systems are designed and administered. Strong systems create “strong
situations” with consistent and unambiguous messages about desired behaviors, creating shared
meaning across the workforce about the content (everyone on the same page). Effective design and
implementation ensure that HR systems are impactful and aligned with organizational goals.
