Summary Chapter 1 to 14 of Strategic Human Resource Management by Paul Boselie. Also includes relevant takeaways of the corresponding lectures per chapter.
Samenvatting Strategic Human Resource Management –
A Balanced Approach
Chapter 1 Introduction: Strategic Human Resource Management in the Twenty-first Century
SHRM pays extra attention to the organizational context, potential alignment and fit between
practices.
Anglo-American: added value of HRM to create shareholder value (financial performance)
Rhineland: broader view of HR goals including interests of employees and trade unions (well-being)
Hard HRM: financial added value
Soft HRM: moral value
Three perspectives in studying SHRM perspectives
- Multiple stakeholder perspective
Differences in institutional pressure (like retirement age, work perspective is different).
- Broad societal view
Differences across sectors
Norms and values, differences in expectations in behaviour
- Multi-level perspective
Including individual employee and strategic perspective.
Adding teams. You need advanced technical systems
Employment relationship= the concept that best captures the exchange relationship:
- Legal contract
- Economic or transaction contract
- Psychological contract
- Sociological contract
Perspectives of frames for studying organizations:
- Structural: rules
- HR-frame: needs, skills, relations
- Political: issues of power
- Symbolic: meaning and identity, culture, metaphors, rituals
Organizational changes 5 I’s:
- Internationalization is increasing
- Individualization is increasing (preferences, needs, infinity’s).
People want to make sure that they can fulfil their infinities at their work and private life.
They want meaningful, satisfying work that makes them happy.
Sustainable careers imply that you have to take into account your added value for your
organization and for your employee development.
- Informalization. More flatter companies, less hierarchical levels.
Management functions are changing.
Hofstede indicators: Power distance: the amount of difference in division of power that
people tolerate is very low in the Netherlands > Equality.
In Vietnam the power distance is much higher.
- Informatization. ICT.
, - Intensification. Individuals are more network related and they also want to combine the
importance in striving to realizing their career goals and their private life. The balance is very
important. The intensification of the combination of different life fears has to be taken into
account. You cannot ignore the private person. (chapter 5).
Three perspectives of shaping employment relationship:
1. Micro HRM → Individual employee. Behaviour, protecting well-being, psychological insights.
Deals with the in-flow, through-flow and out-flow. Very important at the start (inwerktijd).
Entering, recruitment selection, be attractive → Social part (inwerktijd) → training and
development → promotion
2. International HRM → (re-)expatriation.
Focus on differences in countries. Societal differences, interaction differences.
3. SHRM → align the micro focus with the strategy/organizational level.
Chapter 2 Strategic Human Resource Management and Context
Best-fit school: HRM is more effective when it is aligned with its internal and external context.
Strength: stresses contextual embeddedness
Criticism: complexity
Best-practice school: universalistic perspective. Assumes that certain HR practices are universally
applicable and successful. ‘All firms will be better off if they identify and adopt ‘best practice’ in the
way they manage people. 7 practices for building profits by putting people first.’
- Selective recruitment and selection
- Extensive training
- Performance-related pay
- Teamworking
- Information sharing and communication
- Reduction of status differences
- Employment security
Strength: simplicity and clarity
Criticism: lack of attention to contextual factors
➢ Boselie: Context matters.
Strategy: intention to achieve goals through planned alignment/fit between organization and
environment.
Organization: social, legal and economic entity
Environment or context: internal and external constitution
PMT: products, markets and technology
SCL: social, cultural, legal
General environment: market and institutional mechanisms
,Population environment: external context that is linked to the population or organizational field
Organisational field: A community of organisations that partakes of a common meaning system and
whose participants interact more frequently and fatefully with one another than with actors outside
the field.
Strategic fit
Strategic / vertical fit: necessary alignment between the overall strategy and the HR strategy
- Administrative: no linkage
- One-way: HR strategy derived from overall strategy (IDEAL TYPE)
- Two way: HR experts determine developments and put it on the table. They influence each other
- Integrative: full alignment. HR director
Internal / horizontal fit: link between individual HR practices towards a coherent and consistent HR system.
- HR system approach: HPWS’s
- Crucial for achieving organizational and strategic fit
Organizational fit
Necessary fit between HR strategy, policies and practices on the one hand and the organizational
systems on the other.
- Manufacturing industries
Environmental fit: link between HR strategy and the institutional environment.
Institutional mechanisms:
Coercive: implementation as a result of institutional forces as legislation and procedures
Normative: professional norms. Management control system depending on the professionalization
of an employee category
Mimetic: imitation as a result of uncertainty. Imitation as a result of trends/hypes
➢ Result: companies begin to look like each other
Strategic decision making:
Hyper-determinism: no leeway. Choices are determined by contextual conditions.
Hyper-voluntarism: lot of leeway, no restrictions
Leeway is determined by the internal and external context.
HR Strategy Scan (six component model)
Analyses the organization’s context and the degree to which HRM is aligned to it.
External general market: macro economics
External population market: competition, maturity, developments in technology
External general institutional: legislation, norms and values
External population institutional: nature of CBA’s, influence of social partners, stakeholders, regulations
Internal organization: configuration: history, culture, technology, employee and ownership structure
Employees have needs:
- Autonomy. Not being told what to do.
- Competence. Being rewarded for what to do. Met by HRM
- Relatedness of belongingness. People want to be part of the tribe. Like being at work.
- Structure. 1/3 of the people miss the structure when they have to work by new ways.
- Psychological safety. Feel that you are able to make mistakes. HRM should take this into
account.
, HR strategy
Model page 40:
General is bigger, population is smaller.
General influences population. And they both affect HR strategy.
➢ External and internal affect the HR strategy
➢ External general market affects: external population market and HR strategy
➢ External general institutional affects: external population institutional and HR strategy
Key premises: Synergistic effects and Equifinality
High performance= strategic fit + organization fit + internal fit + environmental fit
Chapter 3 Human Resource Management and Performance: Adding Value through People
Revered approach of HR value chain:
Determine competitive advantage > Determine critical factors (HR goals) > Determine employee
attitudes and behaviours > Determine HR practices
RBV
1. Inside-out
Criteria: VRIO-framework (valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable)
Nadeel: alleen voor profit organisaties
- Financial resources
- Physical resources
- Organizational resources
- Human resources
Competitive advantage is also the result of how these resources are acquired, managed, developed
and supported by other organizational systems.
Being non-substitutable by:
- Path dependency
- Causal ambiguity (relationships of resources)
- Social complexity (networks)
Temporary competitive advantage: valuable, rare
Sustained competitive advantage: valuable, rare, difficult to imitate and supported by organization.
Supported by organization and difficult to imitate is the difference
Competitive advantage can be linked to: UBG’s and organizational performance represented by HR goals.
Ultimate Business Goals (UBG):
- Viability of adequate returns to shareholders
- Sustained competitive advantage
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