Lecture 1: Introduction 26/10/2021
HRM: management of people and work
HRM is a fundamental activity in any organization in which human beings are employed.
HRM linked to the success of the organization and the strategy/goals creates Strategic HRM. In
Strategic HRM, employees are considered the organizations (most) important key to organizational
success, and therefore HRM is a key management task.
Starting point of this course: key aspects of HRM can have a significant positive impact on
organizational success. Considerable debate about the nature of this relationship:
How/Why→ Black box debate
When→ Contingency perspective/best practice-best fit debate
For whom→ dark-side perspective + differentiated workforce
And who→ HR devolution
Weekly set-up for each of the five themes (week 1 topic below)
The weeks knowledge clip and recorded lecture will be on canvas on Monday morning
1. Take a look at the knowledge clip Black-Box debate
2. Read the compulsory literature
3. Take a look at the recorded lecture ‘Black-box debate’
4. Prepare for the workgroup on the Black-box debate
5. Workgroup Black-box debate (exit ticket: reflect on the class)
6. Q&A session Black-box debate
Examination
Written exam, open ended questions and 40 multiple choice questions about knowledge clips,
literature, lectures
,Knowledge clip 1: Black box debate 02/11/2021
Central to Strategic HRM is the idea that the adoption by organizations of a more ‘sophisticated’ set
of HR practices, covering key aspects of the management of people in the workplace, has a positive
impact on organizational performance. The practices and policies involved cover a wide range of HR
functions in areas such as recruitment and selection, training and development, performance
management, pay and benefits, participation, and communication. According to SHRM theory, the
more these HR practices are implemented in an organization, the better the organization’s
performance.
However, our understanding of the processes by which HR practices affect organizational
performance has been quite limited. Indeed, it is unclear both how many steps there are in the link
between HRM and performance, and what the content of each step is. This has been referred to as
the black box debate in Strategic Human Resource Management.
In response, there have been a number of efforts to model the impact of HRM on organizational
performance. Central to these models is the idea that employees play a key role in explaining the
impact of HR practices on organizational performance.
3 theories:
1. Resource-Based View of the Firm (Barney, 1991)
a. Main assumption: organizations can build a competitive advantage based on
resources that are valuable (capable of delivering superior competitive results), rare
(not easily obtained by competitors), imperfectly imitable (hard to copy), and non-
substitutable (hard to replace)
b. Organizations have different types of resources:
i. Organizational resources (structure, planning, etc.)
ii. Physical resources (plants, equipment, etc.)
iii. Human resources
c. Building upon this resource-based paradigm, Boxall proposes that a human resource
advantage can consist of the following:
i. Human capital advantage (a situation where there is a stock of exceptional
human talent working within the organization, whose knowledge, abilities
and skills match the strategic needs of the firm)
ii. Human process advantage (the presence of difficult-to-imitate, historically
evolved processes within the organization, such as intense forms of co-
operation between people)
d. The RBV logic provides a rationale for how HR practices positively affect
organizational performance by building a better human capital pool and by
stimulating better processes within the organization.
2. AMO framework (Appelbaum et al.)
a. The idea that people perform well if they have the Ability, Motivation and
Opportunity to do so.
b. Three components:
i. Ability = employees can perform well on the job because they possess the
necessary knowledge and skills. Knowledge and skills can be influenced by
HR practices (f.e. training opportunities)
1. Linked to Human Capital Theory
ii. Motivation = employees perform well on the job because they want to
perform well. HR practices (f.e. internal career opportunities and extensive
rewards) motivate employees to perform well
1. Linked to Social Exchange Theory
, iii. Opportunity = employees get the opportunity to perform well. HR practices
(f.e. enabling employee participation in decision-making) can empower
employees to show good performance
c. So: AMO provides a rationale for how HR practices impact organizational
performance by increasing employees’ abilities, motivation and opportunities to
produce high performance.
3. HRM Process model (Wright & Nishii)
a. The model highlights the distinction between HR practices that senior managers
intend to implement in the organization, the practices that are actually implemented
by line managers, and employees’ perceptions of these implemented practices
i. The model also explains why there is sometimes a disconnect between the
intended, actual and perceived.
b. So: The model addresses the question of how HR practices impact organizational
performance by looking at how these practices are implemented in the workplace,
and how employees experience and respond to them.
Based on these three theories, we can conclude that employees (or HR) play a key role in explaining
the impact of HR practices on organizational performance.
, Recorded lecture 1: Black box debate 3/11/2021
Key aspects of HR have significant positive impact on organizational success
- Relationship has been researched in many different empirical studies
o Summary of the studies: meta-analysis (technique for combining the findings from
independent studies)
o Results of HRM – organizational performance link:
▪ Difference between operational and financial outcomes
▪ Moderately positive relation of HRM for both of the outcomes
Different domains:
1. Staffing = acquiring, employing, and retaining a workforce of sufficient quality and quantity.
It focuses on employee development of knowledge, skills, and abilities of employees and on
getting the required skills in place.
o Recruitment & selection
o Training & development
2. Instrumental domain = focuses on how to motivate employees
o Performance management = integrated process in which managers work with
employees to set expectations, measure and review results and reward performance
in order to improve the job performance of an employee.
o Compensation & benefits
o Incentives & rewards
3. Providing employees the opportunities to use their knowledge, skills and abilities and to
invest their efforts into their work
o Participation opportunities (involvement in decision making)
o Communication (providing enough company information)
Black box debate
- In search of the Holy Grail = unique ways of managing people to gain organizational success
o It is called the holy grail because up till recently we knew little about what happens
between HRM and organizational performance
- Black box debate → 2 central questions:
1. How many boxes should be taken into account?
a. How many steps are there in the link between HRM and performance
i. F.e.: do the HRM policies and practices affect organizational performance via
enhanced worker behaviours (such as performance or turnover), or maybe it
is an even longer chain (maybe also via employee attitudes)
2. What should be the content of each box
a. What should be the content of each step
i. F.e. HRM may be related to organizational performance via employee
attitudes, but there are a lot of employee attitudes (so is it job satisfaction, or
commitment, etc.)
