Summary Literature OB (2020-2021)
Week 1 ‘Introduction OB’...................................................................................................................2
Paauw, J. & Farndale E. (2017). Strategy, HRM, and performance: a contextual approach...........2
West, M. A., Guthrie, J. P., Dawson, J. F., Borrill, C. S., & Carter, M. (2006). Reducing patient
mortality in hospitals: the role of human resource management................................................11
Veld, M., Paauwe, J., Boselie, P. Mapping the context: different scenarios for managing human
resources in a changing hospital...................................................................................................13
Week 2 ‘Leadership’.........................................................................................................................15
Andersson, T. (2015). The medical leadership challenge in healthcare is an identity challenge...15
Derue, D.S., Nahrgang, J.D. et al. (2011). Trait and behavioral theories of leadership: An
integration and meta‐analytic test of their relative validity.analytic test of their relative validity. ........................................................20
Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and practice...........................................................26
Week 3 ‘Teams’................................................................................................................................36
Lemieux-Charles, L. (2006). What do we know about health care team effectiveness? A review of
the literature................................................................................................................................36
West, M. A., & Lyubovnikova, J. (2013). Illusions of team working in health care........................40
Reeves, S., & Lewin, S. (2004). Interprofessional collaboration in the hospital: strategies and
meanings.’....................................................................................................................................42
Rodriquez, J. (2015). Who is on the medical team?: Shifting the boundaries of belonging on the
ICU................................................................................................................................................45
Week 4 ‘Dilemma game’...................................................................................................................48
Week 5 ‘Professionals’......................................................................................................................48
Waring, J., & Currie, G. (2009). Managing expert knowledge: organizing challenges and
managerial futures for the UK medical profession.......................................................................48
Van der VeenPreview the document, R. (2013). A managerial assault on professionalism?........52
Powell, A. E., & Davies, H. T. (2012). The struggle to improve patient care in the face of
professional boundaries...............................................................................................................55
Week 6 ‘Motivation’.........................................................................................................................57
Colquitt, Lepine, & Wesson (2015). Organizational Behaviour: Improving Performance and
Commitment in the Workplace....................................................................................................57
Weibel, A., Rost, K., & Osterloh, M. (2010). Pay for performance in the public sector—Benefits
and (hidden) costs........................................................................................................................62
Lagarde, M., Huicho, L., & Papanicolas, I. (2019). Motivating provision of high quality care: it is
not all about the money...............................................................................................................65
Ramlall, S. (2004). A review of employee motivation theories and their implications for
employee retention within organizations.....................................................................................67
1
,Week 1 ‘Introduction OB’
Paauw, J. & Farndale E. (2017). Strategy, HRM, and performance: a
contextual approach.
Chapter 5
This chapter talks about the whole evolving ways of HRM. Guest’s (1987) saw HRM as the following:
‘HRM as moving away from ‘personnel management’ to a new way of managing people, which
involved closer association to corporate strategy and business priorities’
The chapter talks about many challenges, the black-box phenomena, the distinction between
control- and commitment oriented HRM systems and ‘hard’ and ‘soft, etc.
5.2 Achievements to date
HRM was kinda born in the USA. The roots of HRM in the USA came from 2 well-known models: Beer
and collegues’ (1984) Harvard model, and Fombrun, Tichy, and Devanna’s (1984) Michigan School
model.
As the field merged, lots of studies came out. One of the first was from Paauwe and Richardson’s
(1997). This summarizing framework started to clarify the different between HRM outcomes (e.g.
satisfaction, motivation, turnover) and organization outcomes (e.g. productivity, customer
satisfaction etc.). By asking questions like ‘what does HRM mean’ etc the black-problem was
introduced: what are the mechanisms that help to explain the link between HRM practices and
policies on one hand and organization performance on the other?
Different models give explanations for this problem, but all studies stay modest; cautious conclusions
are made.
The chapter looks at 5 important studies:
1. Boselie, Dietz, and Boon (2005)
In this study HRM is conceptualized in terms of carefully designed combinations of such practices
geared towards improving organizational effectiveness and hence better performance outcomes.
They found that HRM matters for organizational outcome.
Performance can be measures in multiple ways, 3 levels of outcome: 1) financial (e.g. profit, sales,
etc.); 2) organizational (e.g. output measures such as quality, efficiency, productivity); 3) HRM (e.g.
employee attitudes and behaviours such as satisfaction).
The article concludes:
Financial measures are represented in half of half articles they studied (profit most common)
2
, The distance between some performance indicators (e.g. profit, market value) and HRM
interventions can be too large and it potentially subject to other business interventions (e.g.
research and development activities)
o An argument is that we need performance indicators that are far more proximal that HRM
practices can directly affect, such as changes in employee attitudes (motivation,
commitments, trust), associated with subsequent changes in outcomes at organizational
level (e.g. productivity)
2. Wall and Wood (2005)
The evidence of HRM on performance is promising but only circumstantial, due to the most part, to
inadequate research design.
3. Combs and colleagues (2006)
Their conclusion was that high performance work practices (HPWP or high performance work
systems (HPWS)) impact on organizational performance is not only statistically significant, but
managerially relevant. They also found that HPWSs have a stronger effect than individual HRM
practices.
o May be due to the more complex man-machine/technology interfaces in manufacturing that
require more training and instruction.
o Or for the fact that HPWSs affect manufactures more is; ‘that whereas the full rang of
productive outcomes is largely under the control of manufactures and thus potentially
influences by HPWPs, production outcomes among services are heavily influences by
customers’ ability and willingness to participate.
4. Subramony (2009)
Focusses on 3 different HRM bundles:
It relates to the AMO theory of ability, motivation and opportunity. He concludes that those 3
bundles have significant and positive relationships, with outcomes like employee retention,
operating performance and financial performance.
o The 3 bundles/systems have a stronger effect that individual HRM practices
5. Jiang and colleagues (2012)
Explores mechanism between HRM systems and both proximal outcomes (human capital and
motivation) and distal outcomes (turnover, operational management, such as productivity).
3
, o They also conceptualize HRM practices in terms of 3 distinct dimensions; skill-enhancing,
motivation-enhancing and opportunity-enhancing.
o The concept reveals many mediators
o They reveal that all 3 HRM dimensions have significant and positive effects on human capital
and motivation, and that skill-enhancing HRM practices explained the largest % of variance in
human capital
The results support that human capital, employee motivation, voluntary turnover and operational
outcomes partially mediated the relationships between skill-enhancing and motivation-enhancing HR
dimensions and financial outcomes and fully mediated the relationship between opportunity-
enhancing HR practices and financial outcomes.
! So HRM practices are (bundled or individual) at least to some extent, related to firm performance
5.3 Challenges in HRM and performance research
Still lots of people unsure of the effect of HRM, both theoretical and methodological issues with
articles.
Levels of analysis
There are lots of levels of HRM and it’s important to distinguish these, in most studies they have
been confused. Boselie, Dietz and Boon (2005) for example take the 3 most commonly used theories:
contingency theory, the resource-based view (RBV) (both organizational level) and the AMO
framework (also individual level)
o You also have an distinguishing in how the organization intended to implement HRM policies,
and how they were actually implemented by line managers. Also how employees actually
view those policies. This also gives different relationships:
4
