Chapter 2: SHRM and Context

Question 1

Which 2 notions are important in SHRM?

Answer 1

Fit and alignment

Question 2

What does ‘best-fit school’ advocates?

Answer 2

HRM is more effective when its aligned with its internal and external context

Question 3

What does ‘best-practice school’ advocates?

Answer 3

universalistic perspective: all firms will be better off if they identify and adopt ‘best practice’ in the way the manage people

Question 4

What are Pfeffer’s 7 HR practices for building profits by putting people first?

Answer 4

1. Selective recruitment and selection
2. Extensive training
3. Performance-related pay (PRP)
4. Teamworking - a way to break through the hierarchical model
5. Information sharing and communication
6. Reduction of status differences
7. Employement security - in most countires its embedded through legislation

Question 5

Pfeffer is part of which school?

Answer 5

Best-practice school

Question 6

What is the best-practice proposition criticized for?

Answer 6

lack of attention to contectual factors

Question 7

What are the strenghts of B-P model?

Answer 7

Simplicity and clarity

Question 8

What is the B-P proposition?

Answer 8

specific HR practices are universally applicable and successful when used

Question 9

What is the B-F proposition?

Answer 9

Success can be reached only through appropriate fit between HRM and its context

Question 10

What is context?

Answer 10

The set of facts or circumstances that surrounds the organization

Question 11

What is internal context?

Answer 11

Org’s unique history, administrative heritage, and org culture

Question 12

What is external context?

Answer 12

the outside mechanisms that effect the og or even interact with it
2 general: market mechanism and insitutional mechanism

Question 13

What is strategy?

Answer 13

org’s intention to achieve certain goals through planned alignment(fit) between the org and its environment

Question 14

Where an we find the strategy?

Answer 14

In the strategic plan or documents such as annual report and the president’s letter

Question 15

What is alignment and fit?

Answer 15

the principle of matching elements: context and org

Question 16

Who made the distinction between general environment and population environment?

Answer 16

Deephouse

Question 17

What is general env?

Answer 17

all the market and institutional mechanisms that affect all org in a country

Question 18

What is population env?

Answer 18

the external context of an org that is dire

Question 19

What is strategic / vertical fit?

Answer 19

necessary alignment of the overall business strategy and the HR strategy; 4 linkages:

1. administrative - lowest level
2. one-way linkage - HR is affected by BS
3. two-way linkage
4. intergative linkage - full aligment

Question 20

What is the internal / horizontal fit?

Answer 20

The link between individual HR practicies .

HR system approaches build upon this fit

Question 21

Who warns us about the deadly combinations of HR practises?

Answer 21

Delery

Question 22

What is the organizational fit?

Answer 22

The alignment between HRM and other org systems and configuration

Question 23

What is the environmental or institutional fit?

Answer 23

The link between HR strategy and the institutional environment of an organization

Question 24

What are the 3 types of institutional mechanisms according to DiMaggio and Powell?

Answer 24

1. Coercive - legislation and procedures
2. Normative - professional norms and routines
3. Mimetic - result of uncertainty or fashion

Question 25

What is strategic choice according to Child?

Answer 25

the defree of leeway in strategic decision making. 2 extremes: hyper-determinism (no leeway) and hyper-voluntarism (maximum leeway)

Question 26

When there is larger room to manoeuvre (Paauwe)?

Answer 26

1. market growth 2. limited number of relevent stakeholders 3. limited laws etc 4. capital-intesive org context 5. large financial buffers 6. monopolist org

Question 27

What are the 6 components of the strategy scan?

Answer 27

1. external general market context - macroeconomic situation and labor market conditions 2. external population market context - competition, etc 3. external general institutional context - country legislation, etc 4. External population institutional context - nature of CBAs, influence of social partners 5. Internal organization context - history, culture,technology 6. HR strategy

Question 28

What are the trends in European labor market?

Answer 28

1. increased attention to flexicurity 2. aging population 3. need for increasing the woman labour through flexible arrangements

Question 29

On which 5 high performance work practices, does HR strategy scan focus on?

Answer 29

1. Recruitment and selection 2. Training and development 3. Appraisal and Performance management 4. Compensation 5. Employee participation

Question 30

What distinction do Baron and Kreps make?

Answer 30

between single employee consistency, among employee consistency and temporal consistency

Question 31

What is consistency among employees?

Answer 31

the extent to which the HR policies and practices are equally distributed among employees who have similar tasks and jobs in the organization. Inconsistency may occur when 2 people with the same tasks recieve different payment

Question 32

What is temporal consistency?

Answer 32

the degree to which HR policies and practicies remain relatively stable over time.

Question 33

What is the adaptation fit?

Answer 33

The degree to which an org is capable of changing its HR strategy and policies to changes in the internal and external context

Question 34

What is organizational field?

Answer 34

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

Question 35

What is the value of the 6 component model?

Answer 35

1. Instrument for context analysis 2. evaluation of Fit of Current HRM-Strategy 3. Determine the Need to Develop a New HRM-Strategy, Policy and Practices 4. Analyse and Explain Differences in HRM-Policies of Organisations 5. Understand Similarities and Differences in the Adoption Responses Between Multiple Stakeholders in a Case Organization. 6. Decting Tensions due to Contradicting Trends (e.g., market and institutional trends).