Chapter 3: Human Resource Management and Performance: Adding Value through People

Question 1

HR value chain

Answer 1

1. Determine the competitive advantage and sustained comp adv of an org
2. Determine the critical factors that create comp adv
3. Determine the employee attitude, behaviors, and cognitive factors that positively affect the critical success factors
4. Determine the HR practices that positively affect employee attitudes and behaviors

Question 2

Ultimate business goals (UBGs)

Answer 2

organizational targets for relevent stakeholders aimed at:

1. creating and maintaining viability with adequate returns
2. creating sustained competetive adv

Question 3

Delery and Shaw (3)

Answer 3

1. Human capital can be source of competative advantage
2. HR practices have the most direct influence on the human capital of an organization
3. The complex nature of HR systems of practice can enhance the inimitability of the system

Question 4

resource-based view of the firm

RBV

(Barney-like)

Answer 4

inside out approach, in which internal resources constitute in the starting point for org success

Question 5

Outside in thinking (Poter and Mintzberg-like)

Answer 5

emphasis on the external, industry-based competitive issues

Question 6

Barney: Sustained comp adv can be achieved if

Answer 6

the internal resources are valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable

Question 7

RBV value

Answer 7

economic condition of resource

Question 8

RBV rare

Answer 8

the scarcity of the resource

Question 9

RBV inimitability

Answer 9

the degree to which resources are hard to copy

Question 10

RBV non-substitutability

Answer 10

resources that are very hard to neutralize with other resources which will meet the same ends

Question 11

VRIO framework - value, rareness, inimitability and org

Answer 11

hierarchical framework for determining the potential org success through internal resources

Question 12

which is one of the most important qualities of desirable resources in the RBV theory

Answer 12

Inimitability

Question 13

Path dependency

Answer 13

Valuable resources are developed over time

Question 14

Causal ambiguity

Answer 14

It is difficult for people who have not been involved in the decision-making process to assess the specific cause-effect relationships in org

Question 15

Social complexity

Answer 15

Unique networks of internal and external connections are natural barriera for imitation by rivals

Question 16

Why organization’s resource can be imperfectly imitable and difficult to substitute?

Answer 16

1. The ability of an org to obtain a resource is dependent on unique conditions (PD)
2. The link between resources possessed by an org and its sustained comp adv is usually causal ambiguous
3. The resource generating an org’s adv is socially compex and difficult to understand

Question 17

disadvantage of UGBs approach

Answer 17

it only focuses on profit org

Question 18

non-critical HR goals

Answer 18

desired outcomes for sales, market share, etc

Question 19

critical HR goals Boxall and Purcell

Answer 19

1. labour productivity (cost-effectiveness)
2. org flexibility
3. social legitimacy and employment citizenship

Question 20

numerical flexibility

Answer 20

flexibility in the use of employees

Question 21

functional flexibility

Answer 21

the degree to which employees are capable of performing multiple tasks and functions

often manifested through: job rotation, teamwork, job enlargement, and job enrichment

Question 22

mental flexibility

Answer 22

the employees ability and willingness to change without resistance

also linked with agility - the org’s capability of adapting easily to changes in its external environment

Question 23

distal outcomes

Answer 23

cognitive aspects

Question 24

proximal outcomes

Answer 24

directly or almost directly affected by HR practices

employee satisfaction, commitment, motivation, trust, loyalty, retention, and turnover, etc

Question 25

Boselie et al. There is no general consesus about

Answer 25

what constitutes HRM, what performance is, and whats the link between the 2

Question 26

Paauwe + Richardson

Reversed causality

Answer 26

HRM activities, HRM outcomes, Performance are influenced by the contingency and/or control variables

and they have relationship between them as well

Question 27

What do Wright and Nishii emphasize?

Answer 27

the role of line managers