Introduction

Question 1

Key functions of HRM

Answer 1

Planning 
Interfering 
Resourcing
Managing relationship 
Performance 
Managing change 
Development 
Evaluating 
Employee relation 
Competence 
Talent

Question 2

Defining HRM 1

Answer 2

A widely acknowledge definition of HRM does not exist (Bratton & Gold,2007)

Question 3

Defining HRM 2

Answer 3

The general motives of HRM are multiple subject to paradox or strategic tension and negotiated through political and not simply rational processes
(Boxall, Purcell and Wright 2007)

Question 4

defining HRM 3

Answer 4

Human resource management is a series of activities which: first enables working people and the organisation which uses their skills to agree about the objectives and nature of their working relationship, and secondary ensures that the agreement is fulfilled ( Torrington, Hall, Taylor & Atkinson , 2011)

Question 5

SHRM

Answer 5

A distinctive approach to employment management which seeks to achieve competitive advantages through the strategic deployment of highly committed and capable workforce using an array of cultural, structural and personnel techniques
( Storey,2001)

Question 6

HR process vs. function

Answer 6

The process of managing people in organisation - undertaken by all managers

A functional department in an organisation e.g. HR Department - the personnel Department

Question 7

Origins of HRM

Answer 7

• social justice e.g Quaker firms such as Rowntree and Cadbury
• Emergence of happy = productive worker
• personnel management
• industrial relations
• Employment legislation

Question 8

Scope of HRM

Answer 8

Micro HRM = policy and practice

Strategic HRM = how the bits fit together, connect to the broader context and other organisational activities

International HRM = HRM in countries operating across national boundaries

Question 9

Theoretical Perspectives of Strategic HRM

Answer 9

1. Universalist approach
2. Fit or contingency approach
3. Resource - based approach

Question 10

Universalist Approach: Best Practice

Answer 10

• Prescriptive model
• Based on 4 HR policy goals - strategic integration, commitment, flexibility and quality
• Policy goals are related to HRM policies which are expected to produce desirable organisational outcomes
• Clarity of goals

Question 11

Universalist Approach model:

Answer 11

• High commitment model of labour management:
  
  • high performance working practises (HPWP)
  • high performance work systems (HPWS)
• high organisational performance in all contexts
• Not dependent of the competitive strategy of the organisation

Question 12

Best Practise - What type of consistency?

Answer 12

• time, application across all employees, inter and intra - policy
• consistency vs complementarity
• implement consistent practices and the outcome are as desired for each practise
• complementarity refers to the additional impact on performance believed to result from bundles of practices

Question 13

Best Practices- Criticism???

Answer 13

• Contested nature of individual HR practices aspects of bundles
• Little understanding of processes or nature of cause and effect relationship
• Supporters focus on formal aspects of HR/work organisations:
  Written or explicit policies and procedures rather than informal ways in which work is carried out

Question 14

Fit or contingency approaches

Answer 14

Based on two critical forms of fit:

• external (vertical integration)
• Internal (horizontal integration)
• Harvard (stakeholders, soft) v.s Michigan (product driven, hard)

Both = descriptive not theoretical accounts but are key representations of HRM

Question 15

What is Resources Based View??

Answer 15

• broader strategic management perspective adopted by HRM
• concerned with the relationships between internal (HR) resources, strategy and form performance- butt driven by HR
• focuses on promoting sustained competitive advantage via developing human capital

Question 16

What Resources Base View do??

Answer 16

• HR can provide competitive advantage if they are unique and cannot be copied by others
• Focus on behaviour but also on skills, knowledge, attitudes and competencies - fit well with the emphasis on knowledge economy and current focus on talent
• Value created by matching individual competencies to requirements of business

Question 17

Resources Criteria Required to Sustain Competitive Advantage

Answer 17

1. Valuable
2. Rarity
3. Inimitable - causal ambiguity and social complexity
4. Non - substitutability

(Wright et al. 1994)

Question 18

Scope of employees included

Answer 18

• Attention is often devoted to leaders and too management
• All employees should be in the pool of capital (Wright et al. 1994)
• Human capital pool may depend on resources contribution to competitive advantage, may not be all employees

Question 19

Why is RBV important?

Answer 19

• fits with current emphasis on firm’s intangible assets
• Intellectual capital and customers relationship - both derived from human capital
• Focus on evaluation of human capital - measuring, reporting and managing it
• Human Capital is loaned to the organisation

Question 20

Problems with RBV

Answer 20

• Reference to people as human capital: instrumentals
• Focus on competitive advantages: harder to see the relevance in the public sector
• Considerable measurement issues - problems both theoretically and practically

Question 21

HRM and Employee Behaviour

Answer 21

• HR strategy has been conceived in terms of generating specific employees behaviours
• Identification of employee behaviour required to fulfil a particular business strategy
• Identification of HR policies to bring about and reinforce this behaviour