Week 9

Question 1

What is Human Resource Management

Answer 1

Policies, practices and processes that influence organisational effectiveness by affecting employees’ attitudes, behaviour and performance.
Its ultimate goal is to provide business value through the management of people

Question 2

HRM - firm goals (Who do they satisfy?)

Answer 2

HRM is a means for achieving goals –> firms satisfy a broader group of stakeholders, including employees, society, future generations and also the environment

Question 3

What does HRM consist of?

Answer 3

1. Structures (the way in which the HRM function and roles are organised within and across firm boundaries)
2. Policies (statements of the firm’s intent)
3. Practices (tools used for the daly enactment of HRM policies)
4. Processes (technological and social workflows through which HRM policies and practices are established, modified and terminated)

Question 4

What are the unique properties that a resource needs to be managed (5)

Answer 4

1. Rights
2. KSAOs
3. Incomplete control of behaviour
4. Social interest
5. Heterogeneity

Question 5

RIGHTS

Answer 5

People management occurs in a strongly regulated world. The legal environment of HRM is extremely complex (differs strongly across international contexts)

Question 6

PERPETUAL OWNERSHIP OF HUMAN CAPITAL (KSAOs)

Answer 6

People are not per se productive, it is their attributes that make them productive.
Consequence = investments in individuals are risky

Question 7

INCOMPLETE CONTROL OF BEHAVIOUR

Answer 7

Individual behaviour is undetermined. There can’t be complete control of behaviour
Bounded rationality and opportunism are inherent traits of individual behaviour

Question 8

SOCIAL INTEREST

Answer 8

Organisations outperform alternative types of production (like markets) only under the assumption that transaction costs are lower than in market transactions

Question 9

HETEROGENEITY

Answer 9

People are different.
Heterogeneity is often “private knowledge” and hard to observe

Question 10

LEADERHIP

Answer 10

Good business leaders (informal, straight with people and “never get bored telling their story”)

Question 11

What are the three types of agents?

Answer 11

1. Top management
2. Middle management
3. Employees

Question 12

TMT (Top Management Team)

Answer 12

TMT delegates strategy implementation to the functional experts
CHRO delegates tasks to the lower-level HRM function

Question 13

Middle Managers

Answer 13

Have responsibilities for sub-units.
They have only little interest in executing HRM tasks (Performing HRM tasks costs a lot of time and has drawbacks)

Question 14

Employees

Answer 14

Suffer from the relatively largest information asymmetries.
Most often goal setting is used but work imperfectly.
They often have their own goals.