Managing People Global Perspective
DEADLINES:
- Group Presentation: 07-03-2024
- Individual Assignment (0.15): 13-03-2024 before 17.00
- Group Assignment (0.30): 20-03-2024 before 17.00
- Written Exam (0.65): 21-03-2024, 12.45-14.30
Group assignment:
- learning about HRM practices in a real organization
- Aimed at learning objective regarding bridging theory and practice
- Analyze HRM practices in an organization by:
o Using company documents
o Doing (at least) two interviews
 HR professional
 Employee
- Focus on:
o HRM practices
o Relationship with outcomes
o Alignment between HR professional and employee
o Providing advice
Group report elements:
1. Introduction of the organization
2. Description of the methods & data used
3. Linking one practice to an outcome
4. Analysis of alignment
5. Advice
Individual assignment
- Reflect on the organization studied for the group assignment as
potential future employer
- Fit between HRM practices of organization studied and your personal
preferences
- Think about your professional career and your personal ambitions,
needs and preferences
Individual report elements:
1. Outlining characteristics of the organization that are important for
you when thinking about the organization as your future employer
2. Discussing your preferences and the characteristics of a preferred
employer
3. Linking (1) and (2) to discuss to what extent there is a
match/mismatch between your preferences and the characteristics
of the organization studied
4. Your planned activities to get to know your preferences as well as
potential employer further
Summary
WEEK 1
Lecture 1
INTRODUCTION
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Human resource management refers to the policies, practices, and systems that
influence employees’ Attitudes, behavior, performance
Human resources management is a distinctive approach to employment
management which seeks to obtain competitive advantage through the strategic
deployment of a highly committed and skilled workforce, using an array of cultural,
structural and personnel techniques (Storey, 1995)
WHAT IS HRM?
WHAT ARE HRM PRACRICES?
Programs, processes and techniques that actually get operationalized in the unit
 Things that happen
 Concrete ways in which people are managed in the organization
 Certain level of facticity
Versus
The actual, functioning, observable activities, as experienced by employees
 Actual practices and experiences
 Observable…
Focus on five core HRM practices:
 Employee relations and collective communication
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Recruitment and selection
Performance management
Rewards
Training and development
Introducing the practices: linking practices to:
 Theme 2: Comparative HRM
 Theme 3: Current trends and challenges
 Theme 4: Understanding effects based on OB theories
HRM PRACTICE 1: EMPLOYEE RELATIONS AND COLLECTIVE COMMUNICATION
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Employee relations concerns matters of overarching employment or collective
workforce policy, such as bargaining (the traditional focus of industrial relations),
and expression of the collective voice of employees
Current trends and challenges:
o Changing nature of work: remote working
o E-HRM
Importance of employee relations and collective communication for employee
commitment and retention -> exchange theory
HRM PRACTICE 2: RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION
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One of the purposes of recruitment is to determine present and future staffing
needs in conjunction with job analysis and human resource planning
Selection – a linked but separate practice after recruitment – then involves the
identification of the most suitable person from a pool of applicants
Current trends and challenges:
o Personnel shortages
o War for talent
HRM PRACTICE 3: PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
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The name given to the formal conversations between line manager and employee
about priorities and their achievements
But also…
HR designed process designed to align the workforce with the strategy
Current trends and challenges:
o HRM analytics
Effects on outcomes:
o Expectancy theory
HRM PRACTICE 4: REWARDS
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People are the largest single operating cost item of most businesses
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Using rewards to motivate employees and/or engender their active commitment or
engagement
Current trends and challenges:
o Bonuses
o Performance related pay
o Pay differences
Effects on outcomes: motivation theory, efficiency wage theory
HRM PRACTICE 5: TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
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Training: The planned and systematic modification on behavior through learning
events, programs and instruction which enable individuals to achieve the levels of
knowledge, skill and competence to carry out their work effectively
Development: The growth or realization of a person’s ability and potential through
the provision of learning and educational experiences
Current trends and challenges:
o Talent management
o Employability
o Learning organization
HRM PRACTICE 5: TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
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Effects on outcomes: psychological contract theory
Lecture 2
HRM IN CONTEXT
Three main approaches:
- Cross-cultural management:
o HRM across cultures
- International HRM:
o Issues related to the management of Human Resources in MNC’s
- Comparative HRM:
o Differences/similarities in HRM across countries
RELEVANCE OF INTERNATIONAL HRM AND COMPARATIVE HRM
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Business and management have globalized
o A growing extensity, intensity and velocity of global interactions associated
with deepening impact, such that the effects of distant events can be highly
significant elsewhere
Management should be international and outward-looking
Requirement to compare and learn from different nations and cultures
MNCs need international management skills and knowledge transfer to subsidiaries
Strategic and governmental processes are international and global
VARIOUS THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES…
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Best fit versus best practice
Universalistic, contingent, configurational and contextual perspectives
Contextually based human resource theory
And various other theories
BEST FIT VERSUS BEST PRACTICE DEBATE
Best practice perspective:
- Existence of a set of HRM practices that leads to superior organizational
performance
- Related to so-called High Performance work Systems:
o Ideal combination of practices
Best fit perspective:
- Importance of fit between HRM practices and internal and external context
- Effect of HRM practices dependent on for example fit with organizational strategy
PERSPECTIVES ON HRM (MARTIN-ALCAZAR ET AL, 2008)
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Universalistic
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Contingent
Configurational
Contextual
UNIVERSALISTIC
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Universalistic, or best practice, models: deliver enhanced organizational
performance
Organization as ‘black box’ (Purcell et al., 2003): what ‘bundles’ of HRM practices can
impact on performance
EXAMPLE: HUETTERMANN & BRUCH (2019)
PREFFER (1998)
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High Performance Work System (HPWS)
Employment security/stability; selective hiring of new personnel; self-managed
teams/decentralization; high compensation contingent on organizational
performance; extensive training; reduced status distinctions; extensive sharing of
information, selection, incentive compensation, job design, grievance procedures,
information-sharing, attitude assessment, labor-management participation,
intensive recruiting, intensive training/promotion criteria
CONTINGENT, CONFIGURATIONAL, AND COTEXTUAL
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Contingent perspectives: Add intervening variables between HRM
practice/outcome, usually strategy, organizational context, external environment, or
organizational learning capability
Configurational perspective: internal dynamics of HRM system/how different
elements combined synergistically in different/bundles, representing different
orientations
Contextual perspective: Significance of context, not merely as contingent variable as
framework for HRM decision-making
CONTEXTUALLY BASED HUMAN RESOURC THEORY: PAAUWE (2004)
APPLICATION TO DUTCH HOSPITALS (VELD, PAAUWE & BOSELIE, 2010)
FACTORS AFFECTING IHRM POLICIES AND PRACTICES
National-level factors:
- Culture, institutions and the national business system
Home (parent) country factors:
- Domestic cultural, legal, political and economic factors and dynamic business
environment
- MNCs deeply rooted in national business systems of country of origin: ‘country of
origin’ effects (Ferner, 1997)
FACTOTS AFFECTING IHRM POLICIES AND PRACTICES (2)
Contingent factors:
- Organizational age, size, structure, ownership, stage of internationalization, life cycle
stage, trade union presence and stakeholder interest
Organizational factors:
- Corporate and HRM strategies
Firm-specific factors:
- Senior management’s attitudes towards internationalization/international strategy,
structure and corporate culture of the firm; policies relating to primary HR functions
and internal labor markets
COMPARATIVE HRM: CRANET
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The Cranfield Network on international Human Resource Management (Cranet),
launched in 1989
Regular international comparative survey of organizational policies and practices in
HRM across the world
Provides benchmarks for comparing Europe with developments elsewhere in the
world; Allows a systematic comparative analysis of HRM trends within employing
organizations
DIRECTIONAL CONVERGENCE
FINAL CONVERGENCE
FINDINGS FOR DIRECTIONAL CONVERGENCE
Convergence increases in:
- Strategic potential of HR department
- HR professionalization (HR talent for the future)
- Individualization of employee relations
- Increased information to employees
- Contingent compensations systems
No convergence:
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Staff ratio
Employee development
FINDING FOR FINAL CONVERGENCE
No final convergence of:
- HR configuration
- HRM practices
SO…
There will be some aspects of HRM which may be applicable in any country and any
circumstances: every organization in every country has to conduct basic HRM practices such
as recruitment, payment, etc.
But at the national HRM can be very different because of cultural and institutional
differences between countries
CONTINUED…
This means that universal ‘best practice’ approaches to HRM should always be considered
critically – are they appropriate for other environments?
There are signs of these national differences reducing, but the best evidence we have says
that they remain critical
Whilst globalization seems to be creating some common trends in HRM it is not reducing
the difference between countries in the way of HRM is managed and conducted
Lecture 2
CURRENT TRENDS AND CHALLLENGES & THE ROLE OF HRM PRACTICES
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Aging workforce / personnel shortages
o Relevant HRM practices: training & development, recruitment & selection
The war for talent
o ‘Talent management us the systematic attraction, identification,
development, engagement, retention and deployment of those individuals
who are particular value to an organization, either in view of their ‘high
potential’ for the future or because they are fulfilling business/operationcritical roles’
o Relevant HRM practices: recruitment & selection, reward, performance
management