Human resource development in small organizations

This article draws upon case-study research into human resource development (HRD) within three small organizations in the north west of England. It positions the case-study work within an overall framework of doctoral research and summarizes the research design; discusses the characteristics and values of small organizations and how they influence HRD policies and practices: presents findings and conclusions about HRD in the case-study organizations, focusing in particular upon one case in the voluntary sector; compares and contrasts the different models of HRD in the three cases; and concludes with some suggestions for further research.     

Corporate eLearning: Human resource development implications for large and small organizations

Abstract

This paper compares and contrasts the current attitudes towards, awareness of and take-up of eLearning in large and small organizations and outlines the implications for human resource development (HRD) professionals. An in-depth study was conducted in Ireland with a number of large multinational organizations and a number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the engineering, electronics, aerospace, pharmaceutical and medical device sectors. The study focused on awareness, perceptions, technology support infrastructure, current and planned involvement, most frequent and most preferred methods of delivery, benefits, barriers, the motivational factors and overall attitudes to eLearning. The comparison describes a number of similarities and a number of differences both within the large organization sector and within the SME sector and between the two sectors. Finally, the implications for HRD professionals are discussed.     

Knowledge transfer practices in multinational corporations in China's information technology industry

Abstract

The goals of this study were to explore existing practices used to facilitate knowledge transfer in MNCs in the information technology industry in China, and to investigate the frequency of use and the influence of each practice on knowledge transfer. In addition, this study examined which types of knowledge could be transferred by a given practice. The study used a two-stage method that included two surveys. The first survey was designed to develop an inclusive list of knowledge transfer practices. Thirty-three practices were identified in the first survey. The second survey found: 1) the frequency of use and the influence on knowledge transfer varied from one practice to another; 2) MNCs frequently used those practices with higher influence on knowledge transfer; 3) certain practices are better suited in transferring certain types of knowledge.     

Opportunity and opportunism: The expatriation practices of Indian information technology multinational corporations

Although effective International Human Resource Management during an international assignment constitutes a significant factor in ensuring success of an expatriate assignment, there has not been much research that studies the expatriation practices associated with the global delivery model that has come to be identified with global outsourcing. The purpose of this paper is to understand the expatriation practices of Emerging Market Multinational Corporations (EMNCs) in the Indian IT sector, by examining the experiences of Indian IT workers sent to work on international client projects in a western country. We have used qualitative semi-structured interviews with 47 Indian IT expatriates from Indian IT MNCs working at client sites in Australia. We find that there is inadequate attention paid to expatriation both prior to emigration and while workers are overseas and employed at client sites. Such human resource shortcomings may be inherent in the global delivery model that is an important feature of Indian IT business. The implications of these findings are discussed in the paper.     

Manufacturing flexibility and advanced human resource management practices

This article analyses the connection between the use of advanced human resource management (HRM) practices, individually and as a system, with manufacturing flexibility. The results show a positive relationship between the implementation of advanced HRM practices and manufacturing flexibility. While most of the advanced HRM practices analysed show higher levels of implementation in flexible firms, no differences are observed in training efforts. Flexible firms are more prone to implement systems of advanced HRM practices.     

Human capital practices of Russian enterprises

Abstract

The goal of this study was to explore current human capital (HC) management practices (including training and development, recruitment and selection, compensation, empowerment, diversity, and work/family balance) of Russian enterprises. The data were collected at 270 large, medium and small enterprises in Moscow and four representative regional centers. The study results suggest that Russian firms tended to emphasize current HC needs, not long-term HC development strategies. The firm size had an effect on differences in training, selection and compensation practices, with large firms being more long-term oriented. Correlation between elements of the HC management model provided some preliminary evidence that Russian firms tried to coordinate selection, compensation and training procedures. In addition, firms that empowered their employees were also putting more emphasis on long-term oriented training, selection and compensation practices. Finally, there were signs that diversity was gradually becoming an important issue for Russian enterprises of all sizes. However, compared to diversity, companies' emphasis on helping their employees to deal with the work/family balance issues was much stronger.     

Performance management practices in lean manufacturing organizations: a systematic review of research evidence

This paper provides the first systematic look into the existing research on performance management (PM) practices employed in lean manufacturing organisations (LMOs). It adopts a systematic review method to examine the evidence generated in the period 2004 – 2015 and uses a comprehensive PM framework to synthesise the findings. The results suggest that PM practices that have the most prominent role in LMOs are those that, firstly, are located closest to front-line actions and, secondly, explicitly address operational realities. This calls into question the primacy of accounting-driven controls in LMOs, suggesting that operational controls may be more effective than top-down accounting-based PM practices. The results also confirm the bias towards operational-level issues but suggest that LMOs may integrate the operational and the strategic levels by using PM practices that drive organisational learning through employee involvement and engagement.     

Human resource management and performance

The study of human resource management (HRM) has been invigorated by the promise that there is a best-practice, high-involvement management (HIM) that can guarantee superior organizational performance. None the less, there remain concerns that contingency theory still rules, that is, that the fit between the human resource systems and their context, and particularly the organization's business strategy, is all important and, thus, that HIM will only outperform other systems in certain circumstances. In the 1990s, there has been a spate of research that has sought to test whether HIM is indeed universally relevant. This paper reviews these studies. The paper first introduces the conceptual dimensions of the debate concerning HRM and performance. This shows that the issues go beyond a simple competition between universalism and contingency theory. There are more complicated hypotheses linking human resource practices beneath the surface of the recent literature. The second part of the paper overviews the studies in the light of these hypotheses, revealing that they present an uneven picture. Firstly, there are conceptual differences underlying the studies and, secondly, the results vary between them, and the effects of HIM vary between performance measures even in particular studies. Though a fair number of the studies claim to support universalism, their claims are not always unequivocally supported by their research evidence, and it is premature to conclude in its favour. If anything, there is more support for the 'lean production' argument that stresses the interaction effect between HIM and total quality management on performance.     

Human resource management in the just-in-time environment

Successful just-in-time (JIT) implementation requires a multiskilled group-oriented and self-disciplined workforce with good quantitative skills. Little discussion exists in the JIT literature concerning the development of such a workforce. The human resource management (HRM) literature deals with employee issues but does not identify strategies for achieving a JIT workforce. In order to identify appropriate HRM strategies for a JIT environment, a comprehensive model is presented to show the critical linkage between JIT and HRM. Interactions between legal issues, management and union, and human input are examined. The impact of US labour laws on HRM practices is discussed and contrasted with Japanese practices. The literature review of HRM-related JIT articles suggests that HRM practices in the areas of staffing, training and development, compensation, and employee retention can be used to develop an effective JIT workforce. The article will help production managers to understand the impact of specific HRM strategies that are appropriate for developing a JIT workforce.     

Modelling the impact of performance management practices on firm performance: interaction with human resource management practices

The paper draws on resource orchestration theory to investigate whether and how performance management (PM) practices interact with human resource management (HRM) practices in organisations as well as how this interaction affects firm performance. The proposed theoretical model was tested through a survey of 192 UK firms using Partial Least Squares approach for structural equations modelling. The findings show that the effect of PM practices on firm performance is better explained when the interaction between these practices and other organisational practices is considered. In particular, we examine the extent to which the interaction between PM practices and commitment-based HRM practices affects performance. We find that when HRM practices and PM practices are misaligned, their effect on performance can be negative. This is the first paper in the PM literature that establishes the relationship between PM and HRM practices in organisations and demonstrates the effect of this relationship on firm performance.     

组织支持对人力资源措施和员工绩效的影响

通过两项研究,对中国企业情境下员工感知到的组织支持、人力资源管理措施和个人绩效的关系进行了探讨.采用因子分析和回归分析等方法对来自合资,国有,私有等企业的员工及其主管的问卷调查结果进行了数据分析.结果表明:这些企业的人力资源管理措施可以分为保健措施和激励措施两大类.保健措施包括:员工福利、工作环境改善、工作保障、员工薪酬、员工关怀计划;激励措施包括员工培训、职业发展规划.保健措施和激励措施与感知到的组织支持存在交互作用,共同影响员工个人绩效.保健措施对员工绩效的正向影响作用在低水平感知到的组织支持下更显著,激励措施则在高水平感知到的组织支持下具有更显著的正向影响.     

Ethics and human resource management and development in a global context: case study of an Indian multinational

A firm's orientation to ethics is influenced largely by its national and organizational culture. Research shows that a growing number of Indian firms place a distinct emphasis on long-term orientation to business strategy with a social mission, underpinned by firm commitment to core organizational values, employee development and welfare. Through a case study of a large Indian multinational conglomerate, this article provides preliminary evidence of how some emerging economy firms are successfully mixing and matching indigenous business and people management strategies with the Western emphasis on meritocracy and professionalism to compete in the contemporary global economy. It further shows how the human resource development (HRD) discipline can play a pro-active role in embedding ethics and values throughout the organizational and HR architecture. The HRD professionals in the case study firm also face several structural and cultural challenges in discharging their ethics-driven HR mandate, such as management's ethnocentric attitude to global staffing and clash of work cultures.     

Knowledge management in multinational firms

Multinationals by their very nature are network firms. They are therefore able to leverage their networks to effectively manage dispersed knowledge assets. They do this by tapping into a number of local clusters to assimilate and integrate knowledge. However, knowledge traffic is almost always two-way, so that clusters have much to gain from both intentional and unintentional knowledge outflows from MNEs. Thus, MNEs can serve as conduits between clusters, so that their network knowledge contributes to the health of all the clusters in which it operates.     

Dilution of ownership in multinational concerns

This paper examines the issue of ownership dilution of foreign operations on a voluntary or involuntary basis. Involving some 628 cases of foreign ownership dilution by British multinationals in various parts of the world, the paper highlights two main aspects: (1) the degree of dilution, and (2) the geographical spread.A framework of corporate policies on ownership dilution and foreign investment policies of host nations involved has been developed. Twenty-one cases of changes in national and corporate policies are monitored for the entire operational period of these investments. Since some of the statistics obtained during the study are still being consolidated, the findings are not wholly conclusive.     

外商投资企业人力资源管理与绩效关系研究

根据对62 家制造业外商投资企业的调查结果,分析了人力资源管理实践与企业绩效之 间的关系. 研究发现,企业绩效不仅同人力资源管理与企业战略的整合程度有关,而且同企业 使用的“高绩效”人力资源管理系统之间存在积极的联系.     

Human resource development in Pakistan: evolution,trends and challenges

Human resource development (HRD) is an ever-changing field. The concepts and the underlying principles of HRD may be similar throughout the globe, but its practice differs due to contextual factors such as culture, technology, resources and national policies. This article describes the development, current status and future trends of HRD in Pakistan. After analysing HRD in corporate, non-profit, education and community development settings, this article outlines the important role of HRD for the social and economic development of Pakistan.     

Human capital theory: implications for human resource development

This article reviews definitions of 'Human Capital Theory' by leading economists and HRD scholars. The origin of the term 'capital' is explained, and the link between Human Capital Theory and HRD is discussed. It is argued in the article that HRD scholars and practitioners should explore further the link between human capital, HRD and development at individual, organizational, community and international levels.     

The multifaceted nature of social practices: A review of the perspectives on practice-based theory building about organizations

A vibrant body of literature on social practices has developed rapidly in recent years. However, a systematic analysis of the underlying perspectives that shape the way practice-based scholars contribute to theory building about organizational phenomena has escaped scholarly attention. It is of pivotal importance to examine the multifaceted nature of social practices and understand the process by which new practice-based knowledge is developed. Our study addresses this gap by disentangling how researchers have adopted the knowledge, materiality, ethics, and politics perspectives that – as past influential work has informed us – are particularly relevant to practice-based theory building. In so doing, we categorize the body of literature into themes that correspond to the organizational phenomena examined by social practice scholars: practice boundaries and coordination of work, technology at work, strategy formation, local particulars structuring everyday work, and transformation of work practices. By uncovering how scholars adopt the four perspectives within each theme, our review shows that scholars (i) predominantly adopt the knowledge perspective, (ii) neglect the politics perspective when looking ‘inside’ a social practice, (iii) strikingly de-emphasize the ethics perspective, and (iv) isolate each of the four perspectives used in theory building. We then examine in detail the implications of our work for future research on social practices and conclude with a number of theoretical and methodological suggestions.     

Generations in organizations

Despite a rich tradition of scholarship across many disciplines, organizational research on the topic of generations has been relatively scarce. In this article we develop a framework for studying generations in organizations that draws on multiple conceptualizations across multiple disciplines. Our framework distills two distinct critical elements that give ‘generations’ agency in organizational settings – chronology (the idea that a unique location in time creates a ‘generation’) and genealogy (the idea that generations are linked through the transmission/descent of ideas/values/skills/knowledge). After an historic overview of the evolution of the topic of generations, we review generational research across the fields of political sociology, family sociology, psychology, social anthropology, cultural sociology, demography, and gerontology. Our framework elucidates how linkages between generations, based on chronology and genealogy, can be characterized in organizations and how the nature of intergenerational contact and transfer predicts a wide range of organizational outcomes such as change/innovation, conflict, turnover, and socialization. We outline the implications of this framework for future research on generations in organizations.