The effect of business strategies and HRM policies on organizational performance:the Greek experience

This article investigates the relationship between simultaneity in decisions regarding business strategies and human resource management (HRM) policies and their impact on organizational performance. The research is based on a sample of 178 organizations operating in the Greek manufacturing sector. The results of this study support the hypothesis that when business strategies and HRM policies are developed simultaneously, they positively affect organizational performance. This is more valid for decisions taken simultaneously with respect to quality and employee development, innovation and employee rewards and relations, and cost and employee resourcing. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Strategic HRM through the cultural looking glass:mapping the cognition of British and Indian managers

This study examines the issues of `integration' of human resource management (HRM) into the corporate strategy, `devolvement' of HRM to line managers and the perceived influence of national culture on HRM in a cross-national comparative context. In order to achieve this, the cognition of personnel specialists from a matched sample of 48 Indian and British firms in the manufacturing sector using the `Visual Cards Sorting' and `CMAP2' methodologies are analyzed. The findings show that even where there is an apparent convergence of strategy — e.g., the desire of both Indian and British personnel managers to increase integration between HRM and business strategy, and to increase the level of devolvement to line managers, the two sets of specialists clearly follow a different logic of action, which is subject to a different set of cross-cultural influences. The implications of pursuing apparently similar HRM solutions in different cross-national contexts are considered. The analysis shows that HRM strategies, when considered in a cross-national context, vary a lot. Different logic leads to the adoption of similar HR strategies, and similar strategies in turn are perceived as producing different outcomes. This variance centres around the existence and perceived influence of several contextual variables such as industrial relations systems, operation of labour markets, and changes in business systems. Specific cross-cultural influences, along with different aspects of competitive business environment associated with the generic HR strategies of integration and devolvement in the two countries are highlighted. This research contributes to the fields of cross-cultural management research, international HRM and managerial and organizational cognition. It also has important messages for policy makers.

Moving from HRM to knowledge productivity:a study of whether and how organizations become learning organizations

Practitioners and academics are in broad agreement that, above all, organizations need to be able to learn, to innovate and to question existing ways of working. This thesis develops a model to take into account, firstly, what determines whether or not organizations endorse practices designed to facilitate learning. Secondly, the model evaluates the impact of such practices upon organizational outcomes, measured in terms of products and technological innovation. Researchers have noted that organizations that are committed to producing innovation show great resilience in dealing with adverse business conditions (e.g. Pavitt, 1991; Leonard Barton, 1998). In effect, such organizations bear many of the characteristics associated with the achievement of ‘learning organization’ status (Garvin, 1993; Pedler, Burgoyne & Boydell, 1999; Senge, 1990). Seven studies are presented to support this theoretical framework. The first empirical study explores the antecedents to effective learning. The three following studies present data to suggest that people management practices are highly significant in determining whether or not organizations are able to produce sustained innovation. The thesis goes on to explore the relationship between organizational-level job satisfaction, learning and innovation, and provides evidence to suggest that there is a strong, positive relationship between these variables. The final two chapters analyze learning and innovation within two similar manufacturing organizations. One manifests relatively low levels of innovation whilst the other is generally considered to be outstandingly innovative. I present the comparative framework for exploring the different approaches to learning manifested by the two organizations. The thesis concludes by assessing the extent to which the theoretical model presented in the second chapter is borne out by the findings of the study. Whilst this is a relatively new field of inquiry, findings reveal that organizations have a much stronger chance of producing sustained innovation where they manage people proactively where people process themselves to be satisfied at work. Few studies to date have presented empirical evidence to substantiate theoretical endorsements to engage in higher order learning, so this research makes an important contribution to existing literature in this field.

HRM systems, internal marketing and performance in Indian call centres:full research report ESRC end of award report, RES-000-22-1876

Considering the rapid growth of call centres (CCs) in India, its implications for businesses in the UK and a scarcity of research on human resource management (HRM) related issues in Indian CCs, this research has two main aims. First, to highlight the nature of HRM systems relevant to Indian call centres. Second, to understand the significance of internal marketing (IM) in influencing the frontline employees’ job-related attitudes and performance. Rewards being an important component of IM, the relationships between different types of rewards as part of an IM strategy, attitudes and performance of employees in Indian CCs will also be examined. Further, the research will investigate which type of commitment mediates the link between rewards and performance and why. The data collection will be via two phases. The first phase would involve a series of in-depth interviews with both the managers and employees to understand the functioning of CCs, and development of suitable HRM systems for the Indian context. The second phase would involve data collection through questionnaires distributed to the frontline employees and supervisors to examine the relationships among IM, employee attitudes and performance. Such an investigation is expected to contribute to development of better theory and practice.

HRM, organizational capacity for change, and performance:a global perspective

This special issue brings together a variety of articles, each one enriching understanding about whether and how human resource management (HRM) influences organizational performance (however defined) against a backdrop of complex change. We present a preliminary framework that enables us to integrate the diverse themes explored in the special issue, proposing a mediating role for organizational change capacity (OCC). OCC represents a particular subset within the resource-based literature labeled as “dynamic capabilities.” Although not well researched, there is evidence that OCC is positively associated with firm performance and that this relationship is stronger given conditions of high uncertainty. Our framework reflects on external and internal parameters, which we suggest moderate the relationship between human resource management (HRM), OCC, and organizational performance. Our intention is to provide compelling insight for both practitioners and researchers, especially those whose remit extends beyond national boundaries, with reference to areas of the globe as disparate as Greece, Ireland, Pakistan, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Decentralized supply chain formation using max-sum loopy belief propagation

Supply chain formation is the process by which a set of producers within a network determine the subset of these producers able to form a chain to supply goods to one or more consumers at the lowest cost. This problem has been tackled in a number of ways, including auctions, negotiations, and argumentation-based approaches. In this paper we show how this problem can be cast as an optimization of a pairwise cost function. Optimizing this class of energy functions is NP-hard but efficient approximations to the global minimum can be obtained using loopy belief propagation (LBP). Here we detail a max-sum LBP-based approach to the supply chain formation problem, involving decentralized message-passing between supply chain participants. Our approach is evaluated against a well-known decentralized double-auction method and an optimal centralized technique, showing several improvements on the auction method: it obtains better solutions for most network instances which allow for competitive equilibrium (Competitive equilibrium in Walsh and Wellman is a set of producer costs which permits a Pareto optimal state in which agents in the allocation receive non-negative surplus and agents not in the allocation would acquire non-positive surplus by participating in the supply chain) while also optimally solving problems where no competitive equilibrium exists, for which the double-auction method frequently produces inefficient solutions. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.