Human Capital is the most important resource for an organisation to succeed. The quality of the human resource and the work performance directly impact an organisation’s performance. Thus, human resource management plays an important role to ensure the efficiency in an organisation’s daily operations via efficient recruitment, training and development, and staff retention. Besides, efficient human resource management may create competitive advantage to an organisation.
There are various theories explained how human resource management impacts an organisation’s performance. This essay focuses on two theories – Reinforcement Theory and Resource-Based Theory.
2.0 Reinforcement Theory and the Implementation
Reinforcement theory was proposed by BF Skinner and his associates. It focuses of shaping human behaviour by controlling the consequences of the behaviour. In reinforcement theory a combination of rewards and/or punishments is used to reinforce desired behaviour or extinguish unwanted behaviour.
It has similar base as “law of effect” where it states that individual behaviour leads to different consequences. Thus if a behaviour leads to positive consequences, the individual tends to repeat the same behaviour in the future. On the other hand, if a behaviour leads to negative consequences, the individual will try to change their behaviour to avoid the unpleasant consequences. For example, employees may obey the company’s rules and regulation as they may fear of disobedience leads will lead to punishment. On the other hand, employees try to meet the target set at work as they may be rewarded.
Thus, in order to change employee behavior, the consequences of the behavior must be changed. For example, an employee who is frequently late to work, may be motivated to report to work on time (change of behavior) by changing the consequences of being late.
Behavior modification consists of 4 methods:
2.0.1Positive and Negative Reinforcement