Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM): A Paradigm Shift for Achieving Sustained Competitive Advantage in Organization
Benjamin James Inyang Department of Business Management, University of Calabar P.M.B. 1115 Calabar, Nigeria E-mail: benji1955.unical@yahoo.co.uk Tel: +234 8033773403 Abstract The human resource of an organization offered the potential synergy for sustained competitive advantage, when properly deployed, maintained and utilized. From the onset, the traditional HRM, the formal system for managing people in organization, concerned itself essentially with transactional and administrative support services. The emergence of SHRM, concerned with the relationship between HRM and strategic management of the organization, was a paradigm shift. The strategic business partner model emphasized the proper integration or fit of HR practices with the business strategies of the organization, to generate a competitive advantage. To perform successfully, the roles of business partner and change agent under SHRM, the HR practitioner must be highly knowledgeable, multiskilled and acquire core competencies like business knowledge, strategic visioning and global operating skills, credibility and integrity, internal consulting skills, among others.
Keywords: Strategic human resource management, human resource management, competitive advantage, fit, integration, business strategy, strategic business partner.
1. Introduction
An organization requires the utilization of a complex array of resources to grow, survive and achieve the ultimate mission or objectives that informed its existence or creation. The mobilization and deployment of these resources – human, financial and material – in the right resource-mix, gives the organization leverage toward the desired end. Of these resources, the human resource is the most potent and