The Strategic HRM debate and the resource based view of the firm
Boxall, P., & Purcell, J. (2000). Strategic human resource management: where have we come from and where should we be going? International Journal of
Management Reviews, 2(2), 183-203.
HRM includes anything and everything associated with the management of employment relations in the firm.
Strategic human resource management (SHRM) implies a concern with the ways in which HRM is critical to organizational effectiveness
Effectiveness is a multidimensional concept, which is subject to paradox (Cameron 1986).
Not only must managers try to reach the economic goals desired by shareholders, but they must also try to deal with the drivers of employee satisfaction and with broad notions of social legitimacy.
Most research and theoretical debate in strategic HRM has been consumed with a contest between two normative models of how firms should make strategic choices in labour management. One model – the ‘best-fit’ school – argues that HR strategy will be more effective when it is appropriately integrated with its specific organizational and environmental context.
HR activities, like structure and systems, must fit the organization’s stage of development – something they call ‘external fit’ (otherwise called ‘vertical fit’).
They also argue for ‘internal fit’, for the need to ensure that individual HR policies are designed to ‘fit with and support each other’.
The other model advocates universalism, arguing that all firms will be better off if they identify and adopt ‘best practice’ in the way they manage people
Pfeffer (1998) has now summarized these down to seven:
Employment security
Selective hiring
Self-managed teams or team working
High pay contingent on company performance
Extensive training
Reduction of status differences
Sharing information.
The theory of strategic management was dominated in the 1980s by ‘positioning models’ of the strategic problem, which tend to overemphasize the importance of selecting attractive industry positions and competitive
Management Reviews, 2(2), 183-203.
HRM includes anything and everything associated with the management of employment relations in the firm.
Strategic human resource management (SHRM) implies a concern with the ways in which HRM is critical to organizational effectiveness
Effectiveness is a multidimensional concept, which is subject to paradox (Cameron 1986).
Not only must managers try to reach the economic goals desired by shareholders, but they must also try to deal with the drivers of employee satisfaction and with broad notions of social legitimacy.
Most research and theoretical debate in strategic HRM has been consumed with a contest between two normative models of how firms should make strategic choices in labour management. One model – the ‘best-fit’ school – argues that HR strategy will be more effective when it is appropriately integrated with its specific organizational and environmental context.
HR activities, like structure and systems, must fit the organization’s stage of development – something they call ‘external fit’ (otherwise called ‘vertical fit’).
They also argue for ‘internal fit’, for the need to ensure that individual HR policies are designed to ‘fit with and support each other’.
The other model advocates universalism, arguing that all firms will be better off if they identify and adopt ‘best practice’ in the way they manage people
Pfeffer (1998) has now summarized these down to seven:
Employment security
Selective hiring
Self-managed teams or team working
High pay contingent on company performance
Extensive training
Reduction of status differences
Sharing information.
The theory of strategic management was dominated in the 1980s by ‘positioning models’ of the strategic problem, which tend to overemphasize the importance of selecting attractive industry positions and competitive