Toward a Strategic Human Resource Management Model of High Reliability Organization Performance

In this article, we extend strategic human resource management (SHRM) thinking to theory and research on high reliability organizations (HROs) using a behavioral approach. After considering the viability of reliability as an organizational performance indicator, we identify a set of eight reliability-oriented employee behaviors (ROEBs) likely to foster organizational reliability and suggest that they are especially valuable to reliability seeking organizations that operate under “trying conditions”. We then develop a reliability-enhancing human resource strategy (REHRS) likely to facilitate the manifestation of these ROEBs. We conclude that the behavioral approach offers SHRM scholars an opportunity to explain how people contribute to specific organizational goals in specific contexts and, in turn, to identify human resource strategies that extend the general high performance human resource strategy (HPHRS) in new and important ways

Virtual HR Departments: Getting Out of the Middle

In this chapter, we explore the notion of virtual HR departments: a network-based organization built on partnerships and mediated by information technologies in order to be simultaneously strategic, flexible, cost-efficient, and service-oriented. We draw on experiences and initiatives at Merck Pharmaceuticals in order to show how information technology in establishing an infrastructure for virtual HR. Then, we present a model for mapping the architecture of HR activities that includes both internal and external sourcing options. We conclude by offering some recommendations for management practice as well as future research

Aligning Employees Through \u3ci\u3eLine of Sight\u3c/i\u3e

Aligning employees with the firm’s larger strategic goals is critical if organizations hope to manage their human capital effectively and ultimately attain strategic success. An important component of attaining and sustaining this alignment is whether employees have “line of sight” to the organization’s strategic objectives. We illustrate how the translation of strategic goals into tangible results requires that employees not only understand the organization’s strategy, they must accurately understand what actions are aligned with realizing that strategy. Using recent empirical evidence, theoretical insights, and tangible examples of exemplary firm practices, we provide thought-leaders with a comprehensive view of LOS, how it is created, how it can be enhanced or stifled, and how it can be effectively managed. We integrate LOS with current thinking on employee alignment to help managers more effectively benefit from understanding human capital potential

A Resource-Based View Of International Human Resources: Toward A Framework of Integrative and Creative Capabilities

Drawing on organizational learning and MNC perspectives, we extend the resource-based view to address how international human resource management provides sustainable competitive advantage. We develop a framework that emphasizes and extends traditional assumptions of the resource-based view by identifying the learning capabilities necessary for a complex and changing global environment. These capabilities address how MNCs might both create new HR practices in response to local environments and integrate existing HR practices from other parts of the firm (affiliates, regional headquarters, and global headquarters). In an effort to understand the nature of such capabilities, we discuss aspects of human capital, social capital, and organizational capital that might be linked to their development. Page

Strategic HRM Measurement in the 21st Century: From Justifying HR to Strategic Talent Leadership

Measurement will be vital to the evolution of human resource management in the coming century, but in this chapter we propose that it will not be measurement as usual. The future of HRM will require a decision science for talent resources that is as logical, reliable, consistent and flexible as Finance, the decision science for financial resources, and Marketing, the decision science for customer resources. In this chapter we describe the elements of this new decision science, which we call “Talentship,” and its implications for the future of strategic HR measurement. Using this framework, we review leading measurement approaches, describe their contributions, and identify the significant opportunities for improvement in future HR measurement systems

The Human Capital “Impact” on E-Business: The Case of Encyclopedia Britannica

[Excerpt] The term “New Economy” has been coined to describe the remarkable economic performance of the 1990s. Stiroh, (1999) an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York observes that its defining characteristic is a “focus on increasing globalization and expanding information technology” (pg. 87). Research suggests that revenues from electronic based business to business trade will double over the next five years from $43 billion in 1998 to$1.3 trillion in 2003. Revenues from business to consumer trade are predicted to rise from $8 billion to$108 billion over the same time period (Forrester Research, 1998). However, there is increasing attention to the challenges facing business in the new economy, and an increasing chorus of analysts suggesting how tenuous many of these business models really are. A recent Barron’s article showed that many dot-com companies have only days of remaining cash (Willoughby, March 20, 1999). Such a key emerging phenomenon has not escaped the attention of writers, though the existing body of writing has some important gaps. We would classify existing e-business literature into two groups. First, there is a growing body of literature that discusses the how the Internet is transforming business models and organizational strategies. A second, much smaller body of work has focused on e-HR, or more specifically, the implications of the Internet on various HR practices

Global Talentship: Toward a Decision Science Connecting Talent to Global Strategic Success

It is widely accepted that global competitive advantage frequently requires managing such complex situations that traditional organization and job structures are simply insufficient. Increasingly, in order to create a flexible and integrated set of decisions that balance local flexibility with global efficiency, organizations must rely on more social, informal and matrix-based shared visions among managers and employees. Research on global strategic advantage, global organizational structures, and even shared mindsets has suggested that dimensions of culture, product and function provide a valuable organizing framework. However, typical decisions about organization structure, HRM practices and talent often remain framed at such a high level as to preclude their solution. We maintain that there is often no logical answer to such questions as, “Should the sales force be local or global?” or “Should product authority rest with the countries or the corporate center?” However, we propose that embedding business processes or value chains within a Culture and Product matrix provides the necessary analytic detail to reveal otherwise elusive solutions. Moreover, by linking this global process matrix to a model that bridges strategy and talent, it is possible to identify global “pivotal talent pools,” and to target organizational and human resource investments toward those talent areas that have the greatest impact on strategic advantage. We demonstrate the Value-Chain, Culture and Product (VCCP) matrix using several examples, and discuss future research and practical implications, particularly for leadership and leadership development

The Role of Human Resource Practices in Petro-Chemical Refinery Performance

This study examined the impact of Human Resource (HR) practices (selection, training, compensation, and appraisal) and participation on the financial performance of U.S. petrochemical refineries. Survey results from HR and Operations respondents indicated that appraisal and training were significantly related to workforce skills and that training and compensation were marginally related to workforce motivation. In addition, only training was significantly related to refinery performance, although the relationship was negative. However, selection, compensation, and appraisal interacted with participation in determining refinery financial performance such that each of these practices were strongly positively related to financial performance only under highly participative systems. Implications are discussed

Toward A Model of International Compensation and Rewards: Learning From how Managers Respond to Variations in Local Host Contexts

Managers and researchers recognize that the tensions created by the interplay of globalization and national environments influence the behaviors of multinational enterprises (MNEs). In order to develop a model that is useful for understanding the effects of the global and local host environments on managerial compensation, we undertook a grounded theory building study of managers in several multinationals. We use the information gained to extend two contemporary perspectives of IHRM: national culture, and strategic alignment. We develop the idea that it is the relative degree of variation (flexibility) within the local host context that is critical to understanding managers\u27 ICRS decisions. We present a different, pragmatic experimentation view of managers\u27 ICRS decision making, which we believe offers insights into the effects of the interplay of the MNE pressures to create integrated global systems and the pressures generated within the local host environments

Toward a New Definition of Pro Bono

Every day, nonprofit groups around the country are meeting a wide variety of community needs, often with volunteer and corporate philanthropic assistance. Yet while these organizations are doing important and innovative work, they often cannot take their ideas to scale, in part because they lack the professional skills needed to operate as efficiently as possible, or to successfully plan for their growth. To help rectify this situation, The President's Council on Service and Civic Participation, together with several key private and government partners, convened The Summit on Corporate Volunteerism in February 2008. Toward a New Definition of Probono, produced out of this summit, makes the case for utilizing probono volunteer services