Human Resources and the Resource Based View of the Firm

The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm has influenced the field of strategic human resource management (SHRM) in a number of ways. This paper explores the impact of the RBV on the theoretical and empirical development of SHRM. It explores how the fields of strategy and SHRM are beginning to converge around a number of issues, and proposes a number of implications of this convergence

One European model of HRM? Cranet empirical contribution

We revisit Brewster's ‘European model of HRM’ (1995) and discuss its continuing significance on the basis of empirical research that has been conducted within the Cranet research network. The model was launched as a reaction to the emergence of strategic HRM in the USA some ten years earlier. Two main core assumptions drive US HRM: HRM promotes firm performance and firms have sufficient managerial autonomy to select HRM practices independently. Brewster's ‘European model of HRM’ is critical of the firm autonomy assumption applied to the European context. Instead it emphasizes the assumed significance of national context. Building on Brewster's model, in this paper, we present and discuss Cranet-based findings in relation to the issues of: Europe as a ‘single entity’, firm autonomy, isomorphism in multinational companies, convergence within Europe, and the link between HRM and firm performance. Using these findings we propose a dual-level framework model that reflects the notion of European models of HRM

International management: cross-boundary challenges

Includes bibliographical references (p. [445]-462) and index

Human resource management in US subsidiaries in Europe and Australia: centralisation or autonomy?

We explore determinants of subsidiary autonomy in setting human resource management (HRM) practices within US-parented multinational enterprises (MNEs), in Europe and Australia. We examine both the effect of strategic context and the effect of the institutional location of the subsidiary. We find that US MNEs show greater centralisation of control over HRM where the subsidiary faces global markets, in coordinated market economies vs liberal market economies, and where union density is low