Introduction HRM in Context

8/12/2019 Introduction HRM in Context

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Week 1: HRM in contemporary organisationsand their principal environments.

Dr Thomas Calvard ([email protected])

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Timetable

1) 16th Sept 2012 Introduction: HRM in contemporaryorganisations and their principalenvironments.

2) 23rd Sept The managerial context of HumanResources.

3) 30th Sept HRM strategy.

4) 7th Oct Market and competitive organisationalenvironments facing leaders and HRM.

5) 14th Oct Globalisation and the world economysimpact on HRM.

6) 21st Oct Government policy and HRM.

7) 28th Oct Regulation, legal issues, and HRM.

8) 4th Nov Demographic and social trends affectingHRM.

9) 11th Nov Technology and HRM.

10) 18th Nov Ethics, social responsibili ty,sustainabilityand HRM.

11) 25th Nov Overview.


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Course Tips

1) Do the reading get familiar with online journal articles

2) Any questions/help ask me sooner rather than later!

3) Peer interaction welcome inside and outside class, butbe constructive and civil

4) Engage with material on your own terms rather thantrying to memorise everything

5) This specific course is to give you a taste of manyaspects of business and HR breadth more thandepth

6) My perspective is that a broad social sciencesapproach is key to taking HR forward

7) The future of the HR profession is you beindependent, be radical, be proactive! (within reason)

8) Be reflective, critical, and balanced for almost everyargument, there is a counter-argument evidence iscontested

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Objectives for todays lecture

Understanding organisations:environments, structures, strategies

Some basic, broad ways of analysingorganisational context

Tools and models

Types, components, and elements of theabove

Appreciating why context is important ingeneral


3/16

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Think HRM, Think Bigger Picture

Business/HRM analogous to other large-scalescenarios, e.g. Iraq & Vietnam wars

The HRM problem: best-fit/contingency; bestpractice; high performance workplace; resourcebased view

The turbulent video rental market

The bankruptcy of GM government ownership

Galanz microwaves supplying Europecheaply/efficiently

Swissair and poorly chosen global alliances Hatfield rail crash and Britains messy post-privatisation of rail system

The National Trust: outsourcing, updating, bringingin new leaders

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The Environment

Two levels: general and task; reciprocal influences

Nations, history, science/technology, legal,economic etc.

Customers, suppliers, competitors, local labour,specific tech etc.

Open system: input, output, and regulatoryenvironments

The holy interlinked trinity: environment;structure; strategy

HR strategy and practice nested in wider orgstrategy


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So many types of

organisationMNCs or global conglomerate

Public/private sector blur

NGOs or n-f-p/charity

SMEs

Start-ups/entrepreneurial

High tech

Customer service sector

Financial

Fast or slow-changing

Natural resources (e.g. mining)

Quango

Cooperative

Traditional or historical

Informal or unregulated

Consultancy

Supply chain ormanufacturing

Web-based or e-business

Government or local council

University

Creative or innovative

Legal

Green or climate-driven Private equity firms

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Environmental Analysis

PEST, PESTLE, STEEPLE (general environment)

Short-term reactive vs. long-term proactive

Placid/static vs. turbulent

Catalysts for organisational change

Contingency planning, scenario building Stage models of environmental analysis

SWOT or TOWS contingency model

Best practice? Prioritise, sample wide opinions, bespecific, map carefully, be decisive


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External Contexts of HRM

SOCIO-CULTURAL (macro): ageing population, increasinginequality

SOCIO-CULTURAL (micro): divorce rates, drug/alcohol use

TECHNOLOGICAL: social networking, cloud/smart computing

ECONOMIC: international competition, recession, EU single

market ENVIRONMENTAL: place/community, well-being, travel, paper

POLITICAL: free markets, privatisation, lobbying, campaigns

LEGAL: discrimination, health & safety, minimum wage

ETHICAL: fat cats, shareholders only, whistle-blowing


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International HRM

Harvard soft model versus Michigan hard model

Convergence towards US model due to market forces?

Yet clearly divergence in contexts also

Rhineland European model: collective, political, securesocial partnership, pluralistic integration

Belgium, France, Spain: tight, thorough labour marketlegislation

Supply chains and MNCs expand into other countries forvariety of reasons: labour costs, natural resources, bettertaxation, economic centroids

Reverse diffusion: learning new HRM from new subsidiarycountries

Transnational Firms

*Greenwood et al. (2010).

Complexity, customization a multiplex design

New levels of governance (e.g. global headquarters)

Essentially balancing coordination/differentiation

Knowledge on multiple axes

Nascent, overlapping communities Client management systems/teams provide another axis

Partner level is key global threshold

(Surprising?) culture of loyalty and reciprocity


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Chit-chat: Trends Reports

Turn to person(s) next to you

CIPD (2013); SHRM (2009)

What trends have you experienced in work?

Which most interest/stand out in reports to you?

How can HR help engage such contextual issues?


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Internal context

Organisation studies

What is an organisation for?

From mangerial orthodoxy through to radicalpostmodernism

Taylorism, (post-)Fordism, Human Relations, humanfactors, positive psychology

Managing culture and excellence

Post-bureaucracy

Casino capitalism

CLIPS: culture, layout, innovation, power/control, social

The formal/informal iceberg

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Organisational Structure

Bureaucracy: line and staff. Iron cage or safety net?

Divisionalisation: GM from 1920s, MNCs, internal markets

Matrix: US aerospace from 1960s

Network: boundary spanning, communities of practice (e.g.CIPD), T-shaped role of managers

Virtual: mobile, boundaryless, outsourced, flexible Other hybrids? (e.g. Ambidextrous)

Morgans metaphors/images of organisation

Multiple teams and multiple roles

Integration, cross-functional, self-managing

Beware zeitgeist, fads, clich!


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Morgans organisational

images Machines

Brains

Organisms

Cultures

Political systems

Psychic prisons

Flux/transformation

Instruments ofdomination

Hierarchy (Halevy et al., 2011)

Love or hate hierarchies?

1) Psychologically rewarding and meets needs (e.g. fairness)

2) Acts as a powerful incentive system

3) Provides groups/collectives with complementarity

4) Increases coordination

5) Reduces conflict, enhances cooperationHOWEVER.best in contexts where:

Interdependence is linked to performance

Legitimacy (e.g. merit or seniority, or both?)

Alignment of basis (e.g. power AND status)


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Strategic Alliances

Increasingly common, but many may be failures

Can be between competing or non-competing firms

Partnerships, supply chains, and outsourcing

Outsourcing: IT and many aspects of HR

Partial outsourcing: shared-service centres

Tricky combination of flexibility, innovation, integration

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Stakeholders

Legal, financial, moral, or mix

Parties who may wish to influence mission,objectives, and strategies

Stakeholder mapping; power x interest.

Power, legitimacy, urgency.

Mitchell: latent expectant definitive

Having a stakeholder board

Principles of public life; public serviceassumptions

Positive-sum games? E.g. Gain-sharing


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Corporate Governance and

CSR Survival, sustainability, and reputation

Optimise stakeholder contributions

Europe: two-tier boards of shareholders and employees

Shareholders increasingly other companies

Scrutinising annual reports, sharing in profits, andappointing/removing directors

Employees statutory rights

Consumer protection laws, Office of Fair Trading

Land use, pollution control, noise levels

Private vs. public. Public sector much more obliged Professional codes of ethics (BMA)

Complaints commissions (IPCC)

CSR, ethics: weighs in against short-term profit max.

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Models connecting the dots

EVR congruence model (Thompson)

Competitive strategy model 3 ways(Porter)

Miles and Snow model 4 systems

Basic mechanistic-organic dichotomy Pendulum swing as CEOs change

Contingencies

Approaches have implications for HR andchange


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Strategy for 2015?

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Context (Johns, 2001; 2006)

Academics often downplay context

Constraints and opportunities for action

Levels of analysis

Person x situation interactions

Explains exceptional companies

Turning conventional wisdom on its head Deadly combinations or bundles of HR

Context affects base rates/prevalence

Reverses causality (e.g. customers affectemployees)

Positives become negatives, curvilinear effects

Tipping points


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Where does HRM fit in?

Soft versus hard HRM

Generic: Staffing, performance, change management,admin

Wolf in sheeps clothing, rhetoric, at the whim of context?

History: from Taylorism to high-commitment

The new HR: global, legal, networked, psychological,and customer-focusedoutsourced?

Debates over theory, value added, business case

HRM context itself is complex and dynamic

Divisionalisation, budgetary devolution, internal markets

Critiques, stress/well-being, lack of evidence

Difficult relationship with line managers


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Top 10 Future HR issues?

1) The economy/unemployment

2) Millennials generation Y

3) Online recruiting-networking

4) Made-to-order employment relationships

5) The Big Blur

6) The (continuing) rise of technology

7) Training and development upgraded

8) Government intervention (good/bad)9) Crises in health care

10) Globalization, outsourcing, offshoring,multinationals

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Conclusions

Context: environment, strategy, and structure

Levels of analysis: from global down to individual

Tools help to focus, but risk of over-simplifying

Strategy can follow structure: reciprocal links

Beware clich, play the skeptic Contingency, contradiction no one best way

HRM and performance; context the moving target

Alignment/convergence vs. pluralism/divergence

Rest of this course maps specific domains ofcontext


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Assignment

Choose and outline:

A country (or set of countries)

A sector/industry

3-5 contextual issues (see weeks of the course)

Implications for and responses from HR

Draw on MULTIPLE areas of this course.

2000 words

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References/Reading

Kew & Stredwick (2010) HRM in a business context (Chap.1)

Farnham (2010) HRM in context (Chapters 1-2).

Morgan (1997). Images of Organisation [Library copies]

Johns, G (2001). In praise of context. Journal ofOrganizational Behavior, 22, pp.31-42.

Johns, G. (2006). The essential impact of context onorganizational behavior. Academy of Management Review, 31,pp.386-408.

Halevy, N., Chou, E., & Galinsky, A. (2011). A functional modelof hierarchy. Organizational Psychology Review, 1, p.32.

Gladwell, M. (2002). The Tipping Point.

Greenwood, R., Morris, T. et al. (2010). The organizationaldesign of transnational professional service firms.Organizational Dynamics, 39, pp.173-183.

Documents

Introduction HRM in Context