AbstractIn Human Resource Management (HRM) there are several types of practitioners and

researchers are exists as in all other discipline. In this report the HRM of Tesco is analysed

to find out the expected outcome. Tesco is the world’s third largest retailer in respect to

revenue and it is the second largest retailer in respect to profit. There is a knowledge gap

between Human Resources Practice and Researches. Another issue is that researchers do not

take into account the facts that are faced by the professionals in the practice. The view from

this task is clear that academics and professionals should work together in a positive

direction. Evidence shows that the gap of communication between practitioner and

professionals make difference between the theory and practice.

ContentsIntroduction................................................................................................................................3

Literature Review.......................................................................................................................4

The Long Term Gap in Theory & Practice........................................................................4

Link between Theory and Practice.....................................................................................5

Better Science lead to Better Practice................................................................................5

How it Change the Practitioners Behavior.........................................................................6

Critical Analysis.........................................................................................................................7

SHRM and the Resource Based View...............................................................................8

Criticism of Resource Based View..................................................................................10

Best Practice HRM Thinking...........................................................................................11

HR practice at Tesco................................................................................................................11

Personnel Management and HRM...................................................................................11

Recruitment and Selection...............................................................................................12

Monitoring Performance..................................................................................................12

Rewarding........................................................................................................................13

Implications......................................................................................................................13

Conclusion................................................................................................................................14

Recommendation......................................................................................................................14

References................................................................................................................................15

Introduction

In Human Resource Management (HRM) there are several types of practitioners and

researchers are exists as in all other discipline. This is resulting in what; there is a gap or

difference between theory and practice. The difference between theory and practice is viewed

as the gap in communication. The reason behind this difference is the different platform of

the academics and practitioners. This report discussed basically the divide between the

academics and professionals. In this report the HRM of Tesco is analysed to find out the

expected outcome.

Tesco is a British multinational company. Tesco usually deals with grocery and merchandise.

Headquarter of is situated in Cheshunt, United Kingdom (Walker, 2006). Tesco is the world’s

third largest retailer in respect to revenue and it is the second largest retailer in respect to

profit. Tesco has stores in 14 countries around the world including Asia, Europe, and North

America.

Tesco was founded by Jack Cohen in1919 as a group of stalls (Potter, 2011). Tesco build up

on the basis of little help. It is not only marketing slogan of Tesco but all the staffs and

management believes it. From the very beginning of operation Tesco management believe

that each and every employee of Tesco understand theirs role in achieving the goal of the

organization. All of the employees of Tesco are very much willing to broaden their

experience and work in variety of areas. Tesco management also appreciate such mentality of

the employees and encourage them to do so.

Objective of Human Resource Management is to play a positive impact on organizational

performance. The responsibility of the managers is to provide secured work environment,

proper training and positive communication about change in organization. Managers always

try to hire most qualified employees for their organization so that they can ensure high

employee satisfaction rate, less absenteeism and more productivity. Theory of HR states that

managers should provide comprehensive support to the employees. The major objective of

the HR professionals is to maintain the best interest of the employees. In practice,

professionals treat the employees as their business partner and manage changes and monitor

the transactions related to the benefits of the employees (Dave, 2009).

Organizations use their Human Resource or workforce to achieve competitive advantage.

Here the term completive advantage means the advantage that the organizations achieve over

the competitors in the market. In his study (Porter, 1985) explains that employees of an

organization apply their unique talents (flexibility, superior performance, innovation,

personal attractiveness, and productivity) as ingredients to develop firms competitive

position. In the study of (Chiavenato, 2001), he stated that employees are the source of

activities and it’s the responsibility of the management to utilize the intelligence of the

employees. So it is the responsibility professionals to follow the theory of Human Resource

Management and bring up the best output from their employees (Barney & Wright, 1998)

(Jackson, Hitt & DeNisi, 2003) (Akhtar, Ding & Ge, 2008).

Literature Review

There is a knowledge gap between Human Resources Practice and Researches. As per

(Daniel, 2007) managers often consider the academic researches less understandable and less

practicable. Another issue is that researchers do not take into account the facts that are faced

by the professionals in the practice. Problem is that what is done by the researchers is not

always useful for the professionals. The gap of academic theory and practice is also varying

because of the culture of organization and organizational settings.

Difference between research and practice in HRM

There is difference between academic literature and practice in HRM. The reason behind this

is the difference between Academic literature and practitioner literature (Bennis & O’Toole,

2005). In HRM it is not likely a great deal that of what passes as “best practice”. There are no

measurement criteria that indicate any literature as best practice and to indicate any literature

as inferior practice (Cummings, 2007). The HR managers do not always follow or practice

the evidence based HRM. This ignorance of evidence based HRM resulting in less

performance, than the potential possibilities of their major stakeholder, investors, employees

and the community (Grossman, 2007).

The Long Term Gap in Theory & Practice

In the seminal thesis of (Jamrog & Overholt, 2004), on the development of HR function they

stated that over past 100 years more and different responsibilities has been changing,

evolving and adding by the HR professionals. HRM function has been evolved through many

stages that are shows in the Authors account. From very beginning of the organizational

culture through industrial revolution, the human relations movement, the scientific

management, etc. to the present condition of strategic business model.

In the study of (Starkey, 2001), he stated that the major objective of the researchers is to

develop more theory; on the other hand professionals are focuses on minimizing problems

and maximizing productivity. The sources of information or theory used by the professionals

are investigated by (Buchanan, 2005). In his investigation Buchman found that the

information from the academic researchers is almost useless to the professionals in case of

making decisions. Buchman also recommended that the academic researcher should more

focus on the practical corporate situation.

Link between Theory and Practice

Some of the scholars are not willing to differentiate between traditional HR and Strategic HR.

According to (Rowden, 1999) & (Wei, 2006) traditional HR is basically concerned with

providing administrative support in respect to recruitment, benefits, staffing, and

compensation. In the study of (Ulrich, 1997) he argues that, personnel who are related to the

cost control and administrative activities has been responsible to HR function as it is an

administrative function. Employee management is the responsibility of HR managers. So

HRM is nothing but a formal system of managing of workforce within the organization

(Bateman & Zeithaml, 1993). According to (Inyang, 2001) the term HRM is basically related

to developing, attracting, and maintaining an efficient and effective workforce. There are

several transactional activities are involved in managing the human resource of an

organization. Staff motivation, training and development, staff commitment, employee

compensation, quality measurement etc. are meant to be carried out to enhance the

achievement of corporate goals and objectives (Inyang, 2008).

Better Science lead to Better Practice

From the previous discussion it is clear that present system of HR which is Strategic Human

Resource Management is more systematic than traditional approach. SHRM has extends

beyond managing people and human capital. The activity of management is to manage

human factors and drive them to the goal and objective of the organization. Modern HR

policy helps to value addition of the organization by making contribution to the competitive

advantage. Though traditional system is widely used, professionals are facing lots of problem

which is minimized by using modern HR approach (McMahan et al., 1999).

According to (Piore & Sabel, 1984) the concept of SHRM is related to the theory flexible

specialization, and also the so called approach socio technic to work in organization. This

approach discards the idea of “Taylorist’ system that is to use a combine strict adherence is a

best way of doing a task with a separation from execution. In other terms scientific

management principles incorporating practices such as job flexibility, team working and

minimizing status differentiations (Wood, 1999).

How it Change the Practitioners Behavior

Role of HRM Theory and Research in Changing Practitioners' Behavior and Decisions

The emergent business partner model is the responsibility of HR professional and is very

much challenging role to perform under SHRM. Traditional HRM is transactional in nature

which is concerned only with the administrative activities of an organization. But with

development of scientific system SHRM is dealing with core responsibility of value addition

in the HR system, policy and practices along with the strategy of business to achieve constant

competitive advantage of the firm. The task of performing human resource in an organization

is very tough. So the HR professionals must think out of traditional approach and should

establish more systematic and various approach to manage human resource effectively and to

drive them towards the successful achievement of business objectives. HR manager have to

understand the position and competitive direction of the organization in the market and

implement the business partner role effectively (Lawler, III and Mohrman, 2003). HR

professional should perform two additional roles that are strategic partner and change agent.

New knowledge gathered from HRM theory help the managers to best achieve the

organizational goal with confidence. HR managers should play their role as change agent to

manage organizational change, assess the potential, and to collaborate with the line managers

to overcome upcoming barriers.

Critical Analysis

In previous the traditional HR was followed by the managers. In this system managers are not

very much careful about the human resource. They think investment in human resource is

nothing but waste of money. But with the change of time this thinking is destroyed. Managers

understand the importance of human resource and become careful about the management of

human resource after that the HR management system evolved (Mathur, Jugdev & Fung,

2007). But in this system managers only think that proper salary and job instruction is

everything. But with time goes Strategic Human Resource (SHRM) Theory evolved. This

theory described that human resource is the essential element of organizations success.

Proper utilization of human resource can bring competitive advantage over other firms.

Resource Based View (RBV) is newer view SHRM. SHRM basically emphasized on the

external factors that means it depends on ‘outside in’ view. But RBV is emphasising on

‘inside out’ view (Lewis, 2002).

Figure 1: Logic of SHRM TheorySource: (Lovell, 2009)

SHRM and the Resource Based View

Resource Based View (RBV) of firms is based on the idea of Penrose (1959). According to

him firm is a collection of productive resources and is a structured business process. The

main facilities of a firm human resource are that it can help to achieve competitive advantage

(Hamel & Prahalad, 1989). Other researcher also suggests aligning the HR system with the

firm’s strategy to create competitive advantage (Barney, 2001). Resource heterogeneity is the

underlying assumption of Resource Based View of a firm. The meaning of this is that the

resource that various firm have are distinct from other firm’s resource. The resources that

help the firm to achieve competitive advantage have to fulfil four requirements. These

requirements are:

Figure 2: Requirements to achieve Competitive advantage over other firmsSource: (Jaap & Paul, 2002)

So it can be said that the human resource of a firm should use these resource to gain

competitive advantage over another firm. Otherwise other firm will easily take

competitiveness. HR practices, policies, strategies of Firms are very much unique and these

are not possible to reproduce. Kinnie, Rayton & Swart (2003) point out that the values of HR

policies and practices are not reproducing able resources and these should be implemented

and enacted effectively. Competitive advantage is measured by what the firm provide to its

customers and what the competitors provide to its customers. Such competitive advantage

can be best achieved by following RBV. RBV ensures that:

1. The firm is consist of better quality people than its competitors

Rare Valuable

Non-sustainable Unique

2. Inimitable capital is possessed by the firm and nurtured

3. Organizational learning is encouraged and

4. Organization is consists of distinct values and culture.

RVB of a firm is alarmed with enhancing the strategic capacity, ensuring adequate

investment in human resource of the organization, for more value addition. Managers allocate

their resources effectively. (Armstrong, 2004) said that the core aim of RBV is to improve the

capability of resources to achieve the strategic fit between resources and opportunities and to

obtain added value for the firm.

Figure 3: Allocation of resource to RBV

Source: (Lovell ,2009)

Over the past decade Strategic human resource management (SHRM) is become more

popular basically in respect to the contradiction on HRM and performance of HRM. For

example the overview of (Boselie et al., 2001) can be observed. As per Delery and Shaw

(2001) i) investment on human resource can be a source of competitive advantage ii) the

complex characteristics of HRM process can enhance the inimitability of the system iii)

HRM practice can best influence the human capital of a firm. Along with this Wright and

McMahan (1992) gave a brief overview of theories (theory of transaction cost, theory of

resource dependency, agency theory, institutional theory) which fit the HRM issues. In the

debate of SHRM resource based view perspective is one of the most dominating theories. In

this resource based view (e.g. Wernerfelt, 1984; Lado and Wilson, 1994; Barney and Wright,

1998; and Purcell, 2000; Wright et al., 2001) the objective is to achieve clear competitive

advantage on competitor by using effective and efficient utilization of the resources of a firm.

Resource based view brings a differentiation in Strategic Human Resource Management

process. SHRM thinks outside in but RBV thinks inside out approach. In this new approach

of thinking, internal resources are playing an important role in measuring the organizational

success other than old approach of outside-in thinking. In the study of Paauwe (1994),

Huselid (1995), Wright et al. (1994), and Wright et al. (2001), authors basically use this

theory to HRM field and described that it is people that incorporate the requirement

assumption of rareness, unique, value, and non-substitution, which are the necessary

condition for success of organization (Barney, 1991).

Criticism of Resource Based View

As per (Delery and Shaw, 2001), researcher choice the resource based view to afford the

several advantages in investigating the strategic nature of HRM. Researcher also

acknowledges that there are several criticism of resource based view approach. Major

criticism is that resource based view does not fulfil the standards for an actual theoretical

perspective and resource based view contains several tautological elements (Priem and

Butler, 2001). It is also not applicable in the situation like predictable circumstance in which

specific resources of an organization may gather continuous competitive advantage.

Other criticism is that the inside out process of resource based view tends to overlook the

contextual factors importance, along with Porter-based factors (e.g market entry threat and

suppliers threat), and also the institutional setting, which is very much crucial from HRM

view point. So to understand clearly SHRM in different firm’s perspective additional theory

is needed.

These are Theory of Traditional HR and SHRM. The implication of these theories in the

selected company Tesco is compared below.

Best Practice HRM Thinking

Assumption:

In SHRM theory it is assumed that best practice literature is the best practice and increases

the shareholder value. This best practice or “high-commitment” HRM was first identified in

the US models of HRM. The main reason behind adopting this best practice HRM is that

managers think this adoption will enhance the performance of organization, helps to improve

employee attitude and behaviours, decrease the percentage of absenteeism and turnover,

uphold skills and overall high productivity, improved quality and efficiency.

Model:

Best practice is related to some components. These components are selective recruitment, job

security of employees, internal promotion, training and development of employees, employee

satisfaction, reward for better performance etc. (Marchington & Wilkinson, 2002).

HR practice at Tesco

Personnel Management and HRM

Tesco is providing various types of goods and services. Tesco is growing in a large scale.

This huge scale growth has an impact on the company’s recruitment style. But the human

resource practice of Tesco is largely depending on every little help from its all staff and

employees. As a practitioner of HR the role that Tesco maintained are:

Looking for employees with all types of quality to attract consumers

Hiring suitable employees for suitable place. The main objective is that to make sure

that everyone are working in their comfortable circumstance

HR managers employed individual who have the capability to meet the organizational

goals and bring competitive advantage for the organization

Train the workforce to be competitive

In line with legislation try to develop and communicate the policies of industry

Implement employment procedure and termination

Management of organizational environment and climate and the relationship of the

organization.

Create proper compensation strategy for the organization

Maintain overall labour cost

Tesco tries to follow SHRM policy. For this it develops its strategy in such way. Tesco try to

motivate its employees to bring out the competitive advantage from them. Tesco named their

HR process ‘talent planning’. They always try to fill the gap in the organization from the

existing employees. The reason behind this is the utilization of experience of the employees.

As per SHRM strategy Tesco try to make their employees as assets for the organization.

Recruitment and Selection

As per SHRM planning HR managers of Tesco are very much cautious about employee

recruitment. In case of selection managers follow the steps:

At first design the HRM management system

Analyse the environment of workplace

Demand for HR should be forecasted

Supply analysis

Plan and reconciliation

Person charge with governance tries to recruit the right workforce for right place. For this

reason such recruitment and selection process is followed.

Monitoring Performance

For the better achievement of the firms goals and objective Tesco HR managers follow some

monitoring process. The major objective of monitoring is to make the employees best fit for

the work and bring out the potential to achieve competitive advantage over other firms.

Organizational employee job management includes:

Planning activities of the employees and setting expectation

Continuous observation of performance

Capability improvement of the employees

Rating the task of the worker as per result

Encourage good performer by appreciating

Rewarding

After monitoring the performance Tesco offer reward for the employees. To ensure perfect

working condition and to motivate the workforce Tesco managers allow some rewarding

system. For this the task of employees are evaluated first. Job evaluation is a systematic basis

of determining importance of different job. For rewarding Tesco follows some procedures.

These are:

Share the success of the company

Privilege card for the successful employees

Pension Scheme

Extended leisure time.

Implications

This section basically reflects the implication of newer thoughts and practices in HRM. First

of all there a number of gaps are existed in HRM theory and practice. Reason behind such

gap is the level of relationship between employee and employers. In recent time a number of

questionable practices of HR in firms, and there are confusion in practice. The theme is that

the practice of HR needs to be changed as it is not fulfilling the theory. Another problem is

that there are no cooperation between HR practitioner and academics. Academics are not

always thinking about the circumstances of practical working condition. Better cooperation is

needed to reinforce the link between practitioner and academics. Different role players in the

organization should be more cautious and should be more cognisance.

Another possible reason of gap between the theory and practice is that of HRM field is full of

paradoxes. Evidence shows that statutory rules and legislation hamper the freedom of the

public worker. So it should be kept in mind that the employees should be free from any

mental pressure. It’s the responsibility of the manager of HR department is to encourage the

worker as they are the part of the organization and organization is the family of the

employees. For this managers should follow the theories and try to practice it in the

organization for the betterment of the organization. Though by practicing the theories in the

organization the gap between theory and practice will reduce and organizations achieve best

possible result.

Conclusion

The preliminary objective of this assignment is to focus on the theory and practice of HRM

and gap in this theory and practice. The view from this task is clear that academics and

professionals should work together in a positive direction. Evidence shows that the gap of

communication between practitioner and professionals make difference between the theory

and practice. So the academics and professionals should work together to innovate user

friendly and practicable theories and professionals should implement it properly.

In traditional practice human factor were totally ignored. To make workforce as asset new

HRM policies evolved. The traditional HR practices contribute to the bottom line of

organization. HRM offers the administrative and organizational support by managing

staffing, training, and compensation benefits. HRM policy is generally deals with attracting

workforce to the achievement of organizational goal and objectives. Innovation SHRM

theory generated new value added responsibilities and emphasizes on the integration of HR

practice with business strategy. SHRM refers to a strategic business partner model and the

core idea is that core organizational capabilities of the worker are necessary to attain the

goals and objectives. SHRM is a systematic approach to manage the human capital and it

emphasize more on organizational performance than individual.

Recommendation

In recommendation it can be said that:

To ensure balanced service sector managers or those who charged with governance

should follow the theories of HRM. A system should be developed where strategic

leadership exercised in connection to the theory of HR.

Result oriented management should be followed strictly. Result oriented professionals

should follow SHRM as it is focused on organizational performance not on individual

performance and develop some features to focus on efficiency and effectiveness.

As per strategic approach strategic HRM is becoming more important. A standard

vision should be achieved in the area of HRM the way of accomplishing it is required.

HRM has to go a long way. IT should go behind anything as the primary assumptions

brought out earlier. Time is required to make change in new theories and its implication. So

an attempt should be made to make cooperation between academics and practitioners to best

achieve the organizational goal.

References

1. Akhtar, S, Ding, DZ. & Ge, G ,2008, ' “Strategic HRM practices and their impacts on

company performance in Chinese enterprises”', Human Resource Management, vol

47, no. 1, pp. 15-32.

2. Barney, JB & Wright, PM ,1998, '“On becoming a strategic partner: The role of

human resources in gaining competitive advantage”', Human Resource Management,

vol 37, no. 1, pp. 31-46.

3. Bateman, TS & Zeithaml, CP ,1993, “Management: function and strategy.”., 2nd

edn, Bur Ridge.

4. Bennis, W & O’Toole, J ,2005, ' How business schools lost their way', Harvard

Business Review, vol 85, no. 5, p. 96–123.

5. Buchanan, RW 2005, 'Broadening the Boundaries of Academic Publication Priorities',

Proceedings of the Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference, The

University of Western Australia.

6. Chiavenato, I ,2001, '“Advances and challenges in human resource management in

the new millennium”.', Public Personnel Management, vol 30, no. 1, p. 171.

7. Cummings, TG ,2007, ' Presidential address: Quest for an engaged academy',

Academy of Management Review, vol 32, p. 355–360.

8. Daniel, TA 2007, 'Worlds Apart: A Focus on the "Great Divide" within the HRM

Scholar-Practitioner Community', Proceedings of the 51st Annual Meeting of the

ISSS.

9. Dave, U ,2009, '“HR Transformation”', Building Human Resources from the Outside

In, 13 October ,2009.

10. Grossman, RJ , 2007, 'New competencies for HR', HR Magazine, vol 52, no. 6, p. 58–

62.

11. Inyang, BJ ,2001, '“Harmonizing human resource management (HRM) practice in the

public and private Sector” ', Human Resources Management, vol 10, no. 7, pp. 8-14,

21.

12. Inyang, BJ ,2008, ' “Human resource capacity building: An imperative for effective

performance in the public service”', MRL Journal, vol 1, no. 2, pp. 50-64.

13. Jaap, P & Paul, B ,2002, 'Challenging (Strategic) Human Resource Management

Theory', Integration of resource-based approaches and new institutionalism.

14. Jackson, S, Hitt, M & DeNisi, A ,2003, “Managing knowledge for sustained

competitive advantage: Designing strategies for effective human resource

management”. , Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.

15. Jamrog, JJ & Overholt, MH ,2004, ' “Building a strategic HR function: Continuing the

evolution.” ', Human Resource Planning, vol 27, no. 1, p. 51.

16. Lewis, D ,2002, ' ‘Five years on – the organizational culture saga revisited’, ',

Leadership & Organization Development Journal, vol 23, no. 5, pp. 280-87.

17. Lovell, K ,2009, 'Strategic human resource management: what does it mean in

practice?', vol 5, p. 94.

18. Mathur, G, Jugdev, K & Fung, T ,2007, '‘Intangible project management assets as

determinants of competitive advantage’', Management Research News, vol 30, no. 7,

pp. 460-75.

19. McMahan, C., G, Virick, M & Wright, PM ,1999, “Alternative theoretical

perspectives for strategic human resource management revisited, JAI Press, London.

20. Piore, M & Sabel, C ,1984, The Second Industrial Divide: Prospects for Prosperity,

Basic Books, New York.

21. Porter, M ,1985, “Competitive advantage”, Free Press, New York.

22. Potter, M ,2011, ' "Tesco to outpace growth at global rivals – study"', Reuters, p. 39.

23. Rowden, RW ,1999, ' “Potential roles of human resource management professional in

the strategic planning process”', SAM Advance Management Journal, vol 64, no. 3, p.

22.

24. Starkey, K 2001, ' Bridging the Relevance Gap: Aligning Stakeholders in the Future

of Management Research', British Journal of Management, vol 12, no. 1, p. S3 –S26.

25. Ulrich, D ,1997, “Human resources champions”, Harvard Business School Press,.

Boston.

26. Walker, G ,2006, "Online failing todeliver". The Grocer, William Reed Publications.

27. Wei, L ,2006, '“Strategic human resource management: Determinants of fit”. ',

Research and Practice in Human Resource Management, vol 14, no. 2, pp. 49-60.

28. Wood, S ,1999, '‘Human resource management and performance’', International

Journal of Management Review, vol 1, no. 4, pp. 367-413.