HR Management Approach
HR Management Approach
The HR management approach also has a significant impact on performance, a focus on employees as assets, that can be developed will encourage performance improvements, rather than managing them as costs, to be minimised and controlled.
Alternatively, this perspective maybe directed by the organisational culture, such as an integrated organisational culture that aims to improve performance through the effective management of its HR practices. However, there are limited studies on the effect that cultural influences have on strategy, although Kirkman et al (1997) argues that cultural values directly affect the success of management initiatives such as teams.
Another emerging issue in this debate is the concept of reverse causality, this refers to the argument that higher performing organisations, will invest greater in bundles of HP practices. This conclusion has been found in numerous cross-sectional studies, which generally see high performing organisations, having more effective HR practices. Although, the methodology is the main issue here, the use of cross-sectional data is not able to show causal relationships, only longitudinal studies are able to do this, since they consider a timeline of events which shows actions and their consequences which are essential to causal relationships, however these are extremely expensive to conduct thoroughly to generate results, limiting their use in academic research.
Employee motivation is another underestimated issue in this debate? Much literature stresses the need for high employee commitment and involvement with very little link to motivation that seems to be integrally linked to these concepts. Since the main performance effects of HP practices are seen through changes in employee attitudes and behaviour, it is unlikely that an unmotivated employee will be committed to any change. So this raises another question, is the use of HP practices seen to encourage or reduce employee motivation? It is only recently that academics such as Proctor (2006) have highlighted the role of motivation, under the Ability Motivation Opportunity (AMO) perspective. This refers to a set of HR systems which attends to employees interests, such as job quality, skills development and training.
It is also apparent, that good leadership is another underestimated factor in this debate as without clear direction and clarity of mission, employees maybe pulling in opposite directions, instead of working towards a common goal. “Leadership is the lifting of peoples’ vision to a higher sight, the raising of their performance to a higher standard, the building of their personality beyond its normal limitations” (P.F. Drucker, 2001) Even the best funded SHRM activities may easily fail without clear direction and targets implemented through effective leadership.
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