Business Commons^™

From Human Resource Strategy To Organizational Effectiveness: Lessons From Research On Organizational Agility, Lee Dyer , Richard A. Shafer

Lee Dyer

As a field of study and practice, strategic human resource management (SHRM) has come a long way in recent years. Still, at this point, the domain incorporating and connecting human resource strategy (HRS) and organizational effectiveness (OE) is essentially a theoretical and empirical "black box". Here we use our ongoing research on people in agile organizations to peer into this "black box" and draw implications for future theorizing and research. Suggestions are made for reconceptualizing OE, incorporating organizational capability as a key concept, taking a broader than usual view of HRS, and systematically assessing vertical and horizontal alignment of HR …

Is There A New Hrm? Contemporary Evidence And Future Directions, Lee Dyer, Thomas A. Kochan

Lee Dyer

[Excerpt] Is there a new human resource management? Yo. That is, yes and no. A new perspective -- strategic human resource management -- emerged during the 80s to take its place alongside the more traditional operational and programmatic perspectives as a major influence on the field. This perspective has rapidly progressed in terms of theory and research (if not practice). But, it continues to take many shapes and forms, and even with its various permutations, is far from universally embraced by scholars or practitioners. What follows is a brief look at the strategic perspective of the field. It begins with …

Human Resources As A Source Of Competitive Advantage, Lee Dyer

Lee Dyer

[Excerpt] For business it's a tough world that's getting tougher. The reasons are familiar enough: global competition, deregulation, finicky and tough customers, concerned and demanding stockholders, and a dizzying pace of constant change. Rare indeed is the company which has found a comfortable niche in this chaotic world.

Crafting A Human Resource Strategy To Foster Organizational Agility: A Case Study, Richard A. Shafer, Lee Dyer, Janine Kilty, Jeffrey Amos, G. A. (Jeff) Ericksen

Lee Dyer

A decade ago, the CEO of Albert Einstein Healthcare Network (AEHN), anticipating a tumultuous and largely unpredictable period in its industry, undertook to convert this organization from one that was basically stable and complacent to one that was agile, “nimble, and change-hardy”. This case study briefly addresses AEHN’s approaches to business strategy and organization design, but focuses primarily on the human resource strategy that emerged over time to foster the successful attainment of organizational agility. Although exploratory, the study suggests a number of lessons for those who are, or will be, studying or trying to create and sustain this promising …

Managing Transformational Change: The Role Of Human Resource Professionals, Thomas A. Kochan, Lee Dyer

Lee Dyer

[Excerpt] Can the United States maintain its traditional position of economic leadership and one of the world's highest standards of living in the face of increasing global competition? Concerned observers cite the following negative news: lagging rates of productivity growth, non-competitive product quality in key industries, structural inflexibilities, and declining real wage levels and flat family earnings (Carnavale, 1991). Further, they offer a plethora of proposed solutions covering both broad public policies and more specific firm-level policies and practices.

Toward A Strategic Perspective Of Human Resource Management, Lee Dyer, Gerald W. Holder

Lee Dyer

[Excerpt] The current decade has brought yet another transformation in the practice and study of human resource management (HRM). The field, for better or for worse, has discovered, and indeed begun to embrace, a strategic perspective. The intellectual energy currently being invested in discussions of the nature, extent, and desirability of this development is a clear indication that something of significance is afoot. Understand it or not, believe in it or not, like it or not, strategy is well on its way to becoming an important paradigm behind much of what HR professionals do and think.

International Labor Standards, Soft Regulation, And National Government Roles, Sarosh C. Kuruvilla, Anil Verma

Sarosh Kuruvilla

[Excerpt] In this article, we briefly describe the different approaches to the regulation of international labor standards, and then argue for a new role for national governments based on soft rather than hard regulation approaches. We argue that this new role shows potential for significantly enhancing progress in international labor standards, since it enables governments to articulate a position without having to deal with the enforcement issues that hard regulation mandates. We justify this new role for governments based on the increasing use of soft regulation in the international arena. Of course, this approach is not without its own problems, …

Human Resource Management, Service Quality, And Economic Performance In Call Centers, Rosemary Batt, Lisa M. Moynihan

Rosemary Batt

This paper examines the relationship between human resource practices, operational outcomes, and economic performance in call centers. The study draws on a sample of 64 call centers serving the mass market in a large telecommunications services company. Surveys of 1,243 employees in the 64 centers were aggregated to the call center level and matched to archival data on service process quality, as measured by customer surveys; call handling time, revenues per call, and net revenues per call. Our path analysis shows that human resource practices emphasizing employee training, discretion, and rewards lead to higher service quality, higher revenues per call, …

Net Working: Work Patterns And Workforce Policies For The New Media Industry, Rosemary Batt, Susan Christopherson, Ned Rightor, Danielle Van Jaarsveld

Rosemary Batt

This report, based on a study of a group of highly accomplished professionals in New York City, is one of the first to take up labor market issues in the new media industry. It describes the challenges faced by professionals and employers alike in this important and dynamic sector, and identifies strategies for success in a project oriented environment with highly complex skill demands and rapidly changing technology. Our findings suggest three central issues.

The Indian Call Centre Industry: National Benchmarking Report Strategy, Hr Practices, & Performance, Rosemary Batt, Virginia Doellgast, Hyunji Kwon, Mudit Nopany, Priti Nopany, Anil Da Costa

Rosemary Batt

Report of the Global Call Centre Industry Project

The dramatic growth of the call center industry is a world-wide phenomenon, fueled by advances in information technologies and the precipitous decline in the costs of voice and data transmission over the last two decades. As part of this global industry, call centres in India have experienced spectacular growth in the last five years. They generate seventy percent of the revenues of the Indian Business Process Outourcing (BPO) industry, according to estimates by Mckinsey (www.nasscom.org).

This rapid growth has also brought managerial challenges in terms of recruitment,staffing, training, and retention of workers …

Employee Voice, Human Resource Practices, And Quit Rates: Evidence From The Telecommunications Industry, Rosemary Batt, Alexander Colvin, Jeffrey Keefe

Rosemary Batt

The authors draw on strategic human resource and industrial relations theories to identify the sets of employee voice mechanisms and human resource practices that are likely to predict firm-level quit rates, then empirically evaluate the predictive power of these variables using data from a 1998 establishment level survey in the telecommunications industry. With respect to alternative voice mechanisms, they find that union representation predicts lower quit rates, even after they control for compensation and a wide range of other human resource practices that may be affected by collective bargaining. Also predicting lower quit rates is employee participation in offline problem-solving …

Leading For The Bottom Line: A View Of Leadership In A Bottom-Line Context, Gary S. Fields , Cory Stern

Gary S Fields

This paper sets out to establish and describe a new approach to leadership called Bottom Line Leadership. The essence of Bottom Line Leadership is that a leader’s most critical responsibility is to clearly identify, communicate and gain buy-in for the ultimate bottom-line objective of the organization he/she leads, subject to constraints imposed by the market and by the organization itself. In comparison to other leadership models that focus on the general attributes or behaviors characterizing effective leaders, Bottom Line Leadership emphasizes the link between an organization’s purpose and a leader’s behavior. The philosophy that serves as the foundation for this …