Exploring the Changes in the Field of HRM

8/8/2019 Exploring the Changes in the Field of HRM

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Exploring the changes in the field of HRM

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By

Weiwei Hua

2007

A dissertation presented in part consideration for the degree of MSc in

International Business


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Acknowledgements

This dissertation would not have been completed without the guidance, assistance and

encouragements from my supervisor, friends and relatives. I would like to take this

opportunity to thank a number of individuals who have contributed to the completion of

this dissertation.

First of all, I would like to thank Professor Nick Bacon for his help and support

throughout the process of this dissertation, for his invaluable advices on my work, and for

taking his time to give me academic guidance.

Secondly, I would also like to thank my parents for their never-ending support, loving

care, encouragement and faith in me.

Finally, I would like to extend my thanks to my friends who have given me support and

courage to achieve so much more than I could ever have done alone, making this year

more meaningful than I could possibly imagine.


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Abstract

Human resource management (HRM) involves the administration of employees to

achieve managers objectives. It is different from traditional resource management that

originated in the USA and have adopted in the UK. However, according to Freges (2005)

study, the academic interests outside the UK and US, and the increase of global academic

cooperation (e.g. joint publications by authors from different national institutions,

international conferences), there are some changes of HRM issues in the 21st century

compared with that in the early 1990s. Hence, the objective of this dissertation is to

explore the main changes in the field of HRM focusing on the research patterns and

content of topics. Also, it aims to examine the recent tendency of HRM research towards

internationalization.

First of all, it reviews the literatures, outlining the background, key areas and the relevant

changes of HRM, reviewing Freges (2005) previous work and the issue of international

human resource management (IHRM). By employing the quantitative research method,

the study collects information and data from the articles published in one of the

mainstream HRM journalsthe International Journal of Human Resource Management

between 1990-1992 and 2006. Based on the analysis and discussion of the results, the

dissertation traces the changes in the field of HRM, finding main changes both in research

patterns (the nature and the content of articles) and in the key areas of HRM. Moreover, it

examines the future tendency of HRM development towards internationalization.


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Content

Chapter One Introduction..............................................................................................8

1.1 Background of the research ........................................................................................9

1.2 Objectives of research ..............................................................................................11

1.3 Structure of research.................................................................................................11

Chapter Two Literature Review ..................................................................................14

2.1 Background of HRM ................................................................................................15

2.1.1 The origins of HRM............................................................................................15

2.1.2 Key models and definitions of HRM ..................................................................18

2.1.3 Debate the changes in the field of HRM ............................................................23

2.2 Key areas of HRM....................................................................................................28

2.2.1 Recruitment and selection..................................................................................28

2.2.2 Training and development..................................................................................31

2.2.3 Reward ...............................................................................................................33

2.2.4 Employee Relations............................................................................................36

2.3 International Human Resource Management ...........................................................42

2.4 Review of the previous HRM work..........................................................................45

Chapter Three Methodology........................................................................................49

3.1 Research Questions ..................................................................................................50

3.2 Selection of research method ...................................................................................50

3.3 Research Process ......................................................................................................53

3.4 Research Limitations................................................................................................57

Chapter Four Results....................................................................................................58

Chapter Five Discussion and analysis.........................................................................70

5.1 Research patterns of the articles ...............................................................................72

5.1.1 Nature of articles ...............................................................................................72

5.1.2 Content of articles..............................................................................................76


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5.2 Content of topics ......................................................................................................80

5.2.1 Employee Relations............................................................................................80

5.2.2 Recruitment ........................................................................................................84

5.2.3 Training..............................................................................................................88

5.2.4 Reward ...............................................................................................................91

5.2.5 Others.................................................................................................................94

5.2.6 HRM...................................................................................................................96

Chapter Six Conclusions ..............................................................................................99

6.1 Conclusion..............................................................................................................100

6.2 Limitations..............................................................................................................105

6.3 Recommendations ..................................................................................................105


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List of Figures

Figure 1: The Human Resource Management Cycle .........................................................15

Figure 2: The Harvard Model of HRM..............................................................................17

Figure 3: Storeys Model of Mapping the Various Meanings of HRM .............................19

Figure 4: Guests Normative HRM Model ........................................................................20

Figure 5: HRM Model .......................................................................................................22


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List of Tables

Table1: Year/Nationality of institution of the authors .......................................................59

Table 2: Year/Nature of Article .........................................................................................61

Table 3: Year/ Research method of empirical papers ........................................................62

Table 4: Year/Single Country/ Comparative Countries.....................................................63

Table 5: Year/ Single Country ...........................................................................................64

Table 6: Year/Comparative countries ................................................................................66

Table 7: Year/manager or non-manager............................................................................67

Table 8: Years/ Topic.........................................................................................................68

Table 9: The research patterns of the International Journal of Human Resource

Management.....................................................................................................71


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Chapter One Introduction


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1.1 Background of the research

Human resource management (HRM) was originated in the United States and adapt in the

United Kingdom in recent years. It is defined as a strategic and coherent approach to the

management of an organizations most valued assetsthe people working there who

individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of its objectives. (Armstrong,

2006: 3) A couple of decades ago, it was scarcely to find the HRM term outside the

USA. For example, on the basis of Storeys (2001) information from the Amazon.co.uk

website in 2000, there were seldom books mentioning the term of HRM, only 448

publications concerning the HRM term and 394 books with regard to HRM titles. Coming

into the 21st century, the subject of HRM started to flourish, with numerous books,

research publications, encyclopaedic dictionaries about HRM (Storey, 2001).

With the rapid development of globalization, global economic growth, the intensification

of international competition and the expansion of international business, HRM have

started to play a key role in shaping the competitive advantage of an organization

(Wernerfelt, 1984; Barney, 1991). Indeed, the effective management of human capital

through human resource strategy exerts an important impact on the success of

organizations in the global environment. Hence, it is of vital importance to develop HRM

in order to meet all kinds of social requirements through HRM practices which comprise

human resource planning, recruitment and selection, appraisal and performance

management, reward management, training and development, employee relations,

Union-management relations (Bratton and Gold, 2003).


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Since HRM has developed in the 21st century, it is important for us to find the changes in

the fields of it compared with that in the 1990s. On the one hand, the ongoing

globalization exerts a significant influence on the changes of HRM. For example, an

increasing number of expatriates are sent to work abroad, which is one of the challenges

for both the international HRM and multinational corporations (MNCs). Thus, it is crucial

for companies to make great efforts to modify HRM practices, policies and strategies to

adapt to the international environment. On the other hand, it is essential to note that the

changes of human resource management are influenced by the internationalization of

academic research activities including the international conferences, joint publications by

various authors of different nationalities, cross-citations and joint international funding,

etc (Frege, 2005).

According to Freges (2005) previous work investigated the changes of industrial

relations through several varieties, the intensifying global academic activities, it may exist

certain changes in the field of HRM. So far, there are also a limited number of studies

referring to that. Hence, the aim of this research is to systematically explore the main

changes in the field of HRM, to pose the question whether HRM is becoming

international via analysing the mainstream HRM journalthe International Journal of

Human Resource Managementedited by Michael Poole at Cardiff. The researcher will

examine in what ways HRM has changed through quantitative research method, such as

research topics, nationality of institution of authors, nature of articles. Moreover, the

changes in the focal areas of HRM practicesreward, training and development,


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employee relations, recruitment and selection will also be investigated. The results of this

paper are valuable and meaningful not only for the managerial development of

multinational companies, but also for the academic research of international scholars.

1.2 Objectives of research

The research aims to explore the changes in the field of HRM from the articles of the

International Journal of Human Resource Managementin 1990-1992 and in 2006. The

aim of this study can be further decomposed into the following major research objectives.

(1) To examine the changing field of HRM with a particular focus on the research patterns

and the content of topics.

(2) To investigate how and why key areas of HRM research have been changed.

(3) To explore the tendency of HRM research in terms of its development toward


1.3 Structure of research

This paper is divided into six chapters. Chapter One is Introduction. It introduces the

background, objectives and purpose of the study. Also, it concludes with the presentation

of the layout of the dissertation.


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Chapter Two reviews a broad range of theoretical literature in relation to human resource

management (HRM), mainly consisting of the origins and key models of HRM, major

areas of HRM, international human resource management (IHRM), and previous work of

industrial relations.

In Chapter Three, the research method (quantitative research method) and process will be

specified. Moreover, the empirical research is done through sample selectionarticles in

theInternational Journal of Human Resource Managementin the early 1990s and in 2006,

comparing eight variables that are summarized as the form of eight tables in Chapter

Four.

In the following part, the research result will be addressed and described by the eight

tables in Chapter Fournationality of institution of the author, nature of article,

research method of empirical papers, single/ comparative countries, single country,

comparative country, manager or non-manager, and topics.

Chapter Five contains systematic discussion and analysis of the research findings in the

central changing fields of HRM focusing on the eight tables of the results, which is also

on the basis of reviewing the pertinent literatures of HRM and engaging in both the

quantitative and qualitative work.

Finally, Chapter Six involves the conclusion and implementation of the whole research,


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examining the findings with academic literatures. Moreover, it ends with answering

underlying research questions and achieving the objectives for this paper. Based on the

above summary, it also presents some limitations and provides relevant recommendations

for the future studies.


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Chapter Two Literature Review


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2.1 Background of HRM

2.1.1 The origins of HRM

Human resource management (HRM) originated in the USA. In general, there are two

schools of thought of HRM in the USAthe matching model (Fombrun et al., 1984) and

the Harvard framework (Beer et al., 1985). The matching models of HRM can be divided

into four elements that are closely related to employees performance, forming the HRM

cycle and presenting the interrelationship of internal HR activities and business strategies

as follows (Fombrun et al, 1984).

Figure 1: The Human Resource Management Cycle (Bratton and Gold, 2003: 19)

In terms of selection, selecting candidates through both subjective and standardized

criteria relied on the objectives and structure of organizations (Marchington and

Wilkinson, 2005). With regard to rewards, various means are expected to facilitate

employees to achieve high levels of performance, such as adopting performance-related

pay, bonuses (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005). However, appraisal is based on

peoples performancethe concept of competencies, which aims to motivate

Selection Performance Appraisal

Human resource development

Rewards


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employees by means of equitable distribution of rewards and development (Storey, 1989).

The approach to development, such as training, management education (Constable and

McCormick, 1987; Handy, 1987) can not only improve employees performance for the

time being but also may stimulate future contribution to the firm (Storey, 1989).

By contrast, the Harvard framework of HRM covers six basic factors as the figure shows

(Beer et al, 1985). Firstly, the situational factors are related to the environment in which

the organizations are operating (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005). The second

component is the stakeholder interests, focusing on the activities interests of the business

owners, the employees and the union (Bratton and Gold, 2003). Moreover, HRM policy

choices pay more attention to managements decisions and actions (Marchington and

Wilkinson, 2005). In addition, HR outcomes (the fourth factor) consist of 4Cs concern

high individual performance for seeking the effectiveness of outputs and high employee

commitment for achieving organizational objective (Bratton and Gold, 2003). The fifth

one is declared from the perspective of employers, long-term consequences concerns

individual well-being, organizational effectiveness and societal goals (employment and

growth). A feedback loop is regarded as the final element in the framework, indicating the

complicated and intimate relationship among the above-mentioned parts (Marchington

and Wilkinson, 2005)

As HRM emerged in the UK in the mid-1980s (around 1985/86), hard and soft

models were addressed consequently (Storey, 1989; Legge, 1995).


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Figure 2: The Harvard Model of HRM (Bratton and Gold, 2003: 2)

According to the hard model, HRM is regarded as the management of other resources

(e.g. land and capital) in an economic and calculative way (Storey, 1989; Tyson and Fell,

1986). The hard model stresses on the resource of HRM. The concept of resource is

similar to that of functional model of HRM stated by Torrington and Hall (1987). It

emphasizes various aspects of business and HR strategies and reflects a utilitarian

instrumentalism (Legge, 1995: 66). In addition, it also focuses on the high consistence of

human resource systems, policies and activities with business strategies (Legge, 1995).

The hard model of HRM aims at not only driving the objectives of organizations, but

also achieving the goals by integrating personnel policies, systems and practices (Hendry

and Pettigrew, 1986; Legge, 1995).

Stakeholder

Interests

Shareholders

Management

Employee groups

Government

Community

UnionLong-term

consequences

Individual well-being

Organizational

Effectiveness

Societal well-being

Human resource

outcomes

Commitment

Competence

Congruence

Cost-effectiveness

Human resource

Management policy

choices

Employee influence

Human resource flow

Reward systems

Work systemsSituational factors

Workplace characteristics

Business strategy and

conditions

Management philosophy

Labour marketUnions

Task technology

Law and societal values


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However, the soft model emphasizes on the management and delivery of resourceful

human (Morris and Burgoyne, 1973). According to the soft model, employees are

regarded as valued assets, a source of competitive advantage with their commitment,

flexibility and quality, which can be seen from Guests (1987: 516) normative HRM

model (Legge, 1995). In order to achieve organizational objectives, it requires employees

to be capable and adaptable, loyal and worthy of trust (Beer et al, 1985). In addition, it

also requires managers to generate commitment and loyalty through communication,

training and development, motivation and involvement (Storey, 1987; Storey, 2001).

2.1.2 Key models and definitions of HRM

The following figure presents HRM in two dimensions. One is the hard and soft

dimension, depending on different emphasis on human resource. Hard version stresses

on full utilization of labor resources and emphasizes the implications of strategy and

quantification. On the contrary, soft version focuses on development of individual

talents and commitment, highlighting resourceful humans (Guest, 1989). The second

dimension is strong and weak or tight and loose dimension, depending on

general or precise definition of human resource. The concept of weak term is nothing

new without any substantive change in approaches, just the re-title of the personnel

management department, providing a new and fashionable image of personnel department

like old wine in new bottle claimed by Guest (1989: 48). However, the strong term is

regarded as approaches to integrate human resource management with organization


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strategies, emphasizing on strategic human resource management. The approaches

underline and concern how to use HRM policies and fit them into business strategies as

well as how to integrate the components of HRM (e.g. training and development, reward

systems and recruitment) with the overall organizational strategy.

Figure 3: Storeys Model of Mapping the Various Meanings of HRM (Legge, 1995: 68)

Furthermore, in order to investigate how do HRM policies fit into or integrate with

business strategy, what are the effective approaches to manage labor, it is necessary to put

forward the theory of HRM by using of the normative HRM framework raised by Guests

(1987) (Legge, 1995). The model shows the essence of human resource management in

four aspects. Firstly, it shows the human resource outcomes and the goals of HRM policy,

which is the central issue of this model. Secondly, a set of HRM policies and business

strategy are introduced, which present detailed information regarding of the key areas of


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HRM. Also, the model displays some organizational outcomes. Finally, three components

that imply the success of the HRM version appears in this model, which can be

summarized as key leadership, strong culture and conscious strategy to pursue and

reinforce success of HRM (Guest, 1989).

A theory of HRM

HRM policies Human resource outcomes Organizational outcomes

Organisation/

job design

Management of change

Recruitment

selection/

socialization

Appraisal, training,development

Reward systems

Communication

Strategy integration

Commitment

Flexibility/adaptability

Quality

Leadership/culture/strategy

High

Job performance

High

Problem-solving

Change

Innovation

HighCost-effectiveness

Low

Turnover

Absence

grievances

Figure 4: Guests Normative HRM Model (Legge, 1995: 93)

From the above table, it is clear to see that there is direct relationship between a set of

HRM practices and organizational performance (Baker, 1999; Buyen and De Vos, 2001;

Purcell, 1999). There are four kinds of human resource outcomestrategic integration,

commitment, flexibility and quality, which are regarded as the goals of HRM policies. In


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order to fully achieve strategic integration, HRM policies shall be adjusted and linked

across policy areas and hierarchies. In practice, line managers play an essential role in

accepting and applying HRM policy (Guest, 1989). In order to encourage employees

behavioural commitment and to achieve high job performance, HRM policy shall include

high-quality recruitment and selection, which potentially facilitate to accomplish

organizational goals. With regard to the goal of flexibility and adaptability with

organizational structure and cost-effectiveness achievement, it is required to apply

flexible HRM policies like appraisal, training and reward systems. Furthermore, in order

to meet the high-quality of management employees, HRM policies shall focus on

goal-directed communication rather than the process of communication (Guest, 1989;

Legge, 1995)

Fordist-IR model of labor management summarizes the key components of alternative

method to certain extent, which can be seen as shown in Figure 5. From the figure, it is

clear to see the first element is about beliefs and assumptions, which includes selection

and training process and concerns more about the capability and commitment of

employees. In addition, human resource is regarded as a kind of valued asset to achieve

organizational competitive advantage through employee commitment rather than

regulations. Strategic qualities is the second component, paying much attention to

organizational strategies and senior managers that wield an important influence on

corporate success (Storey, 2001).


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1. Beliefs and assumptions That is the human resource which gives competitive edge. That the aim should be not mere compliance with rules, but employee commitment

That therefore employees should be very carefully selected and development.

2. Strategic qualities Because of the above factors, HR decisions are of strategic importance. Top management involvement is necessary. HR policies should be integrated into the business strategy- stemming from it and

even contributing to it.

3. Critical role of managers Because HR practice is critical to the core activities of the business, it is too

important to be left to personnel specialists alone.

Line managers need to be closely involved both as delivers and drivers of the HRpolicies.

Much greater attention is paid to the management of managers themselves.

4. Key levers Managing culture is more important than managing procedures and systems. Integrated action on selection, communication, training, reward and development. Restructuring and job redesign to allow devolved responsibility and empowerment.

Figure 5: HRM Model (Storey, 2001: 7)

Indeed, the involvement of employee relations managers exerts impacts on the human

resource matters and business plans, which can be seen from the Workplace Employee

Relations Survey (Cully et al., 1999). The third part is the role of managers, focusing on

line managers who play an essential role in delivering and driving human resource

policies such as target setting and management of performance-related pay. That is to say,

it is of vital importance to manage managers themselves. Fourthly, key levers are

introduced as one of the characteristics of HRM. It is more important and effective to

manage the intangible corporate culture than regulations and employee management


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process. Indeed, organization culture exerts great impact on value and beliefs (consensus),

managerial control (flexibility) and commitment (Storey, 2001).

According to the three key models of HRM mentioned above, human resource

management (HRM) is defined as a strategic method to manage the employment

relationship and strategic resource via integrated HR policies and practice that are

coherent with organizational strategy. It stresses on developing employees capacities to

achieve competitive advantage (Bratton and Gold, 2003).

2.1.3 Debate the changes in the field of HRM

1. Controversies about meaning

There are certain controversies about the meaning of HRM, which are ambiguous, various

and even contradictious (Keenoy, 1990). On the one hand, twenty years ago, Guest (1987)

and Storey (1987) argued that HRM is a kind of general approach or a particular form of

method to manage and control employment relationship. Kennoy (1999: 17) stated that

HRM methods can be seen as various collective approaches to employment management.

However, postmodernist argues that the concept of approaches is closely related to the

generic term of organizational management (Storey, 2001). However, in the 21st century,

HRM is regarded as one managerial method of different alternative ways for the

employment management (Storey and Sisson, 1993; Storey, 2001; Sisson and Storey,

2000). Storey (1995) concluded that HRM is a distinguishing method consisting of


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various cultural, strategic and technical ways to control the employment relationship, to

achieve higher level loyal and competent workforce, which is helpful to obtain

organizational competitive advantage. In addition, in 2001, Storey argues that there are

probably certain gaps and limitations to put all approaches into practice, for instance, the

issue of loyal and committed workforce, management movements (Storey, 2001).

On the other hand, recently, some debates on the changing approaches to manage

employment relationship by managers, which are in consistent with the market

imperatives to achieve the optimum use of human resources (Bratton and Gold, 2003). In

order to fully develop employees potential, stimulate their motivation and achieve

substantial competitive advantage, it is both necessary and important to change the human

resource policies and practices so as to shape organization culture and restructure

organization design rather than apply the traditional human resource management

methods (Bratton and Gold, 2003). Moreover, it is argued that the change of hierarchical

structure, expanding the job tasks like employee self-management, shape of more

intangible issues in workplace (beliefs, values) are of vital importance to create high

commitment management. In other words, the goal of human resource management

practices like recruit, train and develop, reward employees is to create high-performing

work systems (Bratton and Gold, 2003).

2. Controversies about practiceFirstly, there are certain arguments about HR practice and strategic involvement, which


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can be found from two perspectives. Torrington (1999) claimed that there is a wide range

of personnel involvements in incorporation of business strategy. Based on his practical

data, Torrington (1999) stated that strategic involvement includes recruitment and

selection, training, rewards, management development, planning and so on. However,

other human resource specialists pointed out that strategic involvement was regarded as

line managers involvement rather than strategic development alone (Storey, 2001).

Secondly, the changes of HRM and personnel management are controversial. Guest (1987)

stated that a lot of companies changing the title of personnel department to human

resource department with little changes in their roles. In the US, some people use

human resource management as a generic term of personnel management (Legge,

1995). However, according to the interviews of Gennard and Kelly (1994), there are some

practical differences and changes between HRM and personnel management (Legge,

1995). The control systems of HRM are self-control rather than external controls of

personnel management, which can be seen from the psychological contract between HRM

and personnel management (Legge, 1995). The psychological contract of HRM is

commitment instead of compliance. The evaluation criteria of HRM are maximum

utilization, focusing on human asset rather than cost minimization that personnel

management emphasizes (Guest, 1987: 507). As Legge (1995: 62) claimed that

personnel management has increasingly given way to human resource management.

Indeed, it gives way to strategic human resource management.


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Also, there are some changes in the nature of HRM practice. Twenty years ago, HRM was

seen as a kind of unitarist with little concession for the multiple interests group and

various expressions of interests (Foulkes, 1980). However, in the 1990s, the findings of

Storey (1992), Sisson (1993) and WIRS survey showed that HRM was regarded as a

unionized issue, seeking for dualist measures. For example, companies not only

maintain the approaches of trade union relations and traditions but also launch some new

human resource initiatives. However, in recent years, it is argued that only taking into

consideration of stakeholders interests and requirements can company achieve long-term

competitive advantage (Storey, 2001). It is also argued that it is more essential and

effective to spend time, money and efforts in developing peoples capacity through

communication, identification of employees behaviors and competencies, building up

mutual trust and so on (Storey, 2001).

Moreover, there are some debates on the flexible employment policy of HRM. In the

1990s, it was claimed that flexible employment policy was becoming important (Hakim,

1990; Casey, 1991; Penn, 1992) and was increasingly developing (Procter and Ackroyd,

2001; Daniel, 1987; Cross, 1988) in response to the increasing number of part-time

workers. According to the fourth Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS4)

conducted in 1998, 25 percent of the UK employees were part-time workers (Cully et al,

1999: 32). The growing temporary workers may be explained from the perspectives of

economy development (Emmott and Hutchinson, 1998) and increasing global competition

under which employers need to reduce employment costs and easily adjust the number of


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workers to the changes of business activities (Armstrong, 2006). However, it is found by

the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux (NACAB) that flexible employment

policy often results in worker insecurity, taking abusive actions by employers, such as

inaction of employers responsibilities for the employment relationship (Procter and

Ackroyd, 2001). Meanwhile, employees are becoming less willing to be committed to

employers, focusing on employability rather than the future career development

(Armstrong, 2006). Hence, high organizational commitment, high trust and high level of

intrinsic motivation may be taken into considerations for organizations to deal with the

problem of soft HRM policies (Legge, 1995: 139).

Furthermore, controversies on using internal labor market policy to fill vacancies in

organizations have arisen. Someone regards internal labor market as a kind of career

development and HR strategy which allow employees to make full play of their

capabilities (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005). In addition, from the perspective of

organizational cost, using internal labor market policy can cut cost not only in the process

of recruitment and selection but also in terms of training provision as internal employees

have already familiar with the procedure or tacit knowledge of the organizations (Kersley

et al, 2006). Nevertheless, it is argued that internal labor market is relatively unfair and

inflexible, which wields a negative influence on organizational development because

firms are not able to obtain valuable experience and skills from the external market

(Kersley et al, 2006).


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In addition, with the growing interest in employee involvement (EI), there are heat

debates on EI from the perspective of a managerialist. EI plays an essential role in

transforming the employment relations and changing employees working attitude,

behavior and commitment (Bratton and Gold, 2003). Morrison and Robinson (1997: 237)

claimed that one of the forms of EIcommunication exerts significant impact on shaping

organizational culture, minimizing the false consensus effect and improving leadership

process. However, in fact, to a large extent, EI can not be fully put into practice by line

managers who are not committed to deliver it and by employers who are lack of time and

resources to train managers. Moreover, the employees involvement in EI activities is

tended to be passive, which seems that they just listen to information rather being that

important to them (Storey, 2001). It is also criticized that EI focuses on individuals

instead of collective units of employees, which deliberately threatens the status of trade

union (Wells, 1993).

2.2 Key areas of HRM

2.2.1 Recruitment and selection

Recruitment and selection are regarded as the key elements of Human Resource

Management (HRM) (Storey, 1992). It is important for an organization to select, use and

inspire employees at proper time and in right place to achieve and maintain the market

competitive advantage (IRS, 1997). New employees who have new skill or experience in

some areas are increasingly required by organizations to make changes under market


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competition and finally to obtain new competitive advantage (Storey, 1995). Therefore,

recruitment and selection are not cheap and simple activities, which are regarded as an

important part for modern organization to fulfil their business objectives (Sisson & Storey,

2000). In other words, the higher employers awareness of the importance of

organizational core competence, the more attention shall be paid to recruitment and

selection (Storey, 1995).

As for the recruitment, it refers to a series of process such as addressing the requirements

of both company and applicant, evaluating the counterparts expectation and finally

making the decision (Storey, 1995). There are four types of recruitmentinternal

recruitment, closed searches, responsive methods and open searches (Marchington and

Wilkinson, 2005). With regard to internal recruitment, the oral recommendation was the

traditional method (Kersley et al, 2006). In the 21st century, other modern standards for

internal recruitment (except oral recommendation) are recommended by ACAS, such as

appraisals and career development reviews (Sisson and Storey, 2000). However, UK

organizations prefer to use traditional standard in internal recruitment and this situation

did not change between 1998 and 2004 (Kersley et al, 2006). In the 1960s and 1970s, the

internal labor market is the main characteristic of a mature personnel management

(Boxall and Purcell, 2003). However, there are some critical arguments that the internal

labor market seems to be inflexible, unfair and involving certain discrimination. It also

prevents the valuable experience from entering into the organization (Kersley, et al, 2006).

Hence, external recruitment has been adopted by more and more organizations, especially


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for executive recruitment (Torrington and Mackay, 1986). In the 1990s, recruitment

consultancies of external recruitment were developing quickly both for executive search

and executive selection (Storey, 1995). In the 21st

century, E-recruitment is becoming

popular, which refers to the recruitment through the companys website (Marchington and

Wilkinson, 2005).

With regard to selection, it means the process of evaluating individual fitness and

capability for given positions (Sisson and Storey, 2000). There are several methods of

selection such as references, application forms or working sampling (Marchington and

Wilkinson, 2005). Among all the methods of selection, interview is the most popular and

comparatively cheap way used in selection (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005). However,

it is not the only way of selection because its quality can not be guaranteed (Sisson and

Storey, 2000). In the 21st century, some new methods of selection have been introduced,

such as competency test, personality test, or psychometric assessment (Kersley et al,

2006). The competency test is to measure individual potential capability for the specific

job. The personality test is to evaluate the fitness for the given position and culture of the

organization (Kersley et al, 2006). However, some arguments held that it is not accurate

and effective to just use one kind of method, especially the personality test (Blinkhorn

and Johnson, 1990; Robertson and Smith, 2001). Therefore, combined method and some

advanced methods rather than the traditional one are suggested to increase the accuracy

and effectiveness of selection (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005; Schmidt and Hunter,

1998).


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2.2.2 Training and development

There is not clear consensus on the definition of training (Marchington and Wilkinson,

2005). Training is no longer regarded as just a cost. Rather, it is seen as an investment

(Storey, 1992). In the 21st century, training is defined as a process in which people can

enhance their learning and performance more effectively. It is perhaps the unique method

a company can adopt to improve its staffs ability (Bramley, 2003). Most of training

concerns health and safety issues (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005). With the

development of new technology, employees are required to use these new technologies

for their tasks. Therefore, IT is gradually becoming an important part of training (Pickard,

2003). With the changes of the basic of market competition, training and development is

becoming increasingly important, which is regarded as one of the most essential areas of

Human Resource Management (Sisson and Storey, 2000).

In the nineteenth century, a minimalist training infrastructure and occupational labor

markets emerged within institutional context in the UK. However, only employers were

involved. After the Second World War, the employees were encouraged to be trained and

the cost of training was shared by employers equally (Storey, 2001). In the 21st century,

the importance of management development is recognized once again, which can be

defined as an effective approach to train managers in order to achieve high work

performance (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005; Mumford and Gold, 2004: 14).

Recently, there are several new developments of training, such as coaching, E-learning,


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continuing professional development, which seem to be more flexible for employee

training (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005). Coaching refers to the man-to-man training

covering resourcefulness, interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence (IRS, 2003).

E-learning means a type of education which is provided by media technology (Sloman,

2003).Continuing professional development refers to a positive way of learning which

regards the problems as an opportunity to study (Wood 1988). It is suggested to

encourage the continuing professional development, which can help people to know their

potential ability to make more contributions to the development of organizations

(Megginson and Whitaker, 2003; Stansfield, 2002).

However, some people argue that there are some barriers of the development of training,

such as time and financial constraints (Lloyd, 2002; Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005).

Others state that the investment in people (Iip) can not only help company to retain the

employees but also inspire them to make more contribution to the organization (Storey,

1992). More recently, an increasing number of companies provide off-the-job training

to resolve this problem (Kersley et al, 2006). Also, in the 21st century, there are some new

concepts emerging in the process of training development. Tacit skill is introduced,

which is a kind of employees instinctive ability which allows them to work without

awareness (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005). The concept of Competency is cited,

which means the activities by which people show their abilities to deal with the

job-related task well (Whiddett and Hollyforde, 2003).


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2.2.3 Reward

In the 1990s, reward was seen as a set of returns for the employee contribution to

organizations (Bloom and Milkovich, 1992). It can be defined as one component of

employment relationship, consisting of two main typesintrinsic reward and extrinsic

reward (Storey, 2001). In the 21st century, reward is regarded as a strategic approach to

HRM, concerning the development of reward processes and practices which are coherent

with organizational strategies, human resource policies and the organizational culture and

environment (Armstrong and Brown, 2001). Also, it can be divided into two

categoriesnature of reward (relational or transactional) and the basis of reward

(individual or communal) (Armstrong and Brown, 2000; Storey, 2001). Indeed, reward is

a key element of HRM to manage organizational performance, to stimulate employees

motivation, and to affect employers financial strategy (Hendry, 1994).

In the 1980s and 1990s, the free-market philosophy created organizational culture

advocated by the Conservative government, which yielded proper impact on reward

policies (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005: 327). Based on the policies, political and

economic issues of reward, there are various kinds of rewarding system and diversified

payment schemes comparing to the previous one size fits all, inflexible and

bureaucratic set of reward package. In the 21st century, the emphasis on reward shifts

from the level of recruiting and motivating employees to the level of managing

organizational performance and affecting organizational values (Lawler, 2000; Armstrong,

2002; Kessler, 2003).


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In the 1990s, the notion of New Pay was introduced by Lawler (1995), Schuster and

Zingheim (1992) in the US, emphasizing the linkage between pay and business objectives.

Later, the concept of New Pay presented by Lawler (2000) became an orthodoxy idea

of reward (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005). There are two dimensions of rewarding

systemstructural content dimension and process dimension. Basis of rewards, pay for

performance, market position, internal-external pay comparisons,

centralized-decentralized reward strategy, and degree of hierarchy and reward mix consist

of the formal procedures and practices of rewarding system, which is the structural

content dimension. Communication policy and decision-making practices refer to the

process dimension of rewarding systems (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005). Ponzellini

(1992) claimed that pay strategies and pay systems are influenced by the governments

policy, new course of HRM practices such as industrial relations and the increasing


Also, there is a shift from the practice of paying for employees attendance to the concept

of performance-related pay. Recently, individual contribution rather than traditional job

size is becoming an important criteria to determine the employee payment

(Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005). In the early 1990s, there was a tendency for

performance-related pay (PRP) system to cultivate a new performance-based culture,

focusing on the objectives and output of performance rather than the input of employees

and their personal qualities. It used qualitative criteria rather than quantitative judgments

to assess individual and organizational performance (Armstrong, 2002; Marchington and


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Wilkinson, 2005). The success of PRP relies on employer perceptions such as the

responsibility for personnel managers to introduce the scheme rather than the employees

factors (Brown and Armstrong, 1999).On the other hand, Marsden et al (2000) claimed

that whether PRP can strengthen and improve the organizational and individual

performance depends on the approach to classify and allocate employees performance

into different performance grades.

Moreover, the pay for performance involves both the individual and collective forms of

reward, which are divided based on unit of performance (Storey, 1995; MacDuffie, 1995;

Walton, 1985). In the early 1990s, it can be seen that individual performance-related pay

(IPRP) such as merit-based pay was an effective rewarding scheme to improve employee

commitment (Kinnie and Lowe, 1990; ACAS, 1990). From employee perspective,

individual reward can not only accurately measure employees productivity and effort, but

also encourage employees to perform better than the standard level by paying wage

premium (Shirom and Mar, 1991). Individual pay is relatively fair and scientific to

measure employees performance. However, in the late 1990s, collective reward alone

was focused (Arthurs, 1992; Pfeffer, 1998; Cully et al., 1999), which closely linked the

reward of employees with the profits of organizations (Storey, 2001). In the 21st century,

there are certain suggestions of shifting from individual performance related pay to the

concept of team reward (Cox, 2000). Harris (2001)and Torrington et al. (2002) criticized

against PRP. In addition, Makinson (2000) stated that PRP shall be replaced by team

reward. The definition of team reward is similar to that of collective reward in a broad


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sense. It consists of four main areas including branch network, customer service center,

and intermediary sales and marketing (Storey, 2001). With the increasing

internationalization and globalization, there is a tendency of a multi-faceted phenomenon

combining both individual and collective reward systems and direct management policy

options of reward (Ponzellini, 1992).

Twenty years ago, time-based pay was introduced and utilized in a relatively direct and

simple way (Storey, 2001). In the 21st century, this simple wage system was gradually

replaced by salary systems (pay for job grade) (Thompson, 2000), payment by results

(PBR), enterprise-based schemes (Morley, 2002), performance-related pay (Armstrong,

2002) and skills-based pay (Hastings, 2000) (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005). In

addition, the new concepts of total reward (Thompson, 2000) and intrinsic reward

(Akingbola, 2006) were introduced in recent years. Total reward is defined as the

combination of financial and non-financial rewards providing for employees (Armstrong,

2006). Intrinsic reward is a kind of socio-psychological return to employees who work

in some particular type of organizations (Akingbola, 2006). However, there is no exact

agreement and consensus on the best reward system (Wood, 1996).

2.2.4 Employee Relations

Employee relation is an important part of HRM (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005).

There is no uniform approach to employee relation because of the different internal or


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external situations such as the development of union, the changing employment market

condition, labour law or the reform of new technology (Blyton and Tumbull 2004).

Farnham defined employee relation as the contemporary terms for the field of study

which analyses how the employment relationship between employers and employees is

organized and practiced (Farnham, 2002; Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005).

Before 1980s, employees were recommended to join the union and work with it in order

to make a harmonious working atmosphere. However, after 1980s, the situation changed

so greatly that some political and legal supports were removed and the protection on

employment was decreasing rapidly (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005). Since then,

most organizations have adopted the opportunistic approach to employee relation (Bacon,

2001). During this period, several organs argued that managers should use a strategic

method of employee relation as the traditional approach only can solve the short-term

problems rather than long-term issues (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005). However,

managers still prefer to use the opportunistic and pragmatic approach to employee

relations (Bach and Sisson, 2000; Sisson and Marginson, 2003).

In order to fully understand the approach to employee relations, the concept of frames of

reference was introduced, which refers to the managers attitude towards labor force.

There are three types of frames of referenceunitarist, pluralist and radical (Bacon,

2001). Unitarist regards an organization as a team and all the employees have a common

goal while the pluralist holds that there are different interest groups with common or


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diverse interests in an organization (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005). The survey

conducted in 1998 revealed that most managers prefer to adopt unitarist (Bacon, 2001).

Radical holds the view that the conflict in employee relations should be explained in a

wider historic and social context (Bacon, 2001). However, in the 21st century,

individualism and collectivism-two terms used in employee relation are easier to

understand and more frequently used in employee relation research than traditional

management frames of reference (unitarist, pluralist and radical) (Bacon, 2001). However,

most organizations have not decided to use which type of approach. They may continue to

face great pressures from both employers and employee representatives (Bacon, 2001). It

is suggested that both the individual and collective approaches shall be used to meet the

requirements of a good employee relation in the future.

The issue of union is the hard core of employee relations. After 1980s, more than half of

the organizations did not recognize the position of union (Towers, 1997), for example, the

absence of work representatives (Cully et al. 1999). The situation became worse during

the period from the 1980s to 1990s. There may be two reasons for declining position of

union, namely, the changes in industrial relation law and the development of modern

industry (e.g. increasing number of service industry and reducing number of

manufacturing industry) (Cully et al, 1998). In the 21st century, the next generation also

shows little interest in being a union member. Most of the new organizations or small

companies are willing to adopt the non-unionism form (Farnham, 2000). Even if the

unions are recognized by organization, the employees willingness of being a union


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member shrank than before (Millward et al. 2000).

Employee involvement (EI) is one of the components of employee relations, aiming at

obtaining competitive advantage, enhancing organizational performance (Marchington,

2001) by means of improved employee commitment and satisfaction with employers

(Storey, 2001). There are four main forms of EI practicesdownward communication,

upward problem-solving, task participation and team-working and financial involvement

(Bratton and Gold, 2003). In the 1970s, Industrial Democracy was addressed, which

was collectivist and partly initiated by union via the Labor Party. On the contrary, in the

1980s, Employee involvement was presented (Marchington, 2005), which was

management-initiated instead of union-initiated. Also, EI was based on individualist

principles that focused on direct information sharing with individual staff (Bratton and

Gold, 2003). Notwithstanding EI has been mentioned for a long time (Brannen et al,

1976), it has been increasingly focused along with the development of globalization and

internationalization, the advent of knowledge economy and the requirements of

information communication and decision-making in organizations (Bratton and Gold,

2003). EI stresses on communication in organizations and employee rights in which

employees are regarded as committed workforce to share the decision-making of

organizations and consequently make more contributions to the organizations (Bratton

and Gold, 2003) rather than the machine-minders who do fragmented and repetitive

work (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005).


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In the 1990s, the government enacted a new ActEmployment Relation Act 1999, which

involved the statutory support of union recognition, better protection for employees and

national minimum wage (Undy, 1999; Wood and Godard, 1999). The main purpose of this

new Act is to promote the partnership (HMSO, 1998), which means that under the

situation the union is both recognized and supported by organizations and employees

(Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005). However, its definition is so ambiguous that there is

no uniform meaning from the perspectives of managers and unions (Undy, 1999; Acker

and Payne, 1998). There are two different views on partnership. Some argued that

partnership may help organizations to resolve financial problem, win public sector

contracts or promote changes (Brown, 2000; Oxenbridge and Brown 2004). Some

skeptics claimed that partnership may bring certain disadvantages to organizations, such

as decelerating the process of decision-making or paying extra money (Marchington and

Wilkinson, 2005). It is not clear whether partnership agreements will bring greater

returns for managers and trade unions. If returns are not forthcoming for either party then

enthusiasm for the partnership approach may wane (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005:

203) (Bacon, 2001).

Flexibility is a new concept combining labor, technological, organizational and

systematical flexibility through which an entity may use it to meet the changes and

requirements of the society (Procter and Ackroyd, 2001). Some scholars stated that

organizations are more anxious to achieve numerical and functional flexibility from both

core workers and peripheral workers (Atkinson, 1984; Atkinson and Meager, 1986b;


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NEDO, 1986). Others argued that in practice, among a large number of sample companies,

only a minority of firms use the core-periphery strategy (Wood and Smith, 1989). In the

21st

century, in order to adapt to the intensified global competition, the increasing

unemployed workforce, and the rising number of rural and ex-state migrant workers,

organizations have been increasingly using the informal employment policy in response

to the labor flexibility. Moreover, using flexible strategy can not only reduce the overtime

costs for permanent workers but also decrease the working time for full-time employees

required by trade union (OReilly, 1992b). However, there are some drawbacks of widely

use of flexible employment policy, such as loosing contractual relationship between

employer and employee, lack of legal and social protection of labor rights, difficulties in

organizing the union by part-time workers (Cooke, 2006). In addition, employers abusive

actions will also result in the problem of worker insecurity (NACAB, 1997). Although

there are some disadvantages of flexible strategy, informal employment strategy is

increasingly focused around world (Cooke, 2006). According to the fourth Workplace

Employee Relations Survey (WERS4), it pointed out that there was a growing tendency

of employing part-time workers in UK in 1998 (Procter and Ackroyd, 2001).

It is of vital importance for HRM by integrating employment relations with business

planning (Pfeffer, 1995;Storey, 1992;Guest and Peccei, 1994). In other word, the better

management of employee relations, the higher performance business strategy can achieve

(Kersley et al, 2006). On the one hand, employment relations exert significant influence

on strategic business decisions through the involvement of HR managers who play a vital


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role in the process of devising and managing business plans, especially the issue of

employment relations. On the other hand, to what extent employment relations can be

integrated into business strategy by employers is the presence of a top-governing or

board-level employment relations representative (Kersley et al, 2006). In fact, according

to the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey, the proportion of integrating

employee relations with business strategy did hardly change and HR managers were less

willing to be dedicated to the business strategy in 2004 than in 1998 (Kersley et al, 2006).

2.3 International Human Resource Management

By the late 1980s, international competition became fiercer throughout the whole world,

which caused significant influence on business performance of every firm rather than the

industrial giants only (Evans et al, 2002). The statistics show that the percentage of U. S.

economy exposed to international competition rocketed from 6% in the 1960s to more

than 70% in the late 1980s. With the expansion of global economy, the pressure and

competition of unified international market and the emergence of new technologies, it is

both necessary and important to implement strategic realignment and reconfigure HRM

approaches and practices in order to meet the challenge of external environment and

needs of changing business arena. The success of Japanese challenge proves that

distinctive HRM approaches and practices play an essential role in improving employees

skills, commitment and organizational interconnections and achieving the competitive

advantage. West companies started to focus on the characteristics of Japanese HRM, for


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example, continuous improvement, team based appraisal and reward and consultative

decision-making (Evans et al, 2002).

For the international companies, how to recruit and select, train and develop, and reward

people are the main issues of international human resource management (IHRM).

However, facing the challenges of unified global market, multinational diversity and

flexibility, it is difficult for international companies to make decision on HR

policieswhether convergence or divergence (Armstrong, 2006). Convergence

basically means using the same policy in each location, which may be developed with the

increasing pressure and universal benchmarking of cost, quality and productivity

(Brewster, 2004). On the contrary, divergence may be more appropriate in view of

different cultural background and local requirements (Armstrong, 2006). For international

HRM, cultural diversity is one of the main issues (Armstrong, 2006), which exerts

impacts on HR practices to large extent, such as decision-making, face-to-face feedback,

rewarding systems and different notions of social justice (Sparrow and Hiltrop, 1997).

In order to deal with the problem of cultural differences and culture shock in IHRM, most

international companies dispatch expatriates abroad to take the positions of local firm

which is short of technical or managerial skills, to support management development

through which expatriate can gain experience of local operations, and to enhance

organizational development (Evans et al, 2002). On the one hand, expatriates act as a

corporate agency in the international companies, most of who are dispatched abroad for a


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long period (usually at least three years). On the other hand, they also play the role of

problem solving by being assigned abroad for a relative short-term period. However, with

the improvement of local management and technology skills, the key role of expatriates is

turned to develop organizational management and improve the worldwide coordination

competence rather than to fill the local skills gap. Moreover, recently, dispatching

expatriates is regarded as an essential part of career advancement for young individuals

with great potential, focusing on short-term learning rather than long-term teaching

(Evans et al, 2002). From the perspective of HRM practice, expatriation involves a series

of process such as selection, preparation and training, adjustment, management, reward

and repatriation. The selection standards and criteria are based on the level of technical

expertise and domestic track record (Evans et al, 2002). However, it is evident that the

inability to arrange the whole family of expatriate in other country causes negative

influence on the expatriation (Tung, 1981; Black and Stephens, 1989). Hence,

organizations are widely suggested to assess other abilities, such as cross-cultural ability

or familys ability of adjusting to live abroad. Meanwhile, early training is as important

and necessary as selection because expatriates will spend less time in adjusting to the new

environment abroad if they accept training in advance (Evans et al, 2002). However, there

are some problems related to expatriates, such as high cost of expatriates, high possibility

of assignment failure (Tung, 1981; Black et al, 1992) and local governmental pressures

and policies. Hence, some international companies tend to hire local people rather than

rotating expatriates in overseas subsidiaries so that local managers are greatly encouraged

to make their contributions to organizations (Evans et al, 2002).


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2.4 Review of the previous HRM work

Frege (2005) conducted the varieties of industrial relations researchtake-over,

convergence or divergence. Based on the articles published in the USA, Britain and

Germany carrying out a comparative research of industrial relations (IR), the author

discussed how and in what ways IR (industrial relations) research was affected by the

trends of internationalization and globalization. The study carried out the different IR

research patterns in three countries, especially focusing on the changes between USA and

British research patterns, which challenges the homogeneous Anglo-Axon common

research style. Furthermore, the study implied that although the development of

internationalization, there were still continually national specific IR research cultures and

traditions (Frege, 2005).

In order to explore the changes in a more scientific and accurate way, several research

questions were addressed. Firstly, whether the national IR research styles are affected by

the increasing internationalization? Then, whether the dominant Anglo-Saxon research

style will be replaced and whether the various national styles will be converged by the

increasing internationalization. Thirdly, is there a tendency of adopting divergent national

research patterns? Finally, what is the future of IR research discipline? (Frege, 2005)

The research carried out the comparative content analysis, investigating the most

prominent IR journals in the three countries and selecting 1309 papers as sample data.

There are two US journals:Industrial and Labor Relations Review (ILRR) andIndustrial


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Relations (IndR), two British journals:British Journal of Industrial Relations (BJIR) and

Industrial Relations Journal (IRJ) and one journal from GermanyIndustrielle

Beziehungen (IB). The sample consisted of 666 US articles, 552 British articles and 91

German articles during the period of 1970-1973 and 1994-2000representing the 1970s

and 1990s. In other words, from the longitudinal perspective, there are 390 articles from

the 1970s and 919 articles from the 1990s.

In order to clearly present the various aspects of research patterns and to explore the

research questions and objectives, the research patterns were classified into four

variablesthe nationality of author, authors disciplinary affiliation, the article

subject and the methodology.

1) The nationality of author was divided into four main groupsAnglo-Saxon, Asia,Continental Europe, and the rest of world. However, according to the research

sample, USA, UK and Germany were separated from their relevant groups to be

independent variables in the comparison.

2) Authors disciplinary affiliation. This variable was generally divided into IR/HR andbusiness school, economists/labour economists and other social scientist.

3) The article subject. There were three main topicsindustrial relations (IR), humanresource (HR) and labour market (MR). More specifically, IR issues comprised

collective bargaining, industrial democracy, unions, state, international,

labour process, social issues and other IR issues. HR issues consist of

hiring/turnover, training/education, career, individual motivation,


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performance, labour productivity, employee participation and general human

resource management. LM issue was classified into the sub-topics as labour market

trends, pay systems and working time (including contingent work).

4) The methodology, which was clustered into three main groups: empirical, think piece and theoretical. The empirical was divided into empirical descriptive,

empirical analytical-inductive and empirical analytical-deductive. In addition, the

author distinguished the methodologies by using of other criteria, such as quantitative

or qualitative; small or large data sets; comparative, historical/longitudinal or

one-time period; macro/societal, industrial, firm or micro.

Through comparative longitudinal analysis, there were six findings emphasized by the

author. Firstly, US journals were a little bit ethnocentric than the British journals and the

German journals were the least ethnocentric. Although there were more diverse

nationalities of authors who published IR articles in British and German journals than in

the US journal, it was hard to predict that any one of the three journals was being truly

international in accordance with the nationality of authors. Secondly, IR in the three

countries was dominated by different people. IR in the USA was dominated by labour

economists and was controlled by IR/HR/business scholars in Britain. Moreover, it was

dominated by other social scientists in Germany. The above findings challenged the

assumption that more inter-disciplinary research should be carried out in Anglo-Saxon

countries than that in other countries as IR as an independent discipline in Anglo-Saxon

countries (Frege, 2005). The third finding revealed that there was a decline of IR issues in


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US journals since the early 1980s, which may be caused by the descending number of

unions and collective bargaining in US employment relations (Frege, 2005). In addition,

the findings significantly showed that there was a small percentage of German research

conducted the HR topic. On the contrary, most of the German research topic was in the

field of IR. Fourthly, the findings were consistent with the widespread argument that

Anglo-Saxon social science were more likely to be conduct empirical and pragmatic IR

research in comparison with the more theoretical and critical German IR research.

However, among the Anglo-Saxon countries, the USA was generally more empirically

oriented than the UK. The next finding is that in the 1990s, quantitative method was most

widely used in the publications in the USA journals. In contrast, most articles in British

journals adapt qualitative research method. The finding challenged an assumption that,

there was a global tendency toward quantification research method regarding to the IR

discipline since the 1970s (Frege, 2005). The last findings presented that it was likely to

carry out one-time research instead of comparative or longitudinal research in all three

countries. However, the scale of data selection was quite different. Investigating

large-scale data was preferred by US research and Britain and Germany research were

biased towards self-collected small-scale data.

Finally, the author made a conclusion that although the internationalization is speeding up

continuously, IR research keeps to be carried out in nationally specific research cultures

and traditions (Frege, 2005).


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Chapter Three Methodology


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3.1 Research Questions

Based on Freges (2005) findings, this research will follow most of the research patterns

and methodologies used in previous studies. However, unlike Freges (2005) research

which focused on the national research styles in IR journals for three countries, this

research will explore the changes in the field of HRM focusing on not only research

patterns but also the content of topics. A comparative content analysis of articles

published in the International Journal of Human Resource Management(IJHRM)an

international, scholar-based journal in the field of HRM (Poole, 1990) is carried out to

investigate the following research questions of HRM: (1) what are the main changes in

the field of HRM focusing on research patterns and the content of topics. (2) How and

why key areas of HRM have been changed? (3) Is it a tendency of HRM

internationalization?

3.2 Selection of research method

It is quite difficult to decide whether to use qualitative research method or quantitative

research method in this research. In the academic field, the differences between

qualitative and quantitative research methods are debated from different perspectives,

such as research styles, objectives and forms. Symon and Cassell (1998) claimed that

qualitative research methods are more suitable to gain in-depth understanding and to

obtain abundant resources of society and social phenomena. Patton (2002) argued that

compared with the broad, generalizable findings of quantitative method, qualitative


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approach is richer and deeper, but less able to be generalized. Contextual analysis rather

than statistical data is often used in qualitative research to describe and explain the

subjective and meanings of social situation and to enhance the validity of research (Popay

et al, 1998; Strauss and Corbin, 1990). However, Marshall and Rossman (1995) argued

that quantitative methods are appropriate to be used to verify or confirm theories,

mathematically or statistically presenting the findings succinctly and neatly (Patton,

2002). Quantitative research can classify, count or construct the measurable features and

models such as parameters, variables, factors (Cohen and Manion, 1994; Shaw, 1999).

Compared with qualitative research method, quantitative approach is more efficient,

reliable, valid and objective from the subjective matter (Shaw, 1999).

It is of vital importance to select appropriate research methods which cause impacts on

different findings and results. The results derived from quantitative research will present a

rounded and scientific phenomenon (Davies, 2007) in form of relatively objective

numbers and statistics (Shaw, 1999). However, quantitative method may be short of

contextual detail (Shaw, 1999) and neglect the casual relationship to certain extent

(Marshall and Rossman, 1995). In contrast, the results come from qualitative research

method are more detailed description of the cases or situations in form of words and

pictures (Shaw, 1999).

From the above mentioned, although the research is clearly aware of the advantage of the

qualitative research method, it is appropriate to use quantitative research method rather


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than qualitative approach in this study for investigating a large sample, examining and

classifying the changes of several variables. Therefore, the researcher adopted

quantitative research as the research method in this study to review the articles published

in IJHRM, to collect and examine the variables from the existing data, which is seemed as

quality assessment in laboratory (Cohen and Manion, 1994). As Davies (2007) stated that

it is reliable and objective to gather information closely related to the question asked. In

views of the proportion of each category via quantitative approach, it is clear to find

whether HRM has been changed or not as well as which areas of HRM has been changed

based on the quantifiable data and quantitative evaluations. Also, Anthony et al. (2007)

indicated that scientific research procedures and logical processes are better than any

other forms of approach. Hence, the researcher decided to employ the quantitative

research method.

Moreover, in order to explore the changes in the field of HRM, the researcher primarily

opted for empirical research rather than theoretical method, which is more inductive,

heuristic and explorative (Frege, 2005). Although some sociologist state that established

facts cannot be regarded as fixed eternal truths, it is more appropriate to answer

particular research questions by data collection and experimental observations. Others

scholars like Kerlinger (1970: 8) pointed out that social scientific research method is a

systematic, controlled, empirical and critical investigation of hypothetical propositions

about presumed relations among natural phenomenon. In addition, it is almost

impossible to contain the content analysis of the research for a large sample (Frege, 2005).


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Indeed, empirical research can not only test the theoretical system (Walliman, 2006) but

also reveal the ample evidence for social research.

Furthermore, sample selection is of vital importance for an empirical research. The reason

for the researcher to select the sample journalthe International Journal of Human

Resource Management(IJHRM) can be explained from the nature of the journal which is

closely related to the research questions. Firstly, it is a universal journal concerning with

the tendency of HRM on the global and international level. Secondly, it involves a wide

range of issues in the field of HRM such as reward systems, industrial relations, employee

involvement. Also, it focuses on the relationship between academic research and the

empirical implications for international business and practical management

(http://journalseek.net/cgi-bin/journalseek/journalsearch.cgi?field=issn&query=0958-519

2). Hence, the researcher can examine whether there is a tendency of international HRM

from the articles in IJHRM and investigate the areas that HRM has changed on the basis

of international articles.

3.3 Research Process

The content analysis is based on the articles chosen from IJHRM comprising two time

periods1990-1992 (the early 1990s) and 2006 (the 21st century). The time gap can fully

reveal the changes between two time periods and help us to explore the future trends. The

sample articles from IJHRM are easy to access and meaningful to compare between two


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time periods, containing 106 articles53 articles from 1990-1992 and 2006 in IJHRM

respectively. The research patterns focused on seven variables: nationality of institution of

the authors, nature of article, number of research method, research method of empirical

papers, single/comparative countries, research topics and managers or non-managers. The

detailed variables were classified as follows:

1) The nationality of institution of the authors (in case of two or more authors fromdifferent nationalities of institutions, it counts all the nationalities of institutions of

the authors) was classified into four groupsAnglo-Saxon (includes the UK, USA,

Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland); Continental European (western and

eastern Europe: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Swi

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Exploring the Changes in the Field of HRM

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