Ch. 5 ), the ‘resource-based’ view of theWrm has also come to play an increasingly
important role in the business and HRM strategy literatures. Drawing on these
fundamental notions of business and HRM strategy, any analysis of the alignment
of global HR strategies with business strategies will necessarily need to take into
account ( 1 ) externally focused market-positioning priorities and ( 2 ) internally
focused resource-based assets. On theWrst account, Boxall summarizes the strategic
HRM research in which researchers, using ‘contingency’ and ‘conWguration’
models, have shown some linkages between various market-positioning priorities
and HRM choices made by companies.
On the second account, Wright et al. ( 2001 : 710 ) take a resource-based asset
perspective to make a strong conceptual case that HRM envelops a set of core
competencies ‘comprised of human capital, social capital... and organizational
capital (i.e., processes, technologies, data bases).’ In a similar vein, Boxall and
Purcell ( 2003 ) make a compelling case to conclude that a resource-based view is
essentially a ‘knowledge-based’ view of theWrm. From this vantage point, the
management of HR is largely one of creating and exploiting knowledge in ways
that organizations are able to learn and adapt more quickly than competitors.
Importantly, ‘managing knowledge inevitably means managing both the com-
pany’s proprietary technologies and systems (whichdo notwalk out the door at
the end of the day) and the people (whodo). It implies management of the ongoing
interaction between these two aspects of a Wrm’s knowledge system’ (Boxall
and Purcell 2003 : 88 ) Wright et al. and Boxall and Purcell have identiWed
a critical extension of HRM strategy, which is especially applicable to global HR
strategies.
As argued by these authors and others, human resource and technological
capabilities go hand in hand, an observation fully consistent with both the business
strategy and management of technology literatures. As conceptualized by Porter,
for example, the management of technology and human resources are discrete
but interdependent activities underlying a company’s value chain; activities that
‘involve human resources, purchased inputs, and a ‘‘technology’’ for performing
them, broadly deWned to include organizational routines.’ (Porter 1991 : 102 ).
Achieving and sustaining competitive advantage, in turn, becomes a factor of how
well companies integrate various interdependent activities and align these inte-
grated activities with market-positioning decisions. As synthesized by Nagarajan
and Mitchell ( 1998 ), the management of technology and innovation literature,
likewise, emphasizes that technological capabilities are the product of the manage-
ment of integrated subsystems of resource-based assets, which include physical
assets, non-physical knowledge, techniques, and processes. Similarly, Teece et al.
( 1997 ) articulate the concept of ‘dynamic capabilities’ wherein sustainable competi-
tive advantage depends on a coordinative management process of honing integrated
technological, organizational, and managerial processes that cannot be easily
replicated by competitors.
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