3.5 Conclusions
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
Management’s motives in HRM are both economic and social-political. Issues of
cost eVectiveness, organizational Xexibility, social legitimacy, and managerial
autonomy are all involved. At the most basic level, the mission of HRM is to
support the viability of theWrm through stabilizing a cost-eVectiveandsocially
legitimate system of labor management. This is a critical task in the founding and
early growth stages ofWrms, just like the need to establish satisfactory marketing
andWnancial systems. If management cannot achieve this balance, theWrm will fail
because an adequate set of human resources—a capable group of people with
suYcient motivation to work together productively and economically—is a neces-
sary condition of business survival. And if an element ofXexibility is not built
into its HRM regime, theWrm will fail at some subsequent point even if its initial
model of HRM is cost eVective and legitimate.
As this makes clear, any serious analysis of the goals of HRM throws the spotlight
on the management of ‘strategic tensions.’ Among the most important of these are
the tensions between employer control and employee motivation, between short-
run productivity and long-run adaptability, between corporate survival and
employee security, and between managerial autonomy and social legitimacy. The
management of these dilemmas is so important that it is useful to understand the
goals of HRM as fundamentally about the management of strategic tensions.
We need to advance our understanding of the goals of HRM in respect of both
viability and sustained advantage. Progress has been made in a variety of ways,
including multivariate analysis of survey data to identify key associations and
eVects, and in-depth case studies. Both approaches should be encouraged but, in
the study of HRM goals, it is clear that we need greater methodological emphasis
on dynamics, as has long been advocated (e.g. Dyer 1984 ). In other words, we need
to study goals at major transition or crisis points such as founding, growth spurts,
and restructuring (Purcell 1999 ) when we have a chance to uncover how particular
models of HRM get there and how they link to broader economic and socio-
political considerations. Longitudinal studies of ‘strategic groups’ ofWrms, com-
peting in the same market segment, looking at what makes them similar and what
diVerentiates them in HRM, would be especially helpful.
References
Baird, L., and Meshoulam,I.( 1988 ). ‘Managing Two Fits of Strategic Human Resource
Management.’Academy of Management Review, 13 / 1 :116 28.
Barbash,J.( 1987 ). ‘Like Nature, Industrial Relations Abhors a Vacuum: The Case of the
Union Free Strategy.’Relations industrielles, 42 :168 79.
the goals of hrm 63