Section Five EVOLUTION OF PRACTICES
While the individual practice perspective has limitations, it
seems reasonable to infer that decisions about the adoption of
human resource practices may occur, at least on occasion, on
an individual practice basis. Indeed, until recently, much of the
human resource literature focused on the impact of individual
practices.^94 Furthermore, systems of human resource practices
are not developed and implemented over night but appear to
evolve. Brian Becker and Barry Gerhart have concluded that
“HR systems are path dependent. They consist of policies that
are developed over time and cannot be simply purchased in the
market by competitors.”^95 Firms have often adopted human
resource practices to address specific competitiveness
concerns, such as lagging product development. To counter
such a weakness, the firm may have adopted an individual
practice of compensation leadership in order to attract highly
talented research and development personnel. Unfortunately,
not all individual practices are effective by themselves. For
example, a firm may make the decision to adopt another
individual practice, such as work teams, without changes in
supporting systems such as team-based compensation systems.
Isolated decisions on individual practices, such as in the latter
example, have sometimes resulted in a potpourri of disjointed
practices that may even be incompatible with each other. For
example, a firm would not be expected to maximize the