STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Figure 2.1 1 Categorizing human resource management strategies

Outcomes

Commitment

HR Strategy

Collaborative

HR Strategy

Paternalistic

HR Strategy

Traditional

HR Strategy

Process

Internal Acquisition of employees External

Source: Bamberger and Meshoulam (2000) Human Resource Strategy,
Thousand Oak: sage

The commitment HR strategy is characterized as focusing on the internal
development of employees' competencies and outcome control. In contrast,
the traditional HR strategy, which parallels Bamberger and Meshoulam's
'secondary' HR strategy, is viewed as focusing on the external recruitment of
competencies and behavioural or process-based controls. The collaborative
HR strategy, which parallels Bamberger and Meshoulam's 'free agent' HR
strategy, involves the organization subcontracting work to external
independent experts (for example consultants or contractors), giving
extensive autonomy and evaluating their performance primarily in terms of the
end results. The patemalistic HR strategy offers learning opportunities and
internal promotion to employees for their compliance with process-based
control mechanisms. Each HR strategy represents a distinctive HR paradigm,
or set of beliefs, values and assumptions, that guide managers. Similar four-
cell grids have been developed by Lepak and Snell (1999)^48. Based upon
emprical evidence, Bamberger and Meshoulam suggest that the HR
strategies in the diagonal quandrants 'commitment' and 'traditional' are likely
to be the most prevalent in (North American) work organizations.

It is argued that an organization's HR strategy is strongly related to its
competitive strategy. So, for example, the traditional HR strategy (bottom right
quantrant) is most likely to be adopted by management when there is
certainty over how inputs are transformed into outcomes and/or when

Locus of

Workplace

control