defined by McWilliams, Siegel and Wright (2006) as ‘actions that appear to
further some social good beyond the interests of the firm and that which is
required by law’, may be regarded as outside the scope of human resource
management. But because it relates to ethical actions in the interests of
people there is a strong link, and it is therefore an aspect of organizational
behaviour that can legitimately be included in the strategic portfolio of HR
specialists.
CONCEPTS OF STRATEGIC HRM
Strategic HRM is underpinned by three concepts, namely the resource-based
view, strategic fit and strategic flexibility.
The resource-based view
To a large extent, the philosophy of strategic HRM is based on the resource-
based view. This states that it is the range of resources in an organization,
including its human resources, that produces its unique character and
creates competitive advantage (Hamel and Prahalad, 1989). The resource-
based view as developed by Penrose (1959) and expanded by Wernerfelt
(1984) provides ‘a durable basis for strategy’ (Grant, 1991) and ‘builds on and
provides a unifying framework for the field of strategic human resource
management’ (Kamoche, 1996).
Jay Barney (1991, 1995) states that competitive advantage arises first when
firms within an industry are heterogeneous with respect to the strategic
resources they control and, second, when these resources are not perfectly
mobile across firms and thus heterogeneity can be long-lasting. Creating
sustained competitive advantage therefore depends on the unique resources
and capabilities that a firm brings to competition in its environment. These
resources include all the experience, knowledge, judgement, risk-taking
propensity and wisdom of individuals associated with a firm. For a firm
resource to have the potential for creating sustained competitive advantage
it should have four attributes: it must be 1) valuable, 2) rare, 3) imperfectly
imitable and 4) non-substitutable. To discover these resources and capabil-
ities, managers must look inside their firm for valuable, rare and costly-to-
imitate resources, and then exploit these resources through their
organization.
Wright and McMahan (1992) also argue that competitive advantage
through people resources arises because 1) there is heterogeneity in their
availability in the sense of the differences that exist between them across
firms in an industry and 2) they are immobile in the sense that competing
The concept of strategic human resource management l 37