‘systems’ (e.g. Delery and Doty 1996 ), ‘bundles’ (e.g. MacDuYe 1995 ), or ‘clusters’
(e.g. Arthur 1992 ). Thecontingency perspectiveof SHRM captures the ideas of external
Wt and predicts that the relationship between HRM practices and organizational
eVectiveness is contingent upon an organization’s strategy (Delery and Doty 1996 ).
TheconWgurational perspective, on the other hand, takes a more holistic view that is
aligned with the concept of equiWnality and highlights the importance ofWtand
complementarity among HRM practices in predicting organizational eVectiveness
(Delery and Doty 1996 ). According to the concept of equiWnality, diVerent HRM
practices thatWt together can yield identical outcomes. It appears that most SHRM
researchers today take a combination of the contingency and conWgurational perspec-
tives in that it is proposed that diVerent internally consistent HRM systems are eVective
for either diVerent parts of the workforce or under diVerent strategic considerations
(Lepak and Snell 1999 ). Coming from this combined perspective, it is clear that internal
and externalWt are in a constant interplay. While not attempting to downplay this
interplay, in the remainder of this review, we focus most attention on the notion of
internalWt and only highlight certain externalWt issues where appropriate.
Using the conWgurational perspective and drawing on research concerning the
HRM architecture (Kepes and Delery in press; Lepak and Snell 1999 ) and individ-
ual HRM practice areas, we show that it is vital to diVerentiate between diVerent
types of internalWt. We believe that it is partly a lack of consideration of these
distinctions that may have led previous researchers to conclude that there is only
limited evidence for the importance of internalWt.
Regardless of the type of internalWt, the basic assumption of this perspective is
that ‘the eVectiveness of any [individual HRM] practice depends on the other
practices in place’ (Delery 1998 : 291 ); that a coherent system of supporting HRM
practices has greater eVects on organizational eVectiveness than the sum of each
individual practice eVect (Ichniowski et al. 1997 ). As we will show, there is sub-
stantial empirical evidence that supports the importance of complementary prac-
tices and the notion of synergistic eVects.
- 1 Fit and the Resource-based View of the Firm
One of the most widely cited deWnitions of strategic human resource management
highlights the importance ofWt by emphasizing the ‘coordination or congruence
among the various human resource management practices’ in inXuencing
organizational outcomes (Wright and McMahan 1992 : 298 ). The resource-based
view (Barney 1991 ) provides the backdrop for understanding the relationship
between HRM systems and organizational eVectiveness. This view takes an implicit
systems perspective and suggests that combinations of complementary resources
enable aWrm to realize their full potential and help in achieving a sustainable
competitive advantage. Individual resources, on the other hand, have a limited
hrm systems and the problem of internal fit 387