Links Between Hr Strategy/Policy and National/Organizational Culture

2. Explain the consociates between HR outline/policy and national/ organisational horti destination. Recent research suggests that the counseling of human imaginativenesss has ferment increasingly eventful for business success. Employees atomic number 18 land to be one(a) of the most valuable assets to an administration as a go the tidy guidance of these employees is essential. focusing lit has had a proclivity to associate human imaging watchfulness (HRM) with sign of the zodiac motion. It is this link which has been the be cause for the abundance of research regarding HRM practices and their effects on a impregnable.However, at that place is a substantial debate at heart the literature that argues that HRM practices do non directly feign organisational per radiation patternance (Boxall & Purcell, 2000), with claims that at that place is a deficient link between the devil. In regards to this black box the concept of organisational burnish has emer ged. It is verbalise that cheekal shade is manifested in the behavior of its employees (Ngo & Loi, 2008), and is entrench in the everyday working lives of cultural members (Martin, 2004).Culture is claimed to affect employees production line attitudes, efficiency and productivity (Mahal, 2009), and git impact the ability to carry come forth an geological formations plans and meet strategic goals (Chan, Shaffer & Snape, 2004). With these assertions, organizational farming could in fact entice a blind drunks productivity and their overall per ca-caance. This written report examines the affinity between HRM, organizational assimilation and firm surgery. The next section of this paper defines and explains the organizational stopping point concept.I then investigate the kindred between HRM and organizational culture by exploring the overarching themes which emerge from the literature regarding this link. Finally, I explore the human relationship between HRM, organizati onal culture and firm motion. The Link between HRM and organisational Culture Previous literature has determine and focused around two common etymons of organizational culture (1) bringers of the organization, and (2) national culture. Barney (1986) claimed that firms are historically bound. In line with Schein (2004) he argued that a firms culture reflects the strange personality of its founders.A massive with these unique personalities a number of scholars take away alleged that culture originates in the determine and assumptions admit by top care, which in turn, execute an outstanding habit in shaping cultural emplacements and employees behaviours (Chew & Sharma, 2005 Mahal, 2009). These value are then reinforced in a number of ways. Smircich (1983) articulated that top managers mould organizational cultures, and thus the determine and beliefs held by employees, to accommodate their strategic ends in turn the corporate culture should reflect the ken of the firm (Ngo & Loi, 2008).Values are withal reiterated in hiring employees with similar priorities to top management as well as thoroughly societalizing raw employees to sack those desired behaviours (Martin, 2004). Furtherto a greater extent, national culture plays a prevailing role in shaping organizational culture. National culture refers to the culture special to a national group (Chew & Sharma, 2005), and is fix deeply within individuals everyday lives. These ingrained set will subconsciously affect how management practices are both carried out and received in an organization, and therefore how employees will be moderate within the firm (Chew & Sharma, 2005).Consequently, acompanys culture is said to be linked to the founders of the organization and the values which they demonstrate, as well as the National culture in which the organization was first founded. A three relationship has begun to emerge out of management literature. There devour been claims by a number of schol ars (Bowen & Ostroff, 2004 Cabrera & Bonache, 1999 Lau & Ngo, 2004 Wilkins,1984) that organizational culture is related to HRM and the human election practices which are actioned by the organization.HRM has become an increasingly important body process within an organization. Its function is to attract, divulge, motivate and retain employees who ensure the effective functioning of the organization (Jackson & Schuler, 1995). Relatively little is known about the link between organizational culture and HRM, as few a posteriori studies examen this relationship have been conducted (Platonova, 2005). However, a few overarching themes emerge from the literature regarding this HRM-culture relationship. HRM Practices form Organizational CultureWithin the HRM-organizational culture link lays a belief that firms HRM practices will motivate employees to adopt legitimate attitudes and behaviours, and will therefore educe a true corporate culture (Bowen & Ostroff, 2004 Cabrera & Bonache , 1999 Chow & Liu, 2009 Lau & Ngo, 2004 Ngo & Loi, 2008 Wilkins, 1984). oneness of the earliest views on this HRM-organizational culture link was from Peters (1978), who suggested that management musical arrangements (e. g. HRM systems) could be purpose of as mechanisms to transmit values and beliefs of the organization which, as a result, cooperate to embodiment its character.With organizational culture comprising a range of fond phenomena there are certain situations in which organizational norms are not the result of shared values among employees rather, they are determined by the rules and practices an organization put finisheds (Cabrera & Bonache, 1999). Tichy (1983) purpose that the way in which HRM systems are designed can communicate important and useful cultivation about the organizations culture to employees. Schwartz & Davis (1981) also argued that HR practices translate information to employees.They convey standardized information to employees about expected p atterns of employment and unimpeachable behaviours which allow the firm to achieve its objective. Lewicki (1981) argues that HRM practices answer three questions for employees, providing information to staff about the acceptable behaviours (1) what does the organization expect from its employees? (2) What kind of behaviour does the organization reinforcement? And (3) what are the dos and donts of proper social conduct within the system? (p. 8). Ulrich (1984) iterates this view using an example of enculturation programs.Her belief is that socialization and induction programs play a significant role in transmitting corporate culture to individuals entering into the organization. They ensure that acceptable behaviours and cultural norms are passed down to new employees, thus keeping organizational culture consistent. It is through this shared information as well as the experiences of employees that behavioural norms are established, thus becoming the means through which culture is throwd and sustained within the firm.Building on the HRM-organizational culture link, Ulrich (1984) advocates that procedures and practices implemented by HR executives become rituals within the company. Ulrich deems rituals to be customary and repeated actions within a firm. They take on a meaning within the organization. As we identified earlier, rituals are a symbolic tool in which values are manifested. These rituals, which include evaluation and reward procedures, armed service guide the behaviour of employees as they establish boundaries and behavioural norms within the firm.Wilkins (1984) asserts a different view that HR systems can create career paths for employees as well as groupings of people who remain in the firm for a long overflowing time for a company culture to form. This outlook suggests that firms can implement HR practices that foster byplay security and internal career maturation in order to keep dollar volume low, and maintain those social phenomena that name organizational culture (values, beliefs, norms, assumptions) within the organization, and therefore forming a strong organizational culture.While a number of scholars claim that HRM practices fill to organizational culture, few studies have been conducted on the relationship. Lau and Ngo (2004) studied 332 firms HR and organizational increment practices in Hong Kong. The board purpose of this accept was to explore the link between culture, HR systems and outcomes. The research found that HR practices which emphasize schooling, work based reward as well as team development sponsor to create an organizational culture that promotes innovation.Organizational culture was said to play a intermediation role between the HR system and the firms outcomes. That is, the HR practices implemented by the firm had an effect on the organizational culture, which in turn had a direct impact on employees behaviours and outcomes. This withdraw demonstrated that a companys culture was signifi cant in impact employees outcomes regardless, the culture ask to be supported by an HR system that recruits those behaviours needed to achieve the desired outcomes.High allegiance Management Practices Influence Organizational Cultures Following on from the view that human imagery practices can twist employees behaviour is an argument that moreover certain practices will be beneficial to an organizations culture. Corporate culture will only be an vantage when it is seen as appropriate in order to achieve a certain objective or organizational goal (Chow & Liu, 2009) not all practices will wake up an appropriate culture.High Commitment Management (HCM), or best practice, is a theory that has outlined a number of HRM practices which are believed to help a firm achieve belligerent success from its workforce (Pfeffer, 1995). It is a common held belief within the literature that systems of high commitment HR practices increase organizational effectiveness by creating conditions wh ere employees become highly involved in the organization and work unsaid to gain the organizations goals (Whitener, 2001, p. 516).Pfeffer (1998), the founder of best practice, believed that there were septette core practices which characterized the most successful organizations employment security selective hiring of new personnel self managed teams high compensation contingent on organizational executing drawn-out teach reduced status distinction and barriers and extensive sharing of information throughout the organization. When implemented these practices would rent to high levels of job satisfaction, retention and want of employees, which in turn influence a firms effectiveness and carrying into action.It is thought that these HCM practices shape work force attitudes and values by framing employees perceptions of what the organization is like and help to influence their relationship with the organization. Employee behaviours and attitudes are said to reflect their percep tions and expectations about the organization their behaviours serve to the treatment they receive from the firm (Whitener, 2001). Accordingly, HCM practices are said to act as a culture embedding mechanism (Hartog & Verburg, 2004), playing an important role in reinforcing certain behaviours within employees and therefore shaping corporate culture.Kerr & Slocum (1987) demonstrate this relationship. They state that around organizations have cultures emphasizing the value of teamwork and security. These values foster homage to the organization and give employees a long term commitment. They iterate that another(prenominal) organizations consist of cultures which emphasize personal initiative and individual rewards. These values reinforce norms where organizational members do not promise loyalty and where the company does not provide job security. These authors point out that the practices, specifically HCM practices implemented by an organization, bring out certain behaviours from employees.For that reason, a firm can pull wires its culture by implementing practices which foster the behaviours they want to achieve from employees, and those behaviours that will help the company achieve their strategic goals. A small number of studies have been conducted exploring the relationship between certain best practices and organizational culture. In her study of 170 individuals views on compensation systems, Kuhn (2009) found that a bonus world rewarded on the basis of individual outcomes, compared to team or organizational performance led to the organizational culture being regarded as relatively more individualistic.Sheridans (1992) longitudinal study of 904 college graduates hired in six public accounting firms found that the firms organizational culture had a significant effect of the retention rates of these employees. Those firms that had a culture procreation the interpersonal relationship values of teams and respect for people stayed 14 months drawn-out t han those hired in firms whose culture emphasized the work task values of detail and stability. These two examples, in which both show the implementation of HCM or best practice, illustrate that organizational culture is contingent upon the HRM practices implemented.Practices will elicit different behaviours from employees. In accession claims are made that these behaviours will urge on or hinder performance and efficiency within a company. system Shapes HRM Practices which in turn Shape Organizational Culture In conformation with the view that HRM/HCM practices influence organizational culture, employees behaviours are said to be indirectly affected through a companys strategy (Bowen & Ostroff, 2004 Chow & Liu, 2009).The term Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) has emerged within recent management literature to cover the relationship between a firms strategy and their HRM system. This purview of HRM is commonly seen as comprising co-ordinated functions which are linked to organizational strategy (Macky, 2008). The guiding logic privy this view is that a firms human resource practices must, develop employees skills, acquaintance and motivation such that employees behave in ways that are instrumental to the implementation of a particular strategy (Bowen & Ostroff, 2004, p. 05). Given a certain strategic goal, a set of HRM practices should be implemented to help the organization attain these goals. Different business strategies will therefore pack the implementation of a varied set of HRM practices in order to elicit certain behaviours from employees. Attention should be paid to designing an HR system that is best able to link the desired culture and business strategy. For innovation-oriented firms, HR must implement innovation-enhancing practices to obtain the desired behaviours associated with innovation (Lau & Ngo, 2004).With strategy affecting HRM practices, culture is indirectly affected. This culture will be an asset for an organization if it encourages the behaviours that support the organizations intended strategy (Cabrera & Bonache, 1999). Organizational Cultures Influence HRM Practices There is a belief, held by a small number of scholars, which challenges the previous, more widely evaluate view that HRM practices (and HCM practices) influence organizational culture. While this view appears within some industrial psychology literature, it is a less common perspective among management scholars.These scholars find that prominent core values within an organizational culture have a strong influence on management practices and in shaping HRM systems (Ferris et al. , 1998 Aycan, Kanungo, & Sinha, 1999). This view asserts that firstly values and other social phenomena form within the organization, while HRM practices occur because of the organizational culture already entrenched within the firm. The social context model, developed by Ferris et al. (1998) claims that the attitudes, beliefs, and values which arrange up t he corporate culture place the development of HRM policies, practices, and systems.These scholars profess that a well-defined culture within a firm should drive the development of consistent HRM policies, as employees values are reflected in the formation of these policies. Furthermore, these policies should drive the design of a set of mutually supporting and integrated HRM practices which form a cooperative system. Bowen and Ostroff (2004) expand on this view. They allege that organizational assumptions and values shape HRM practices, which, in turn reinforce cultural norms and routines which shape individuals performance. Aycan et al. (1999) as well as Aycan et al. (2000) advocate the model of culture fit.This model contends that managers implement HRM practices based of their assumption about the nature and behaviour of employees. There needs to be a rationale behind the practices which HR implements they do not evolve within a vacuum. For this reason HR practices are there to reinforce the values, behaviours and assumptions which already endure within the organization, and to further develop these social phenomena. The Link between HRM, Organizational Culture and Performance Scholars have long asserted that the way in which an organization manages its employees can influence its performance (Delaney & Huselid, 1996).HRM is therefore an organizational issue which firms cannot afford to ignore. Much of previous HRM and organizational culture literature is based on this assertion that human resource practices and corporate culture are linked to organizational performance (Platonova, 2005). The be assumption of the link between HRM, organizational culture and performance is that HRM practices lead to employee knowledge, skills, and abilities, which in turn are said to influence firm performance at the collective level (Bowen & Ostroff, 2004).While a small number of data-based studies have tested the relationship between HRM and organizational culture a co pious amount of research exists on the HRM-firm performance link. In addition, a number of empirical studies have also focused on the organizational culture-performance relationship. The relationship between comprehensive sets of HR practices and firm performance has been much demonstrated within the literature. Becker and Gerhart (1996) explain that HR decisions can influence organizational performance through change magnitude efficiency or revenue growth.Barney (1986) notes that change magnitude firm performance is often attributed to higher profitability, while Bowen and Ostroff (2004) argue that increased motivation from employees leads to higher firm performance. A large number of empirical studies have been conducted on the relationship between HRM practices and firm profitability. Pfeffer (1995) identified a certain set of best practices which companies can implement to manage their employees. He argues that these practices are universal in nature, and will have a overbea ring effect on organizational performance.The implementation of HRM practices can contribute to firm performance by motivating employees to adopt desired attitudes and behaviours. They tend to amalgamate people around shared goals which will shape and guide employee behaviour. In addition HCM practices are said to create an internal atmosphere where employees become highly involved in the organization and work hard to accomplish goals the firm sets. In his study of steel minimills, Arthur (1994) found that reward systems provided sizable motivation for employees, which in turn contributed to an increase in productivity.His study also found that higher rewards contribute to a decrease in turnover among staff. Merit or incentive pay systems provide rewards for meeting specific goals in turn employees will be motivated to achieve these goals (Delaney & Huselid, 1996). Koch and McGrath (1996) found that investment in recruitment and selection procedures was positively related to roil productivity. Their findings suggest that labour productivity is related to those proactive firms, those firms who plan for their succeeding(a) labour needs, and those that make investments in getting the right people for the job.In addition a number of claims have been made alleging that HRM practices can influence performance by impacting employees knowledge, skills and abilities. Practices fostering extensive training can be considered a source of rivalrous advantage, as they involve keeping employees skills and knowledge up to date. Training is said to have a positive impact on performance (Delaney & Huselid, 1996) by impacting dimensions such as product quality. In their study of 590 firms, Delaney and Huselid (1996) found positive associations between practices such as training and firm performance measures.Pfeffer (1998) also conveys a link between training of employees and profits. Some scholars assert that HRM practices will lead to increased performance when there is a h igh level of fit between the practices and the organizations strategy. This is commonly known as the configurational perspective of SHRM. This perspective maintains that an organization should implement HRM practices that are congruent with the firms strategy, and are consistent with one another. Two practices can work together to enkindle each others effectiveness consequently a powerful connection is formed (Delery, 1998).The implementation of firm specific training programs combine with highly selective staffing practices can work together to generate a talented pool of employees with high productivity. It is therefore thought that HR practices which equilibrate each other and the firms strategy will have a positive effect on organizational performance (Lengnick- Hall, Lengnick-Hall, Andrade, & Drake, 2009). Overall, there is a strong view in the literature that certain HRM practices lead to increased organizational performance.However, studies on this relationship often diffe r as to the extent a practice is likely to be positively or negatively related to performance (Becker & Gerhart, 1996). Some scholars also express restore regarding the causality between this relationship do empirical studies actually essay that HRM practices cause increased performance? It has been said that HRM practices are not the only factor which could affect a firms performance legion(predicate) other organizational and environment factors could in fact be attributed to performance (Boxall & Purcell, 2000).Barney (1986) developed the Resource Based View of the firm (RBV). He argued that certain organizational resources and capabilities can lead to a sustainable combative advantage for the firm, and therefore can increase organizational performance through top-flight financial performance. Barney (1986) affirmed that a firms organizational culture can in fact be one of these resources. However, he asserts that not just any culture will lead to a competitive advantage corp orate culture must be valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable, and be of value to the entire organization.If a companys organizational culture meets these four criteria it has a better opportunity to be a source of sustained competitive advantage. In addition an appropriate HRM system can create and develop organizational capabilities which themselves become sources of competitive advantage (Lau & Ngo, 2004). For example, one of Americas most successful retailers, Nordstrom, attributes their success to its culture of customer service. This culture is seen as a unique, valuable and hard to imitate resource and has become a source of competitive advantage for the company (Carmeli & Tishler, 2004).Since organizational cultures and HRM systems can be a valuable resource for companies they have a key role to play in the firm performance link. end This paper has focused around the concept of organizational culture. It has primarily explored the relationship and different views between HRM and culture. While a number of challenging views exist in regards to the HRM- culture link, it is commonly found that HRM practices influence organizational culture, by providing information to employees that impacts their assumptions, values and attitudes.In addition, certain HCM practices are said to shape work force attitudes by framing employees perceptions about the organization in turn leading to higher levels of job satisfaction, retention and motivation all of which influence a firms performance. Furthermore, an organizations strategy has been alleged to influence corporate culture indirectly through the implementation of HRM practices that help the organization attain their goals. Organizational culture has been considered a valuable resource for companies and could in fact lead to a competitive advantage for the firm.While HRM has been argued to affect organizational culture, and in turn lead to firm performance we need to be wary of arguing that current picture proves th is relationship. There could, and probably are, a number of other organizational elements that provide a link between HRM and firm performance. More studies regarding the organizational culture and performance link need to be conducted before we can withhold this causality relationship. In saying this, organizational culture has been shown to be an important aspect of a firm, as it can, and does affect employees behaviours, motivation and value.