The meaning and value of comparative human resource management: an introduction

Farndale, Elaine; Mayrhofer, Wolfgang; Brewster, Chris

doi:10.4337/9781784711139.00006

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…This body of macro-oriented HRM research links well to the more established field of comparative employment relations (e.g., Bamber et al, 2016). However, it is fair to say that our recognition of the pervasive influence of the societal context in HRM is better than the theoretical analysis we have so far brought to bear on it (Farndale et al, 2018). For example, the convergence/divergence debate would be more enlightening if it recognised trade theory and economic geography (Kaufman, 2016) and for some time it has been evident that we need a better understanding of institutional dynamics (Paauwe & Boselie, 2007) and a better integration of cultural and institutional perspectives (Redding, 2005).…”

Section: Hrm In Its Societal Context: a Brief Historymentioning

confidence: 98%

Studying mutuality and perversity in the impacts of human resource management on societal well‐being: Advancing a pluralist agenda

Boxall

2021

Human Res Mgmt Journal

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Situated within a societal perspective on human resource management (HRM), this paper asks how HRM academics can make a better contribution to understanding the impacts of HRM on societal well-being. It argues that we should target the 'so what?' questions that matter to society, including important issues of employer-employee misalignment and of perverse alignment ('perverseperformance work systems'). It calls for an approach to societal issues in HRM that is problem-focused and theoryinformed. While recognising some validity to the criticisms of academic HRM raised in the 'psychologisation' debate, the article argues that the critique is over-generalised and contests the idea that the concern of HRM academics with enhancing workplace mutuality is an expression of a unitarist ideology. Mutuality and unitarism should not be conflated. In advancing a pluralist agenda, it argues that we must become better at theoretical integration, at synergising our research methods and at engaging constructively with practitioners and policy makers.

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Section: Hrm In Its Societal Context: a Brief Historymentioning

confidence: 98%

Studying mutuality and perversity in the impacts of human resource management on societal well‐being: Advancing a pluralist agenda

Boxall

2021

Human Res Mgmt Journal

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“…These theoretical approaches, with origins in the 1980s (Björkman et al, 2012), serve a long tradition in IHRM research and still play an important role. At the same time, IHRM scholars across various research perspectives agree about the need to use approaches such as contextualization and socially embedded theories to address the complexities of today’s world (Brewster et al, 2016; Delbridge et al, 2011; Farndale et al, 2018; Pauwee, 2009). Yet, like Batt and Banerjee (2012), we find that, despite an increasing use of macro-level theories, most studies only briefly ‘nod to the importance of context’ (p. 1751) and/or take a rather unidirectional interest in how the institutional environment impacts IHRM.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While (international) HRM research has been criticized in the past as dominated by micro-theories and not sufficiently situating the studied phenomena within their multilayered social contexts (Batt and Banerjee, 2012; Cooke, 2017; Delbridge et al, 2011), the widespread use of macro-level theories in our sample of articles indicates some initial change in this pattern. There seems to be an increasing awareness and consensus among mainstream as well as critical IHRM scholars as to the necessity to take into account the contextual embeddedness of organizations and individuals and related HRM practices and approaches (Al Ariss and Sidani, 2016; Brewster et al, 2016; Delbridge et al, 2011; Farndale et al, 2018; Pauwee, 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Approaches that account for the interplay between structure and agency can be referred to as representing the ‘new neo institutionalism’ (Lewis et al, 2019: 323). They offer fruitful directions for HRM research in that scholars may not only concentrate on existing institutional constraints but instead focus on HR managers as active agents (Farndale et al, 2018) and on, for instance, how they deal with the daily complexities and paradoxes of different value system and competing demands (Lewis et al, 2019; cf. Najeeb, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An empirical analysis of research paradigms within international human resource management: The need for more diversity

Kornau

Frerichs

Sieben

2020

German Journal of Human Resource Management: Zeitschrift für Pe

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The goal of this article is to provide a fine-grained analysis of international human resource management research that addresses the different perspectives applied in that research. We coded 203 peer-reviewed international human resource management articles published between 2011 and 2018 with content analytical methods guided by the compass of management research developed by Sieben, which is rooted in critical management research. We were particularly attentive to the various discursive orientations international human resource management scholars have adopted, including ideologically critical, poststructuralist, functionalist and interpretive perspectives. We further examined which methods, theoretical perspectives and topics were common within and across different perspectives. This analysis indicated that critical research intending to politicize and question existing structures and ways of organizing is still marginal. Along with the dominance of functionalist and interpretive studies, papers in our dataset commonly use a strategic human resource perspective, are predominantly interested in the human resource management–performance link and focus rather narrowly on multinational corporations and expatriates. Furthermore, while international human resource management scholars increasingly account for the contextual embeddedness of organizations through macro-level theories, they mainly apply institutional perspectives that view organizations as adapting to institutional constraints. We propose a more diverse and reflexive approach – inspired by ideologically critical and poststructuralist perspectives – that may help to overcome these blind spots. Such an approach might, for instance, look at types of organizations other than multinational corporations and individuals other than highly skilled expatriates and might explicitly bring multiple, external stakeholders into the picture. We conclude by suggesting that international human resource management research and practice would benefit from more research diversity which enables more holistic analyses of phenomena, more innovative research and resultant insights, and more space for meta-theoretical reflections.

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“…Surprisingly, Stahl et al's (2010) theorizing around convergence and divergence never reached the same level of embeddedness in research at the team level, though research at the other levels, such as IHRM draws on similar arguments (Edwards, Sanchez-Mangas, Jalette, Lavelle, & Minbaeva, 2016;Kaufman, 2016). Perhaps this is because there is a tension, unresolved in Stahl et al 2010, between similar sets of concepts, such diversity and similarity, convergence and divergence, standardization and differentiation-again, this has been discussed more in IHRM than at the team level (Farndale, Brewster, Ligthart, & Poutsma, 2017;Farndale, Mayrhofer, & Brewster, 2018). As (Molloy & Ployhart, 2012) make clear, construct clarity is key to effective research and, notably, Stahl et al's hypotheses on this issue do not use the convergence/divergence terminology.…”

Section: Cultural Diversity In Teams: a Radicalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond the double-edged sword of cultural diversity in teams: Progress, critique, and next steps

2021

Self Cite

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Ten years ago, Stahl et al. (J Int Bus Stud 41:690-709, 2010) performed a metaanalysis of the literature on cultural diversity and team performance, aiming to improve our understanding of ''the mechanisms and contextual conditions under which cultural diversity affects team processes'' (p. 691). State-of-the-art studies still echo the article's conclusion about the 'double-edged sword' of cultural diversity, referring to the trade-off between process losses and gains. In this commentary, we assess progress within the past decade on our understanding of this double-edged sword. We argue that in terms of adding new insights, IB, as a field, has made substantial progress with respect to understanding diversity within teams, moderate progress with respect to inputprocess-output logic, and minimal progress with respect to definitions of cultural diversity. Our recommendations for moving beyond the double-edged sword metaphor in the next decade include shifting focus from cultural diversity per se to how it is managed, moving away from simplicity towards unfolding complexity, and expanding diversity categories beyond culture, and mechanisms beyond knowledge or information.

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The meaning and value of comparative human resource management: an introduction

Cited by 5 publications

References 64 publications

Studying mutuality and perversity in the impacts of human resource management on societal well‐being: Advancing a pluralist agenda

Studying mutuality and perversity in the impacts of human resource management on societal well‐being: Advancing a pluralist agenda

An empirical analysis of research paradigms within international human resource management: The need for more diversity

Beyond the double-edged sword of cultural diversity in teams: Progress, critique, and next steps

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