محیط های کاری پویا و مشتری مدار : مفاهیمی برای تمرین مدیریت منابع انسانی و پژوهش

Changes in competitive environments are resulting in changes to the nature of work. We present job structure changes and a heightened customer orientation as two primary examples of changes that necessitate adaptation of human resource management (HRM) practices. The level of success in light of these organizational changes will largely be determined by how effectively people are managed in the new organizational environments. HRM practices that adapt to the new organizational conditions can add tremendously to the business and be a key to long-term competitiveness. We examine the implications of these changes for HRM practice and research, with particular attention to psychological contracts, job analysis, selection, and performance appraisal. The thrust of the article is to identify and describe research directions that have the potential for contributing to the future relevance and success of HRM.

The quality movement has brought with it many changes in both workplace philosophy and practice (Deming, 1986). While specific quality programs and techniques have fallen in and out of favor, the overall quality movement has, in our opinion, had a substantial and lasting impact on how work is organized and approached in organizations. For example, the quality movement has lead to leaner and more fluid organizations with a greater emphasis on team structures and employee empowerment. Such changes represent a significant departure for organizations as a whole as well as for their functional components, such as the human resource management (HRM) department. To be effective and continue to add value, HRM activities must be congruent with their organizational environment. Organizational changes brought about by the quality movement and shifts toward team structures and empowerment raise two critical issues: (1) Do organizational trends call for changes in selection, performance appraisal, and other HRM practices? and (2) What implications do these changes have for HRM research? The purpose of this article is to address the above two questions. We focus on two categories of organizational response to the quality movement: job structure changes and a heightened customer orientation. These categories of change may be familiar concepts, but our observation is that aspects of HRM practice and research have yet to adapt to these changes. Systematic survey information is not available concerning these changes, but they seem to be largely recognized as trends in the popular business press (e.g., Howard, 1995 and Stewart, 1996) and are beginning to be recognized as important issues in the scholarly literature Capelli et al., 1998 and Cascio, 1995. After considering these categories of organizational change, we address the importance of adaptation to these changes in HRM practices and research. We then identify major ways in which HRM can adapt to the organizational changes and explore the implications of these adaptations for HRM research. While the inclusion of implications for all facets of practice and research is beyond the scope of this article, we focus on four prevalent aspects of HRM research: psychological contracts,3 job analysis, selection, and performance appraisal. We include a review of leading HRM journals and conclude that while shifts toward team structures and employee empowerment are generally acknowledged in the literature, such shifts have largely not been incorporated into HRM research as evidenced by their scant integration into the four aspects examined. A simple but important assumption underlying the thrust of this article is that people are a critical resource in organizations and a means for sustainable competitive advantage, a position consistent with the resource-based view of the firm Barney, 1991 and Wernerfelt, 1984. As the diffusion of technology levels the organizational playing field, it is people who can make the difference in the degree of success attained by an organization (Huselid, 1995). The effective management of human resources (HR) thus becomes a key vehicle for developing and improving organizational effectiveness (Pfeffer, 1995). For example, Pfeffer (1995) has illustrated with case examples how HRM practices such as employment security and incentive pay can promote a positive organizational culture and increase productivity. No doubt, such practices are effective and are to be commended. However, rather than stable employment security, many organizational environments have been punctuated with downsizings and significant changes and broadened expectations of workers. Our focus here is on how HRM can most effectively contribute to the organization given such an environment. The implications drawn in this article are not targeted toward traditional organizations in which stability and hierarchy remain key characteristics. However, such fixed and insulated organizational environments are becoming, in our opinion, increasingly rare. Further, the thrust of the present analysis applies only to organizational environments in which dynamic change is a dominant characteristic. Change in the form of planned alteration, such as with strategic changes or explicit reengineering efforts also have implications for HRM. The impact of planned change, at least on the HRM function of job analysis, has been considered elsewhere (e.g., Cardy, 1993). The present focus is on organizational environments characterized by dynamic change.

The trends in organizations, to be more dynamic and customer-oriented, hold important implications for HRM practice and research. Failure to adapt to the changing organizational environments may force outcomes such as decentralization and outsourcing. The field of HRM can, however, continue to play a vital and important role in organizations if the implications of the organizational trends are carefully considered and the focus of HRM shifted towards supporting the overall strategic orientation of the organization. In this article, we have explored interesting and important implications of organizational trends for the fundamental area of psychological contracts and for the HRM functions of job analysis, selection, and performance appraisal. Although not explicitly considered here, the organizational trends also have implications for HRM personnel. There is a wide array of roles that HRM staff members play (Blancero, Boroski, & Dyer, 1996) and the organizational trends identified here can be expected to further broaden them. In addition, successful adaptation of the HRM department to the organizational trends may require skillful leadership. Researchers have begun to theoretically consider the importance of HRM leadership characteristics in competitive business environments (Terpstra, Mohamed, & Rozell, 1996), but more work is needed. We think the future for the practice and discipline of HRM is bright, but only if the organizational trends are taken seriously and HR departments and researchers take a broader, more strategic role in supporting organizational core competencies. We hope this article serves to spur this work.