Organisational Strategy, Organisational Culture and Hrm

Organisational Strategy, Organisational Culture and HRM

January 2013

Word Count: 3,300

Task: Analyse and evaluate the relationship between Organisational Strategy, Organisational Culture and HRM. What linkages exist between Strategy, Culture and the management of human resources? What are the key initiatives the HRM function can take in these areas in order to support the achievement of organisational objectives?

The evolution of HR dates back to the employment practises associated with welfare capitalists employers in the United States during the 1930s. They looked to remove the influence of unions or any third party institutions such as the state, in relation to employee’s rights, believing the firm could offer more to employees in terms of security and welfare.

The emergence of HR came about during the recession of the 1980s in both the US and UK, this resulted in a major downturn in product markets. With Japan now challenging the US for economic leadership, many American firms studied the main differences between both markets.

As a consequence these changes brought about better strategies and increased productivity.

Early models of HRM looked to link the formulation and implementation of strategic and business objectives such as Fombruns “matching model” (1984) which emphasised the need for a strong connection between HR and business strategy. Yet a more flexible model was developed by Beer, et al (1984) at the Harvard University knows as the “Map of HR Territory”.

Beer believed that there was a majority of “stakeholders” in an organisation such as:

• Shareholders

• Employee groups

• The Government

• Community

Beers influence for creating the model came from what he saw as the pressures of everyday organisational life. His objective to ease these pressures was to create a more strategic perspective in relation to the organisations HR. This would create a need for long term perspective in managing people and a consideration of people as potential assets rather than a viable cost.

The earlier traditional method of people management was viewed as a pluralistic approach. This approach looked for industrial relations to acknowledge that various groups of employees have different requirements. In contrast HRM was viewed as a unitarist approach. Employees