The Value of HRM?! Optimising the Architecture of HRM

Since the first appearance of the concept of Human Resource Management at the beginning of the 1980s, it has gradually become the dominant view on the management of employment relationships, not only in theory but also in practice. However, recently, both academics and practitioners have started to pose questions such as: "What's the value of HRM? ", "What are the effects of HRM in terms of employee and organisational outcomes? " and "What are the differences between the value of HRM for academics and practitioners? ". In examining the ways in which HRM influences organizational effectiveness, one of the primary interests concerns models and studies explaining the link between HRM and significant variations in (business) performance (Boxall/Purcell 2003). Different theoretical views are used to explore the so-called HRM-performance link, like the contingency or 'best fit' school which covers a range of models that advocate fitting HR strategy to its surrounding context (Miles/Snow 1984; Schuler/Jackson 1987), the 'best practice approach' which can be seen as a reaction on failures to find empirical evidence for the 'best fit' approach and by stressing the universal importance of a number of HRM-practices (Pfeffer 1994, 1998) and the resource-based approach to HRM which articulates the competitive advantages of an appropriate and inimitable HRM system (Barney 1991; Penrose 1959). By now most researchers agree on the rejection of the main assumption in these views that HRM practices and systems do directly lead to firm performance. Rather they influence firm resources, such as the human capital of the firm, or employee attitudes and behaviors. It is these employee attributes that ultimately lead to performance (Delery 1998). The intermediate linkages and processes, through which HRM systems affect organizational effectiveness, have challenged researchers to define and examine their rationales that open 'the black box' between HRM systems and performance. Besides the HRM-performance linkage, the process of HRM is discussed nowadays. In this the features of an HRM system that send signals to employees that allow them to understand the desired and appropriate responses and form a collective sense of what is expected, are examined. For instance recently Bowen and Ostroff (2004) introduced theoretically the concept of "strength of the HRM system" to explain how HRM practices, as a system, can contribute to firm performance by motivating employees to adopt desired attitudes and behaviors. They describe how a "strong climate" (Schneider/Salvaggio/Subirats, 2002) can be viewed as a "strong situation" (Mischel 1973; 1977) in which employees share a common interpretation of what is important and what behaviors are expected and rewarded. The purpose of this special issue is to discuss the value and the effects of HRM both in academic and in practical terms. Most of the articles in this special issue were presented at the HRM conference in November 2005 at the University of Twente, the Netherlands. This conference was organized by the Dutch HRM network. The mission of this Dutch HRM Network is to stimulate fundamental and relevant scientific research in the field of the employment relationships. Different levels of analysis of the employment relationship, like individual level, team/group level, functional/organizational level, national level, and international level, are taken into account in an approach to capture the complexity of reality. This can be done and is done from multiple backgrounds, like psychology, industrial relations, business administration, economics, and law. Tasks of this Dutch HRM network are training and development of Ph.D-students in the field of the employment relationship; advising organizations and institutions with questions on employment relationship related issues; the coordination of HRM research, and the organizing the HRM conference, every two year. Following the success of its first three international conferences, "Human Resource Management: confronting theory and reality" (Erasmus University Rotterdam, 1999; organized by Prof. …