Human Resources the Field of Human Resources

Human Resources

The field of human resources management has suffered impressive changes throughout the past recent decades and more and more organizational leaders come to develop and implement complex HRM strategies. But regardless of the efforts made, the field of human resource management is still changing and developing, and each economic agent has to find ways to best use it to its advantage.

Economic agents devise and implement complex strategies to motivate and retain the best staff members due to their intellectual capital and their ability to create value. The development of these strategies is based on two equally important components -- the theoretical stances and the practical observations. From a theoretical standpoint, human resource practices can be influenced at various levels. For instance, the research community might provide documented findings on the link between organizational culture and employee performances. Such a link would be manifested by the fact that a positive organizational culture, fostering change, development and personal evolution would be associated with higher levels of employee loyalty and performance. Other examples of impacts would include findings related to the implementation and management of change or the development and implementation of specific strategies.

The role of the academic community is as such that of researching various aspects and providing findings to be used by the practitioners. Nevertheless, the actual application of the academic findings within the real life setting is limited by the specifics. In other words, the theoretical finding had been created in a specific framework, whereas the organizational agent might be presented with a different framework. The literature however allows the economic agent to assess various situations and adapt their own strategy to the specifics of their own frameworks.

The specialized literature on the topic of human resources management varies in opinions, findings and particularities. One example is represented by the management of change. While Paul Kearns believes that change is often unnecessary and produces limited positive change, other sources believe that change is an essential dimension of the business model in today's society. William A. Pasmore, Richard W. Woodman and Abraham B. Shani (2011) for instance believe that change is crucial for organizational development, in spite of the difficulties one encounters in implementing it. All in all, the findings of Kearns are important relative to other source as they consolidate some opinions, while in the same time, challenge others.

Another important stand within the specialized literature is taken by John Sullivan. The author argues that one major shortage of the literature is that it provides little practical applications, but only reveals the need for HRM. He as such strives to provide several examples of actual strategies which can be implemented by economic agents, not only discussed at a theoretical level. He for instance reveals metrics systems to integrating managers, programs to identify poor managerial solutions, cooperation in rewards, the creation of HRM advisory groups or the development of retention programs based on the highest risk of leaving the firm. These issues are less common within other sources and they are relevant to the current sources since they address new issues.