People Management and Performance

Citation

Purcell, J. (2010), "People Management and Performance", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 18 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/hrmid.2010.04418aae.002

People Management and Performance

Article Type: Suggested readings From: Human Resource Management International Digest, Volume 18, Issue 1

J. Purcell, N. Kinnie, J. Swart, B. Rayton and S. HutchinsonRoutledge, 2009, ISBN: 9780415427807

How and why do human-resource practices link to organizational performance? This issue has been the subject of extensive research and hot debate for two decades.

Edited by a respected team of academic researchers, People Management and Performance offers a comprehensive and skilful weaving of academic theory with case studies. It presents an “HR causal-chain model” and highlights employee attitudes such as affective commitment and the discretionary behaviors understood to characterize high performance.

The authors aim is to theorize the “how” – that is, the sequence of processes involved in the practice of HRM, applicable across a range of contexts. In doing so, they provide much-needed clarity, through exploration and evaluation of how HRM and performance may most helpfully be conceptualized and the implications for understanding HRM practice. Targeted at final-year and postgraduate students of HRM as well as HRM practitioners, the book seeks to steer a course between highly sophisticated analysis and more journalistic accounts. It is a tall order.

A significant strength of the book is the clarity and logic of its structure. It begins by considering the irony of a growing consensus about the association between HRM and performance in theory, while in practice HRM specialists potentially face marginalization. The suggestion is that trends towards outsourcing, e-enabled HRM and devolving the day-to-day practice of HRM to first-line managers, as well as increasingly flexible models of the firm, all threaten to dilute the role of HR specialists.

However, such developments also help to explain the appeal of the so-called “business partner” role of HRM specialists and the significance of ongoing attempts to understand the ways in which HRM practices influence individual and organizational performance.

The challenge has been to develop robust theoretical explanations of the “how” and “why” of the HRM-performance linkage that are capable of withstanding academic critique while being relevant to HR practice, and which enhance the credibility of HRM in the eyes of skeptics.

The first section discusses and evaluates existing research and outlines the main issues. This establishes the background to, and context of, the causal-chain model, which the authors then present.

Next is a detailed exposition of this model, including its relevance for practice. The exposition is based on considerations of context, practices, processes and the outcomes of HR practice.

Third, a range of case studies demonstrates the relevance of the model to different organizations and business sectors.

The authors conclude with a detailed discussion of the possible implications for practice and for research.

The chapters consider each of the links in this proposed causal-chain model in turn, including the importance of organizational culture and values, and intended versus enacted HR practices.

The text places employee perceptions at the heart of the HRM-performance issue. The book also emphasizes the ways in which research into employee perceptions of the state of the psychological contract are relevant to theorizations of the HRM-performance link.

Particular emphasis is accorded throughout to the role of first-line managers in the day-to-day enactment of the various HR practices, which together may optimize performance by maximizing the ability, motivation and opportunity-to-perform of employees. The aim is to build the feelings of trust, job satisfaction and organizational commitment associated with how employees engage with organizational goals and with positive perceptions of the psychological contract.

However, the chapter devoted specifically to employees’ perceptions, attitudes and discretionary behavior is disappointing. The case-organization data presented highlight considerable variations in employees’ satisfaction and motivation levels as self-reported in different branches of a single retailer, where identical HR practices were in use.

Although the authors acknowledge the significance of the psychological contract and of context, the extent of the emphasis on the role-played by managers in eliciting motivation and discretionary effort underplays other factors that may also be at work. For example, employees play an active role in constructing employment relationships, rather than simply responding to employer behavior.

The book offers a simple framework to explain the “how” of people management and performance, but the “why” is inevitably more complicated. Practitioners need to understand both if they are to ensure that intended HRM practices do not have significant unintended consequences.

Reviewed by Karen Keith, of Newcastle Business School, University of Northumbria, UK.

A longer version of this review was originally published in Personnel Review, Vol. 38 No. 3, 2009.