People Management, Perspectives and Practices

Citation

Thakar, B. (2012), "People Management, Perspectives and Practices", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 20 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/hrmid.2012.04420caa.015

People Management, Perspectives and Practices

Article Type: Suggested reading From: Human Resource Management International Digest, Volume 20, Issue 3

Bharti ThakarThe Icfai University Press, 2010, ISBN 9788131407677

This book brings together several key contributions that deal with people management in organizations, thereby providing an up-to-date guide for efficient human resource management.

Bharti Thakar has managed to amass a collection of both theoretical and empirical original studies, which show the different aspects surrounding human resource management, based on the understanding that the competitive success of firms is dependent on the adequate management of these kinds of resources and the development of specific capabilities that satisfy the ever-changing needs of the environment. In order to achieve this objective, the book is divided into three sections: the first brings together a series of studies that describe the evolution of this area of management; the second focuses more on its importance and complexity, while the third section deals with people management in a variety of countries and sectors.

More precisely, in the first section (chapters 1 to 6), by means of an introduction, the author describes the evolutionary changes in this topic, from the Stone Age to the present knowledge era, highlighting the changes that have occurred in people management within organizations, according to the circumstances and the needs of different times, both for employers and employees.

The section begins by describing how relations between workers in industry have changed over time. In particular, Delan and Harris focus on studying industrial relations as the result of a symposium review, on the book written by Bruce E Kaufman. They examine the field of industrial relations at the start of the twentieth century as a group of strategic and tactical social reforms. It represents a significant contribution to the small, but growing, literature on the history of industrial relations. Apart from including comments on the quality of the book on which their chapter is based, these authors suggest that history is the ideal opportunity for the focus of studies such as these.

Another of the aspects examined in this section is reflected in the piece by Grantham and Ware on what motivates people to work, aside from purely economic reasons. Human resource management has continuously changed over the years, and now does not merely limit its scope to telling employees the tasks they are supposed to carry out, but addresses far more complex questions. This chapter underlines the needs of organizations at each moment for achieving the objectives it sets out.

One of the figures that has most evolved in the business world is that of the leader. The following chapter highlights how leadership has undergone enormous changes up to the present day and suggests possible future trends for this figure. This study is fundamentally a description of how we have gone from a transactional leadership to a transformational one, and are currently witnessing a style of leadership that is much more focused on people behavior and on the management of their skills and knowledge. For example, Crimmon indicates that the new concept of leadership is partly the result of a reconstruction of the concept of management, and of ceasing to label those that manage emotional needs, support and the reduction of anxiety as executive leaders. This overview of evolution includes an illustrative case on the imbalance between the training people currently receive and that which is necessary to face organizational change.

Such as previous studies (Palacio and Soriano, 2010; Peris-Ortiz, 2009; Rodríguez and Santos, 2009; Wakkee et al., 2010) that emphasize the need to bring training and education for employees up to date in order to prepare them for the changes ahead, the authors of this chapter, Bedell and Kritz, create a model that can be applied when the moment arrives for the firm to face and overcome such changes. It is an educational model applied to HR management, designed using functional criteria within an integral model. The new HR professionals have a better understanding of how HR activities fit into the big picture of the organization and the field of HR management has undertaken a process of significant change.

The studies that appear in the second block (chapters 7 to 12), include interesting new research in this area, along with a clear description of some basic concepts such as employee commitment, or the dissemination of information, variables that play an important role in the firm’s human resource management. This section bears witness to the need to integrate theoretical research with practical investigation, as organizational design, as far as human resources are concerned, is by no means a simple task. It also underlines the importance of the role played by human resource management in the changes that organizations have to face and in controlling conflicts in order for the firm to survive in a competitive context.

For their part, Cornelissen and Thorpe, in their chapter entitled “The validity and usefulness of management theories: a review”, present a review of the debate that has grown up around the relationship between theory and managerial practice. These authors state that managerial theory can be validated through its judicious use in organizational fits, as can be seen in some examples in the literature. In their analysis, they examine whether the application of theory to managerial practice can validate the predictive power of a theory and discuss the inferences that come into play when applying methodological theories. More than considering theory and practice in basically linear, one-dimensional terms, in the way that theory has previously been regarded in its dissemination and application, these authors suggest a more complex and dynamic approach involving a multitude of facets. The value of this study lies in the fact that it adopts a wide-reaching dynamic perspective between theory and practice within the field of human resource management.

Following this debate, the book focuses on more concrete aspects, for example, of how organizations often assume that it is possible to redesign an organization in the same way that engineers can design a new product, although this, according to Mitleton-Kelly, is an erroneous conclusion. The repeated failure of the restructuring of organizations provides significant evidence of the fact that a different perspective is required. This author describes a specific case, where the social, cultural, technical and political conditions are identified that must be borne in mind as a whole in order to create a “permissive framework” on the part of those involved in order to be able to redesign an organization without excessive problems.

Organizations have a structure, but often these structures must change in order to adapt to new needs. However, organizations frequently outlast the people that work within them, although for this to happen, they have to develop certain skills (political, analytical, work-related, business-related …) in order to cope with change and help in the choice of correct strategy. Nickols, in “Change Management 101: a primer”, provides an ample description of the concept of change management. He aims his study, on the one hand, at firms that need to make changes for the first time and, on the other, at more experienced firms that wish to reflect on their experience in a more structured way, where they ask the questions “how”, “what” and “why”.

Another of the aspects addressed in this book is the rejuvenation of organizations in the study entitled “Corporate rejuvenation: a study of Indian firms’ post-economic reforms”. It contains an in-depth analysis of the internal and external factors that contribute to strategies for the process of rejuvenation. Mital describes in detail, and in the form of tables and charts, the possible strategies that can be adopted by the firm, identifying a total of 15 different rejuvenation strategies.

It would be true to say, however, that conflicts arise in every change, the pertinent question is how to adequately deal with them. Du Plessis, in his study “Conflict during the changing process: human resources’ role in 2002 and in 2010”, addresses the subject of conflict in the process of change, indicating that the absence of conflict regulation mechanisms invariably intensifies the size and intensity of such conflict. Conflict is more likely to arise in times of change, as traditional norms are questioned, leading to arguments. Change is the great challenge that must be faced by managers, particularly so in times to come.

This section ends with the description of a study of five large firms with more than 10.000 employees, namely: Dow Chemicals, ABN AMRO, Ford Motor Company, IBM and Belgacom. This study by Ruël, Bondarouk and Looise is entitled “e-HRM: innovation or irritation? an explorative empirical study in five large companies on web-based human resource management”. All of those the companies listed above are examples of large firms that have been able to manage their human resource data electronically. The use of databases in a web format (e-HRM) is an innovation that can generate opportunities for improving the relationships between different hierarchical levels of the organization, improving communication flows among them. Alternatively, this system may not turn out to be quite so positive (irritation) when objectives are neither sufficiently clear nor realistic enough, nor when they do not fit the needs of managers or of the firm itself.

The third and final section, entitled experience, includes four more pieces of research (chapters 13 to 16), where four examples or models of learning in human resource management within organizations are presented. Emmentt, in his study, “Participatory management team meeting rules (as posted proudly in the conference room of the City of South Lake Tahoe Police Department)”, points out that, currently, there is a fair amount of debate on participative management, and in particular on the type of policies that should be used. Apart from providing an overview of the topic of participative management, this chapter also presents its own study on the subject, using the Hawthorne Studies as a starting point. The study runs over a 14-year period. The lessons learnt from these years of experience with a participative, active management is that workers value empowerment over their workplace. And empowered workers take that empowerment to the streets; translating it into a greater sense of community as they practice community-oriented policing. Besides which, it is necessary to create a series of rules for meetings and that all concerned need to follow these rules without question.

In the second case in this section, “Reform of top management systems in Japan” Hidetaka, contemplates the Executive Officer System (EOS), which is a reform of managerial systems in Japanese firms towards the end of the 1990s. The boards of directors of Japanese firms are generally characterized by being made up of a large number of managers, with an internal hierarchy and a low percentage of foreigners. The majority of the members of these boards are people that have worked their way up through the firm. This author analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of this type of structure for top management in firms in Japan and proposes the restructuring of such boards, presenting cases of firms that have improved by reforming their boards of directors by putting EOS into practice, particularly in strategic decision-making. The debate on how to govern a firm is carried out both at a country, or macro level, and on a micro level.

The following case, entitled “People management in IT industry: issues and imperatives”, analyzes several software firms in India, a country that currently enjoys an enviable position in this industry. Such firms employ software professionals that are, by in large, young and consummately expert. IT firms encourage several human resource practices in order to allow such professionals to work efficiently in order to achieve the objectives set out by the organization. The expression “professional” in this industry is specific to their capabilities. One of the secrets to success, according to Dasari, is that the management of firms with these types of professionals is, to a large extent, down to gaining loyalty to the firm. The chapter also indicates some of the future trends for this industry in India.

In the last of the cases described in this section, Gebauer and Cherkas present the chapter entitled “From people success to business success”; a study from the insurance sector using the case of the firm Towers Perrin, with 86,000 employees around the world, present in 16 different countries. The article lays emphasis on the main elements that attract, hire and maintain employees in the insurance industry, as well as best practices on the part of the department in charge of people management. This study provides an interesting guide to successfully managing employees in this sector, satisfying both the needs of the firm and its employees. Its starting point is the understanding of the implications of manpower in the firm’s business plan for developing the talents of its staff according the firm’s needs within a particular period of time (Ekinci and Dawes, 2009; Fuller-Love, 2009; Iglesias, 2009; Karatepe and Kilic, 2009; Tortosa-Edo et al., 2010; Yang, 2009; Warren et al., 2009). In order for this to happen, it is necessary to clearly be aware of the capabilities the firm currently boasts and those it will need in the future for achieving those objectives, thereby facing up to the competition from other firms in the sector.

For this system to develop in the right way, the firm must have people that are adequately trained to oversee the process. Moreover, the firm must ensure that it has leaders and directors that are sufficiently competent (visible and accessible). And perhaps what is more important is that the firm must provide the right context for increasing the development of the capabilities possessed by its people, thereby enhancing one of the major assets in a service firm: people.

In short, we can conclude that this book brings together a series of original valuable studies that shed some new light on the subject matter, thereby permitting a deeper understanding of what is necessary for efficient human resources management. It is a vision of the larger picture, and close attention has been paid to the individual aspects addressed in each chapter, to the structure of the work as a whole and the choice of studies included therein. Thus it can be stated that this is a very worthwhile collection of studies from Bharti Thakar.

Having read this book, one can get a real picture of some of the advances in human resource management in organizations, as well as the importance of managing people correctly in order to adapt to the needs created by the changes that organizations have to face (Coelho et al., 2010; Lee et al., 2009; Shiu and Yu, 2010; Thach and Kidwell, 2009; Valle and Castillo, 2009). Also clearly reflected herein is the fact that there is still a long road ahead in this field, particularly in the knowledge society we are now living in, where the people that work for a firm are a key resource. Their correct management can constitute an important competitive advantage for the firm in question.

For researchers and managers interested in taking a deeper look at the current trends in human resource management, people management, perspectives and practices may prove to be a valuable source of ideas

Reviewed by Ma del Mar Benavides Espinosa, University of Valencia, Spain.

A longer version of this review was originally published in Management Decision, Vol. 49 No. 1, 2011.