International Journal of Research in Engineering Technology and Management
ISSN 2347 - 7539
A Study HRM is the Backbone of Organization Development
Dr. Amit Kumar Gupta1
1
Associate Professor, Shriram institute of management, Jabalpur, MP, India
Abstract
Human Resource Management (HRM) and the practices have gain amplified interest by the researchers due to its impact on
employee retention. Past researches showed substantial evidence linking between human resource management practice,
employees’ level of organizational commitment and their turnover intention. The main endeavour of this study is to explore the
impact of human resource management practice on employees work related attitude and behaviour by solely focusing on DHL
Company. Seven component of human resource functions namely job design, HR planning, recruitment and selection, training and
development, compensation, performance management and employee relations have been chosen as a focal point to investigate
the mediating role of entirely new concept in organizational behaviour field - job embed deadness.
Keywords: Human Resource (HR), Information Technology (IT), ANOVA Test, Chi-Square Test.
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1. INTRODUCTION
The HRM function in organizations has gained increasing
strategic emphasis, and the importance of its alignment
HRM and business strategies is well-acknowledged. In fact,
effective HRM is vital in order to be able to meet the market
demands with well-qualified employees at all times.
Technology and HRM have a broad range of influences
upon each other, and HR professionals should be able to
adopt technologies that allow the reengineering of the HR
function, be prepared to support organizational and workdesign changes caused by technology, and be able to support
a proper managerial climate for innovative and knowledgebased organizations. These technological advances are being
driven primarily by strong demands from human resource
professionals for enhancement in speed, effectiveness, and
cost containment.
Snell, Stueber, and Lepak observe that HRMSs can meet the
challenge of simultaneously becoming more strategic,
flexible, cost-efficient, and customer-oriented by leveraging
information technology. Many experts forecast that the PC
will become the central tool for all HR professionals. Virtual
HR is emerging due to the growing sophistication of IT and
increased external structural options. IT is beginning to
enable organizations to deliver state of-the-art HR services,
and reduced costs have enabled companies, regardless of the
firm size-to purchase HR technologies.
One of the impacts of IT is that it enables the creation of an
IT- based workplace, which leads to what should be a
manager’s top priority-namely, strategic competence
management. Advances in IT hold the promise of meeting
many of the challenges of HRM, such as attracting,
retaining, and motivating employees, meeting the demands
for a more strategic HR function, and managing the “human
element” of technological change in the future. HRM could
support the efforts of technological innovation’s to achieve
high performance while such innovation; itself could serve
as an approach to enable the HR function to focus more on
value-added activities in order to realize the full potential of
technology and organizational strategy. The biggest benefit
of using IT in HRM to organizations is the freeing of HR
staff from intermediary roles, thus enabling them to
concentrate on strategic planning in human resource
organization and development. Caudron has also observed
that IT can automate other routine tasks such as payroll
processing, benefits administration, and transactional
activities, so that HR professionals are free to focus on more
strategic matters such as boosting productivity.
In the present context of increasing globalization, employing
organizations and their environments have become
increasingly complex. Managers in these organizations face
growing difficulties in coping with workforces that may be
spread across a variety of countries, cultures and political
systems. Given such trends, IT has considerable potential as
a tool that managers can utilize, both generally and in
human resourcing functions in particular to increase the
capabilities of the organization.
Substantial benefits of communication and information
technologies can seamlessly migrate to HR applications.16
Those managing the human resource functions have not
ignored such advice and, as a result a widespread use of
human resource information systems (HRIS) has taking
place.17 An HRIS is a systematic procedure for collecting,
storing, maintaining, retrieving and validating the data
needed by an organization for its human resources,
personnel activities and organization unit characteristics.18
HRISs can also provide the management with a decisionmaking tool rather than merely a robust database.19
Turek20 offers numerous examples of how HR technology
has reduced the response time and enhanced the quality of
HR service in the workplace.
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International Journal of Research in Engineering Technology and Management
A research paper by a Cincinnati, Ohio-based HRIS
consulting firm, Insight Consulting Partners (ICP),notes that
enterprise applications tend to push organizations toward
more centralized and integrated HR and IT infrastructures.
Thus, HRIS can support long-term planning with
information for labor force planning as well as supply and
demand forecasts, staffing with information on equal
employment, separations and applicant qualifications, and
development with information on training program costs and
trainee work performance. It can also support compensation
programs, salary forecasts, pay budgets, labor/employee
relations with information on contract negotiations, and
employee assistance needs.
Doran, a consultant with more than 25 years of experience,
insists that behind every successful HRIS implementation
there is a thorough need analysis. Further, literature suggests
that success in the implementation phase relies on the ability
of managers to manage change.
This is further supported by Shrivastava and Shaw’s
observations that, despite evidence of increasing use of HR
related technology by individual firms, there has been little
theory development in this area. Similar observations
demonstrate that the existing literature has paid little
attention to assessing the impact of IT on HRM in various
organizations in different sectors in a systematic way.
Studies conducted by Elliott & Tevavichulada32 and
Currie33 represent some progress in this direction. They
have indicated that the sector in which the organization
operates is significant in terms of influencing the structure
of IT activities.
Some authors have also attempted to identify differences of
the role of IT between services and process oriented
industries, and found significant differences. Most of the
existing studies were conducted in western Europe and in
the United States, and their result may not be applicable to
the other parts of the world due to social and economical
differences. Comparatively, very little has been researched
in this field in the developing countries.
Turkey is a relatively highly populated republic, and is the
world’s 17th most industrialized nation. Turkey has
undergone a series of major changes throughout the last
decade, such as entrance into Customs Union with the
European Union (EU) in 1996 and the inclusion on the list
of candidate countries for membership in 1999.These
changes have had a certain impact on organizations’ HRM
strategies and, as such, these organizations have started to
invest significant resources in automating their HR
departments. Most of the research in this field in the country
is based on rather general HRM issues, including as the need
for international approach in HRM, globalization and HRM,
computer-aided human resource evaluation in organizations,
scheduling jobs through multiple parallel channels by an
expert system, success factors in women’s career
ISSN 2347 - 7539
advancement national profiles and regional differences,
impact of culture, individual tendencies and leadership
values.
Due to these conditions this study investigates in what ways
organizations from different sectors are using IT
technologies to perform various HRM functions in an
effective way in Turkey. Here, organizations were selected
from government, public and private sectors to ascertain
IT’s impact and its implementation to perform HRM
functions in a systematic way. For the purpose of this study
the term “government” refers to national government
departments. We used “public” as the third category since it
represents institutions which are concerned with
decentralized services such as universities, local
government, healthcare and non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) aimed at providing nonprofit public services and
hence do not easily fall into private or government sector
category. Such a categorization is relevant insofar as the
differences exist in the mission statements of these
sectors.51 Furthermore, this study attempts to identify those
IT tools and technologies which are popular, alongside their
rate of implementation in HRM in organizations.
The remainder of this article is organized as follows: The
following section introduces the evolution of HRM systems
from an early stage to the present through a review of
associated literature. This is followed by research
methodology. The results of the study are then presented
and discussed. Finally, the paper ends with the conclusion
and future research directions.
In order to retain talented employees, a good organizational
human resource management (HRM) practice is needed to
be in place. According to Whitener (2001), a HRM practice
is perceived by employees as employer’s commitment to
them. This is further illustrated by Eisenberger, Huntington,
Hutchison & Sowa (1986) that employer’s support and
commitment has rooted to the employees’ commitment
towards their organizations. Human resource experts (for
example, Kochan and Dyer, 1993; Pfeffer, 1994) advocates
that a HRM practice is potentially the unique source of the
sustainable competitive verge for organizations. As such, an
organizational HRM practice is needed to be managed
strategically by organizations in order to retain their talented
employees and to promote organizational commitment
(OC).
Organizational HRM practice has gained amplified attention
over the years due to its impact on employee retention. It is
believed that good HRM practice will minimize employee
turnover. Voluntary employee turnover is explained by two
factors namely individual-level factors, such as personal
preferences and organizational-level factors, such as HRM
practice (Deutsch, Langton & Aldrich, 2000). At the
organizational level of analysis, scholars (Huselid, 1995;
Shaw, Delery, Jenkins & Gupta, 1998) have established that
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Volume: 02 Issue: 02 | Mar-2014, Available @ http://www.ijretm.com| Paper id - IJRETM-2014-02-02-318
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International Journal of Research in Engineering Technology and Management
HRM practice is likely to decrease voluntary employee
turnover.
Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski, & Erez, (2001) have
offered relatively new approach job embeddedness (JE) in
identifying the affiliation between HRM practice and
employee turnover intention (TI). In contrast to traditional
view that employees remain in their job due to job
satisfaction, Mitchell and colleagues argued that employees
willing to stay in their current job as they are influenced and
embedded by both on and off job social network. This
present study is therefore attempted to explore the
relationship between HRM practice, organizational
commitment, and employee intention to quit with job
embeddedness as a mediating factor.
2. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The first objective of the present study is to scrutinize the
role of HRM. Next, the current study focuses on the
relationship between HRM practice and its impact on
employee attitude and behaviour. Lastly, this study
investigates whether job embeddedness mediates the
relationship between HRM practice, organizational
commitment and employees’ turnover intention.
Results from this study will be shared in development of an
effective and competent HRM retention schemes for DHL.
As talent and retention management are highly important
strategic tool for organizations, it can create a unique
workforce with committed employees. It can guarantee
ongoing success in industry and to be a market leader by
improve the organizations ability to select and retain highly
capable and motivated employees.
Hence this research intends to:
1. To examine the role of HRM.
2. To observe the relationship between HRM practice and
organizational commitment.
3. To scrutinize the relationship between HRM practice and
turnover intention
4. To look at the mediating effect of job embeddedness on
the relationship between HRM and
organizational
commitment
5. To examine the mediating effect of Job Embeddedness on
the relationship between HRM and turnover intention.
3. HRM PRACTICE
HRM concept implied that employees are resources of the
employer. HRM is blend of policies, practices and systems
that influence employees’ behaviour, attitudes, and
performance. (Noe, Hollenback, Gerhart & Wright, 2008, p.
2). Armstrong, (1999) defined HRM as a tactical and
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strategic way to attain, develop, manage and motivate and
gaining the commitment of the employees. HRM is seen as
“the available talents and energies of people who are
available to an organization as potential contributors to the
creation and realization of the organization’s mission,
vision, strategy and goals” (Jackson and Schuler, 2000, p.
37).
Few scholars (Guest, 1990; Pfeffer, 1994; Schuler and
Jackson, 2005; Schuler and MacMillan, 1984) have
identified that HRM can be source for competitive
advantage of a company and company performance is
influenced by a set of effective HRM practice. McMillan
(1983) argued that the emerging importance of HRM
practice tends to be overlooked by many organizations as a
tool to achieve a competitive advantage.
Academicians (Gerhart and Milkovich 1990, Pfeffer 1998)
identified that HRM practice is the backbone of an
organization.
Thus
achieving
an
organizational
accomplishment needs to be facilitated by employment of
sophisticated HRM infrastructure (Schuler and Jackson,
1987) and HRM practice needs to be strategically designed,
installed and adopted to promote desirable outcomes.
HRM practice is described as managing a pool of
organizational activities and direct them towards the
fulfilment of organizational goals and objectives (Schuler
and Jackson, 1987; Schuler and MacMillan, 1984). HRM
practice is traditionally has been used to attract, retain, and
motivate employees (Schuler, 1984). HR systems are
developed over the years to manage and support human
capital (Gramm and Schnell,2001).
Scholars (Arthur, 1994; Huselid, 1995) have identified that
HRM practice has a huge impact on employee behaviors and
attitudes. This is further supported by researchers (Cable and
Parsons, 2001; Feldman 2003; Spector ,1997) which was
cited by Chew, (2005) pointed out that employee attitude
and value which are aligned with corporate vision will lead
to continues prosperity and growth of an organizations. Thus
we can argue that HRM practice plays a crucial role in
developed and mold employees’ behavior towards the
organizations goals.
Over the years, many researches have been carried out
linking HRM practice to the various aspects of
organization’s functions. HRM practice has been
acknowledged as one of the contributing factors for
economic growth. Social, political and technological
development of many nations has been associated with
effective HRM practice.
There is a growing body of work on HRM practice and
organizational performance in recent years (e.g., Budhwar
and Katou, 2010; Jones and Wright, 1992; Kleiner, 1990;
Lin and Chen, 2007; Sanchez, Jimenez, Carnicer, & Perez,
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International Journal of Research in Engineering Technology and Management
2007; Shahzad,Bashir, & Ramay, 2008; Ya-Fen Tseng and
Tzai-Zang Lee, 2009) showed an important linkage between
HRM practice and organizational performance. HRM
practice is identified as resource for organizations continues
growth and sustainable competitive advantage in business
arena (Pfeffer, 1994). The studies by (Holbrook and Hughes
2003; Roffe 1999) recommended that good HRM practice
have significant impact on the organization’s performance
innovation. On top of people management, Huselid, (1995)
argued that best HRM practice can linked to a better
financial performance.
4. THE IMPACT OF HRM
Impact of HRM practice on two important organizational
outcome were acknowledged in previous researches where
HRM practice were linked to lower employee turnover
(Huselid, 1995) and better employees’ organizational
commitment (Wright, Gardner, Moynihan, & Allen, 2005).
Therefore, the present study intends to 20examine the
impact of HRM practice on DHL employee’s level of
commitment as well as their intent to stay with the
organization despite the utilization of HRM practice on
themselves, organizations also can gain competitive
advantage through application of their HRM practice on
others in particularly alliances with their suppliers,
customers and distributors. Toyota and Mercedes success in
coalition with their supplier and distribution channel to
ensure better quality, just-in-time and guarantee of 24-hour
service are good samples shows organizations collaboration
success with their HRM practice.
HRM practice has the capacity to align with business
objectives. Organizations classified HRM practice which
creates a clear, meaningful and compelling image to them.
Dessler (2003) argued that HRM practice consist of
everything that managers perform from recruit, select, train,
communicate, evaluate and terminate employees.
Huselid (1995) identified eleven HRM practice namely
personnel selection, performance appraisal, incentive
compensation, job design, grievance procedures,
information sharing,
attitude assessment, labor management participation,
recruitment efforts, employee training and promotion
criteria as significant and employed them in his study.
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Depending on the size of the organization and the business
nature, the HR department has responsibility for various of
practice that deal with the needs and activities of the
organization's employees. Few of the common HRM
practice are namely recruiting, hiring, training, organization
development, communication, performance management,
coaching, policy recommendation, salary and benefits,
employee relations and leadership.
5. CONCLUSIONS
Management of human resources is not the only task of
personnel department. It is important activity of every
manager. Every manager in the organization is responsible
for the recruitment, selection, development and maintenance
of human esources of the people at work. The HRM
department simply assists them or guides them by training
various policies and programme. Human Resource
Management is a process of bringing people and
organizations together so that the goals of each other are
met. The role of HR manager is shifting from that of a
protector and screener to the role of a planner and change
agent. Personnel Directors are the new corporate heroes.
Thus, Human Resource Management should be linked with
strategic goals and objectives in order to improve business
performance and develop organizational cultures that foster
innovation and flexibility. The goals and objectives should
be based on 3 H’s of Heart, Head and Hand i.e., we should
feel by Heart, think by Head and implement by Hand.
6. REFERENCES
[1]. Balyan R.K. & Shah S.P. Human Resource
Management
&
Industrial
Relations,Mahajan
Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 2003-04
[2]. Jain Nabhi Kumar,Handbook for NGOs, Nabhi
publications, Delhi, 2005
[3]. Nagendra Shilja, Voluntary Organizations and Social
Work, OXFORD Book Company, Delhi, 2007
[4]. Vashishth Neeru,Students’ guide to Management,
Taxmann Allied Services, Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi, 2003
Compensation is one of the most common HRM practices
which is identified as an indirect reward given to an
employee as a part of organizational membership (Mathis
and Jackson, 2004). Training is another HRM practice
which is viewed as an important investment for future
success (Zeithmal and Bitner, 2004). Gritz, (1993) further
21 convinced that training remains a major employee
development activity. Kulik, (2004) demonstrated
recruitment and selection as a sequence of process attracting
a pool of applicants to select the best among them.
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