Strategic Human Resources

Purpose – This paper aims to unfold the path of how the complexity of culture issues leads to a rising pressure for paradigm changes in the research on culture in international management. In terms of academic debate about culture, the crucial paradigm shift has not yet happened. Research and writing are still dominated by a mechanistic-rational approach which does not quite know to handle cultural phenomena which by nature are mutuable, often transient and invariably context-specific. Rising pressure is observed for paradigm changes through three main trends: integration of West-East dichotomy, coexistence of convergence and divergence; and dynamic vs static perspectives. It is argued that the unresolved debate on the culture construct and its measurement, the epistemological stance by researchers and associated methodological choices in culture studies reinforce these trends pressuring for a paradigm shift. Design/methodology/approach – This paper reviews the knowledge based on culture studies to establish the contributions of culture studies in international business and the foundation of its knowledge base. The conceptual foundation of culture, its multi-level and multi-dimensionality and critical issues in research epistemology and methodology are analyzed to discuss emerging trends in the process of an imminent paradigm change. Findings – By unfolding the nature of abstract and high-order definition of culture, the focus is on deciphering the complex construct and multi-level and multi-dimensionality in measurement, which, in turn, interact with the epistemology of culture researchers and the choice of methodology used to carry out culture studies. Eventually the interaction of the three studied elements drives the proposed three paradigmatic changes in the evolving business environment. Research limitations/implications – The identified trends in existing culture research keep the importance of culture studies in international business management thriving as we point to their relevance for the envisaged paradigm shift. Practical implications – The three paradoxes discussed challenge researchers who aim to contribute to the knowledge base of culture in international business. In addition, the debate cannot be ignored by international business managers as culture is a key informal institutional driver that influences international business performance. Originality/value – The review of the knowledge base on culture studies in management contributes to a better understanding of the envisaged paradigmatic shift of the discipline. The debate on the complexity of culture studies is extended to three tendencies for potential paradigmatic change, with implications discussed to suggest future research.

Endlessly changing business and economic landscapes urge organizations to become resilient to ensure business survival and growth. Yet, in many cases, business world is becoming turbulent faster than organizations are becoming resilient. Relevant research indicates the ways through which organizations could respond to unforeseen events, mainly through suggesting that individual and group resilience could lead to an organizational one. However, research is nascent on how particularly human resource development (HRD) resilience could be
built, and thus to contribute to organizational resilience as well.Within
today’s business uncertainty and complexity, HRD resilience comes in
line with the developmental strategies of organizations. Therefore, the
purpose of this perspective article is to set the foundations of the term
(HRD resilience) in order to initiate a dialogue around its ability tomake
a substantial contribution to organizational practice, and thus to be
seen as a new ‘success element’ of organizational resilience.

Constantly changing business and economic environments have challenged organizations to rethink the crucial role of their human resource development (HRD) policies and practices in relation to individual and organizational competitiveness , change and growth. Being proactive/strategic, in HRD terms, corresponds to the concept of strategic HRD maturity, a state evidenced by a specific set of strategic characteristics , but research into this concept within the challenging context of the economic crisis is limited, as is research into employees' perceptions of it. Previous research has been applied mostly within 'static' business and economic environments , with much of the existing strategic HRD models neglecting employees' perspectives. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 42 bank employees in Greece, with the aim of examining their perceptions of strategic HRD before and after the global financial crisis. The study raises important questions for both HRD academics and practitioners because its findings indicate a setback in the development of HRD. Whilst there were a few contradicting perceptions, the dominant employee view was that strategic HRD was a theoretical notion rather than an organizational reality.

Research is conducted to identify impact of adopting Strategic HRM on HR outcomes (i.e. job satisfaction and organizational commitment) and performance measures (i.e. organizational and, individual performance) in order to the fill empirical gap in developing economy’s context. Cased based survey approach has been adopted to retrieve the evidence from companies. Three organizations are studied in depth to identify the evidence about strategic role of HRM. Objectivism has been adopted to test ontological assumption whereas positivism has been incorporated to test the epistemological assumption to prove the nature of reality about Strategic HRM. Results depict that effective Strategic HRM adoption can help companies to enhance the work attitudes’ of staff along with company's performance. Study has extended universal perspective of Strategic HRM. Study accepts that HR paradigm is shifting in to prove HR as strategic business partner in developing economies. Results reveal that Strategic HRM is positively associated with HR outcomes and performance measures and varies between companies of different sizes. Practitioners are encouraged to adopt Strategic HRM with the trust that company’s performance will be improved by addressing the HR outcomes. Thus companies that align HR function and practices perform better and produce satisfied and committed employees for enhanced individual and organizational performance in developing economies like Pakistan.

Non-governmental organizations are facing a competing demand of providing high-quality services in front of reduced funds. Good management contributes positively to use their resources efficiently.
This report centers on the importance of Human resources practices to provide the perception of how HRM relates to organizational performance. The paper investigates how the HR programs and HR practices have the potential, to contribute positively to performance and facilitate organizational effectiveness. It provides further insight into strategic orientations that enhance employee skills and motivation.
These are considered significant means for coping with challenges, particularly in challenging economic, political and social environments.

Although there is a consensus that Strategic Human Resource Development
(SHRD) can play an important role within organisations, the ways in which it is
operationalised during periods of business and economic uncertainty and complexity remains under-researched. This research explores the adoption and maturity of SHRD in Greek banks within the challenging context of the economic crisis. It examines how SHRD is perceived and operationalised within both financial institutions through the respective lenses of different HRD stakeholders. It further identifies the factors that can constrain or facilitate the adoption and maturity of SHRD in organisations. A modified SHRD framework (with its set of strategic characteristics) is proposed so to assess and evaluate SHRD maturity in both organisations.
The study draws upon qualitative research data from two case studies, reporting
on 76 semi-structured interviews with HR staff, branch managers and front-line
employees, complemented by documentary analysis. Research data was interpreted
through a pre and post-crisis assessment so to allow for an in-depth investigation into  people’s perspectives on the understanding and maturity of SHRD over time. Research evidence highlights the complexity being attached to stakeholders’
 understanding of SHRD, with their perceptual contradiction to be noticed. There is also mixed evidence on the employment of the strategic criteria, and of their respective indicators, in both cases. However, a striking observation suggests HRD practices being proved “environmentally-integrated” (fully aligned with new business objectives, besides their short-term orientation) in terms of their responsiveness to the constantly changing business environments. Finally, economic crisis has been identified as the major impeding factor of SHRD, with other factors to follow.
The thesis’ original contribution derives from applying a modified SHRD
framework within the challenging context of an economic crisis (thus addressing previous models’ limitation of being assessed within “static” business and economic environments). The study also advances qualitative research through its adopted methodological approach (case study research strategy, before-and-after research design, multi-constituent research perspective). Finally, it contributes to SHRD literature by extending a large amount of knowledge within a different/specific
industrial and national context.

This paper gives account on socio-cultural changes, the
territorial dispute and the different conceptions of the good life
that we find among the indigenous peoples Tojolabal, Tseltal and
tsotsil who live and have colonized Selva-Chiapas border region.

In the era of digital transformation, the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) has become as a must to achieve more people with affordable prices.Hence, in the delivery of psychological testing,the psychologists, counselors, and other experts become more and more integrated into the use of the ICT.Such integration would not only help to achieve more people, particularly those who are under privilege, but would also improve the quality, flexibility, and the rapidness of the services. In the global era, the importance of psychological testing has been markedly increasing in education as well in business world. However, the accessing more people and preparing the reports for those people are expensive and need more time. Therefore, most of the counseling and psychology based centers and institutions have preferred to use intensively the psychological testing by using ICT.

This paper has focused on the usage of ICT on psychological testing in one of the selected public university in Turkey. The aim is to find out why psychologists and counselors,and even students use ICT on psychological testing and their perceptions and expectations about this new service. A simple random sampling was chosen to select 38 undergraduate students who had taken the psychological testing online. Two psychologists and three counsellors, who had been using ICT on psychological testing more than 8 months, were engaged to the research. In the research study, the phenomenological analysis had been preferred by giving nine research questions. The participants had answered why they used this service, and what were their perceptions and expectations in the semi-structured interviews.

By using Atlas.ti 7, the collected data were studied critically.The findings of this study revealed that the psychologists and counselors use ICT on psychological testing for reaching more students. More importantly, according to the participants as experts, the number of attendance has increased significantly because of the flexibility of time and space. Additionally, the quality of testing has improved dramatically due to the ICT’s effectiveness and efficiencies in collecting and storing data. Furthermore, as the psychologists and counselors point out, they have spent less time in reporting and they find better opportunities to collect more data and to make comparative studies.According to them, even though their perceptions and expectations about using ICT on psychological testing are negative at the beginning, they change after seeing the positive sides for themselves as well for the students.

Furthermore, most of the students (98%) clarify that they enjoy being parts of this service since it is easy, friendly use, flexible, attractive, and innovative. Since they can access even through the social media, the large number of the students (86%) have clarified that integration of ICT through the use of chat rooms, email and social networking, they become more interested and being aware about certain aspects.Even though a large number of them (91%) say that they like to have face-to-face relationship with the psychologists and counselors, they all agree that ICT increase visibility, affordability, and accessibility of the service. In conclusion, the study recommends that ICT would play important roles to achieve more and more students with a few experts since they increase capacity building by improving visibility, affordability, and accessibility of the service.
keywords: ict, psychological testing, higher education, visibility, affordability, accessibility.