Showing papers by "Wayne F. Cascio published in 2012"

Short Introduction to Strategic Human Resource Management: What is strategy?

Abstract: This book is about human resource (HR) strategy – the decisions, processes, and choices that organizations make about managing people . It is designed as a primer for students in master of business administration (MBA) or HR programs, as well as for HR and organization leaders and general managers. It aims to provide an overview of the elements of human resource plans at the strategic, operational, unit, and functional levels. It is more than that, however. A unique aspect of this book is that we have incorporated a consistent perspective that human resource or human capital strategy is also about risk optimization and management. It is difficult to consider any arena of management without attention to risk, and this is especially true in the arena of human capital. Integrating risk into human resource strategy is a less traditional way to approach the topic, but an increasingly uncertain world demands such a perspective. Not only is it important to incorporate risk more explicitly into the framework of human capital strategy, but also, we believe, doing so will enhance and extend the paradigms of human capital planning in new and useful directions, producing a unique perspective for leaders inside and outside the HR function. We will have much more to say about risk optimization and management in later chapters. The purpose of this opening chapter is to explore some of the fundamental ideas that underpin organizational strategy in general, because organizational strategy is the foundation of human resource strategy.

Methodological issues in international HR management research

Abstract: Methodological issues can be particularly thorny considerations in international HR management research. If not addressed properly, they can severely undermine valid inferences and limit the ability to generalize to populations of interest. More generally, they can lead to unsound recommendations regarding the practice of international management. This article considers five such methodological issues: translation, conceptual, functional, and metric equivalence when assessment or survey questions are used in different languages and cultural contexts; the use of multiple, overlapping constructs and common methods bias; limitations of measures of internal-consistency reliability (coefficient alpha); sampling strategies; and non-response bias. The article defines each issue, identifies the implications of failure to address it, and suggests alternative strategies to ensure valid inferences.

Short Introduction to Strategic Human Resource Management

Abstract: This Short Introduction to Strategic Human Resource Management provides a concise treatment of the key elements of strategic HRM using an innovative risk-management approach. It emphasizes the importance of the decisions, processes and choices organizations make about managing people and shows how workforce management directly affects strategic organizational outcomes. It provides guidance for managers on how to make better human capital decisions in order to achieve strategic success more effectively. Reflecting an increasing uncertainty in global business, Cascio and Boudreau consider ways of dealing with risk in managing human capital. Numerous examples in every chapter illustrate key points with real business cases from around the world.

Short Introduction to Strategic Human Resource Management: Future forces and trends driving HR strategy

Abstract: Consider a recent newspaper headline: “Most companies lose top talent.” Fully 75 percent of employers in a Manpower Group survey reported that they voluntarily lost at least some of their most high-performing employees between 2010 and 2011. Is this a cause for concern? Certainly. The risk of losing key talent, especially members of talent pools in which investments in the quantity or quality of people can have a major impact on an organization’s ability to achieve sustainable strategic success, is one of the highest-ranked HR risks. These are known as pivotal talent pools. A critically important question that senior leaders must address with respect to strategy is “How will we compete and defend?” This implies two things, symbolized by the Chinese characters for the word “risk”: crisis and opportunity (as we noted in Chapter 4). Just to refresh your memory, “risk” refers to an undesirable outcome and its consequences, while “opportunity” refers to a desirable outcome and its consequences. A danger is that firms focus their HR strategies only on “defending” against undesirable outcomes, such as the loss of key talent, regulatory/compliance issues, or shortages of critical talent within an organization’s workforce. Do not allow this perspective to dominate the way that leaders approach human resource strategy! Doing so might blindside the organization to important opportunities. Taking advantage of opportunity, in turn, means placing your organization in a position to benefit from an uncertain future event. In this chapter, we present examples of firms that attempted to focus on both of these two faces of risk: crisis and opportunity.

Short Introduction to Strategic Human Resource Management: HR strategy: communication and engagement

Abstract: Can you use standard dimensions of risk management to determine and evaluate the pivotal elements of an organization’s talent strategy? Terry Gray and Matt Hankes, two human resource and organization effectiveness leaders at Cargill, have done just that. Recall from earlier chapters the dimensions of risk that were described by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations, shown here as Figure 6.1. Notice the front face of the cube, and its list of elements for addressing risk: objective setting; event identification; risk assessment; risk response; control activities; information and communication; and monitoring. At Cargill, decisions about human resource management strategy, programs, and policies are framed in terms of their impact on strategic risk factors, particularly when it comes to internal controls. Cargill already used the COSO framework for its risk management, so the framework provided a natural way to connect human capital strategy and decisions to the larger organizational risk objectives. Cargill HR leaders used several elements of the COSO framework to help their non-HR leaders better understand the impact of HR. For example, regarding the “control environment,” the Cargill HR audit process notes that it depends on integrity and ethical values, commitment to competence, management philosophy and operating style, organization structure, and authority and responsibility assignments. Leaders consider that these things are directly affected by factors such as unrealistic performance targets, the bonus structure, poor segregation of duties, excessive decentralization, and insignii cant or unpublicized penalties for improper behavior. The process asks a simple question: “Is HR involved in any of the above?” The answer is “Of course,” and this sets the tone for a deeper dialogue about how investments in people can create organization and talent outcomes that are pivotal to Cargill’s most vital risk issues.

Short Introduction to Strategic Human Resource Management: The external environment

Abstract: HR should be every company’s “killer app.” What could possibly be more important than who gets hired, developed, promoted, or moved out the door? Business is a game, and as with all games, the team that puts the best people on the field and gets them playing together wins. It’s that simple. Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric Among the choices and results of HR strategy are which people to “put on the field,” “when and where they play,” and “getting them to play together.” Today, the people who work for an organization may come from down the street or from across the sea. Moreover, they may be physically co-located or only “meet” virtually. “Getting them to play together” has never been more challenging, especially when the game is being played on a field and in a context that includes changing fan preferences, changing rules and regulations, global franchises, and the technology that enables, records, and broadcasts the game. In this chapter we identify some of the challenges that businesses face in today’s world. Our objective to is identify key forces and trends that are helping to shape how business is transacted, and how it will be transacted in the future, with particular emphasis on forces and trends that have implications for how strategy and human capital connect. Let us begin by considering two mega-trends: the effects of globalization and technology on organizations. Figure 2.1 illustrates other aspects of the external environments of organizations that we discuss in this chapter.