Human resource management strategies for small territories : an alternative proposition

TL;DR: The authors argue that small territories have, often blindly, accepted an industrial relations (IR) framework that is much more at home in the formalistic, mass production and mass employment based, manufacturing economies of the industrialised world.

About: This article is published in International Journal of Educational Development.The article was published on 2001-05-01 and is currently open access. It has received 15 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Human resource management & Industrial relations.

Summary

1. Preamble

• It is only in the last few decades that a serious attempt has been made to explore the idiosyncrasies of small territories.
• The fascination of the small, often island, site and its fair share of associated glamour and myth have no doubt contributed to such locations becoming academic curios, loaded with stereotypes uncritically accepted by one and all.

1.1. This paper

• This paper hopes to build on this rich pedigree.
• It adopts a fairly common definition of what constitute 'small territories' within this literaturenamely, countries that are either politically sovereign states or else have a fair degree of jurisdictional autonomy; while smallness of size is taken on the basis of a resident population cut-off point of around 1.5 million.
• The novelty of this paper lies mainly in its attempt to tackle the issue of educational development from a somewhat different, and still underexplored, perspective: that of human resource management (HRM).
• In the case of this particular article, the point of departure is the economy, the labour market setting and the centrality of a suitable human resource management policy that is sensitive to any specifics obtaining in small territories.
• This paper will argue that small territories have, often blindly, accepted an 'industrial relations' (IR) framework that is much more at home in the formalistic, mass production and mass employment based, manufacturing economies of the industrialised world.

2. The critical resource

• That the major resource of any particular organisation is, or lies in, its human endowment is a glib statement the authors may have heard all too often.
• In a world increasingly open and inevitably disposed towards global competition, organisations and firms are finding themselves sharing markets with adversaries who match, or exceed, their 'best practice' in terms of delivery times, quality levels and technological sophistication.
• All eyes therefore turn to the human resource department as that which may yet provide that crucial, critical edge and boost competitiveness to higher, dizzier levels.
• Critical among such rewards are programmes that flexibly address the education, training and development needs of personnel generally, at all levels of the organisational hierarchy.
• Human and intellectual capital are recognised as being just as vital to a firm as are financial and entrepreneurial capital.

3. Enter human resources

• The above philosophy and associated techniques would have been anathema a few years ago.
• The superiority of more flexible, 'just-in-time' production systems, with a high responsiveness to market signals, is now widely recognised (Monden, 1983) .
• The warlike, 'us and them' Human Resource Management practices have been conscripted in order to transform traditional enemies into allies, and to transform low-trust employment contracts into high-trust, commitment-rich, partnership agreements (Fox, 1974; Fukuyama, 1995; Cohen-Rosenthal and Burton, 1993) .
• In spite of the 'privatisation' of development, political and administrative structures continue to carry a major responsibility in maximising the competitiveness of their economies generally and of individual firms particularly.
• This situation may lead to an interesting paradox.

4. Five domains

• A wide and critical reading of the experiences of various small territories suggests that at least five key domains highlight the distinctive nature of such a deployment.
• With the obligation to provide the same roles and services forthcoming from larger social units, individuals in small territories are more likely to operate as sole service providers. "…[I]n a small coun-try, it is easy to hit the limelight" (Bray and Fergus, 1986, pp. 94-95) .
• In circumstances where specialisation is lucrative but where its demand is not necessarily regular and stable, occupational pluralism -having a multiple labour market orientation -is a viable strategy (see Comitas, 1963; Brookfield, 1975, p. 71; Baldacchino, 1995, p. 270) .
• The flexible deployment of person power, de-institutionalisation and person-specificity in labour relations encounters and the legitimacy of unitarism in small firms as well as among employees who may be part-time self-employed, act collectively to enshrine and bolster the value of the discrete person.

5. Discussion

• Such a conclusion raises at least two major concerns.
• First of all, it illustrates a condition that is in sharp contrast to received wisdom, highlighting the difference which may exist between imported "common sense" and home-grown "good sense" (Baldacchino and Greenwood, 1998) .
• One should not be surprised to find out that practitioners in small territories have intuitively known all along that human resource management is the preferable, indeed the only possible, strategy in their smallscale environment.
• Yet, they may have been obliged somehow to take on board the ceremonies and dispositions of traditional industrial relations because such a 'best practice' has been handed down to them from colonial masters, role models or seasoned consultants.
• There is nothing new in this observation.

5.2. Therapy or recognition?

• Some elements of 'person power' appear to clearly militate against the alleged proper functioning of organisations.
• This observation is not necessarily correct, however.
• Contemporary organisational theory has come to appreciate that there are useful variations to the classic organisational structure.

5.3. Implications for industrial relations

• Trade union organisations as well as managers bred in the traditional, 'personnel' mould will both instinctively feel threatened by such a development in the human resource field.
• Industrial Relations had given them predictable parameters in which to operate; where it was clearly the task of managers to control; and the task of trade union to react to such control.
• The new HR set-up now envisages a work situation where problem ownership is devolved and where increasingly empowered employees control their own actions.
• A high degree of co-ordination is crucial for web-structured firms to address the challenges of the market with 'disciplined dynamism'.

5.4. Implications for educational reform

• To facilitate the transition to a human resourcedriven work environment, specific reforms may be necessary in the sphere of education and training.
• The argument of this paper is now suggesting that they should go even further, boldly encouraging a personality development trajectory customised to the reality of their labour markets and their specific 'HR' challenges.
• Many territories, small or not so small, continue to deploy an educational system that has been largely transplanted from that of their erstwhile colonial masters.
• Indeed, educational systems may paradoxically work to stifle initiative and to encourage students to seek work in a traditional, wage/salary-earner status.
• Possibly, it may be the teachers themselves who provide the entrepreneurial role models that the authors are looking for in their educational systems.

6. Conclusion

• While there is general agreement that education has to respond to the changing needs of a country's social-economic development, the character of such a response remains the subject of perennial debate, a condition exacerbated by the high expectations stakeholders hold of education and its output.
• Small territories are not exempt from such tensions.
• While the stakeholders therein will also be pulling educational systems now this way, now the other, seeking an elusive balance between different social forces, the small territory appears to have a natural disposition towards rewarding empowerment and initiative; and this is one aspect of the 'ecology' of small scale that continues to remain unacknowledged.
• Meanwhile, human resource management strategies, like industrial relations, continue to be airlifted and parachuted to small polities from larger role models.
• Once again, the benefits of a different, home-grown, "good sense" approach to human resource development -the alternative proposition which drives the argument of this article -are totally lost.

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What are the contributions mentioned in the paper "Human resource management strategies for small territories: an alternative proposition" ?

This paper tackles the issue of educational development from a somewhat different, and still under-explored, perspective: that of human resource management ( HRM ). This paper argues that small territories have, often blindly, accepted an ‘ industrial relations ’ ( IR ) framework that is much more at home in the formalistic, mass production and mass employment based, manufacturing economies of the industrialised world. The paper identifies aspects of current industrial relations as well as educational practice that could be addressed in order to better tap the benefits of this different understanding of human resourcefulness. 

Q2. What are the main reasons why schools continue to emphasize individualistic, competitive skills?

Individual discretion and competence can and should continue to be encouraged; but schools continue to emphasise individually based forms of assignment and assessment; while students fresh out of (especially post-secondary) school have been criticised by bosses and managers for demonstrating poor leadership, co-operative and followership skills. 

Q3. What does a more inclusive curriculum help to do?

a more inclusivist and less academically driven curriculum helps to shift the educational system away from an elitist path for a minority who would tend to be lost to the system anyway though a brain or skill drain; as well as dampen a discrimination in favour of white-collar, non-technical employment. 

Q4. What is the pressure on the management of employees?

The pressure is now on for ‘employee affairs’ to graduate from a marginal department maintaining sickness, seniority, leave and disciplinary records to become strategically integrated with the overall business objectives of a firm (Robbins, 1983; Amaya, 1990). 

Q5. Why would information about the family be available in such a small-scale setting?

Information about their families, friends, favourite haunts, political beliefs would be available in such territories because of a much lower threshold of privacy. 

Q6. What is the developed and sustained of all these research fields?

But it is the area of educational planning and management in small states that is probably the most developed and best sustained of all these research fields. 

Q7. What is the second approach to constructing a new theory?

The second approach is to discard the given theory and construct a new one inductively, based on one’s own experiences, including street wisdom. 

Q8. What is the effect of social ties in small-scale settings?

As noted by Connell (1988, p. 5):Social ties in island micro-states are so powerful and pervasive that anonymity, impersonal role relationships and informality are difficult to maintain. 

Q9. What is the role of the political and administrative structures in maximizing the competitiveness of their economies?

In spite of the ‘privatisation’ of development, political and administrative structures continue to carry a major responsibility in maximising the competitiveness of their economies generally and of individual firms particularly. 

Q10. What is the main difference between the two forms of labour relations?

With increasing smallness of plant and of labour force, it is also likely that the more prevalent form of labour relations is skewed towards a unitarism where the owner–manager exercises undisputed control.