The Study on the Key Elements in Strategic HRM: from Strategy to Organizational Performance

China State Key Laboratory of Coal Resources and Safety Mining, China University of Mining & Technology, Beijing, 100083, China

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Abstract

Ever since the end of last century, strategic HRM scholars have devoted a great and increasing deal of efforts to the exploration and examination of contributions of HRM practices/systems into organizational performance. In spite of the lack of a conclusive message about the HRM-performance relationship, the current literature has documented vast of the evidence, which worth reviewing and may generate inspirations for future research. Thus, this research reviews the literature and teases out the key elements in strategic HRM research. These elements can be further categorized into several sub-groups: namely, HRM systems, business strategy, external and internal organizational contextual factors. Specifically, HRM systems include high control work systems, high commitment work systems, high involvement work systems, high performance work systems, high reliability work systems, and customer services-oriented work systems. The strength of the relationships between these HRM systems and performance will be varied by the changes of business strategies and organizational contextual factors. This study reviews the five types of fits between the key elements in strategic HRM literature. Moreover, it has been argued and proved that the fits between the key elements will results in better organizational performance. This article can generate not only theoretical implications for scholar, who attempt to deepen our understanding of the mechanism through which HRM systems improve organizational performance, but practical implications for managers, who will be able to identify the key factors impacting their effectiveness in managing people in real world.