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A Systematic Review of Methodologies in the Domain of Human Resource Management and Organizational Performance
Abstract
This paper reviews the literature on human resource management and its impact on organization performance. It traces evolution of research methodologies across geographical regions and timeframe. A total of 187 articles have been examined using systematic literature review. The paper analyses developments in research design choices such as data collection method, sample size, respondent type, unit of analysis, time horizon, statistical techniques, country of data collection, reliability and validity, etc. The results suggest that the field is characterized by empirical quantitative studies and triangulation is seen mainly in statistical analysis. The interest of North American researchers has declined whereas Asia has displayed considerable enthusiasm in recent years. The collaborations between regions are few and there are synergies to be explored in joint studies. The study concludes that research methodologies in the field are too narrow and it is an important concern if progress is to be made in the development of research. It acknowledges that a wider perspective in terms of research design is needed to achieve further advancement in the field. It is suggested that future researchers, especially in North America, amalgamate methodological rigor with a qualitative approach.
... The methodology employed in this comprehensive review is designed to provide a systematic approach to analyzing the dynamics of HR management in digital marketing and the development of sustainable strategies within the context of the digital era in Indonesia (Dawood & Butt, 2018). A mixed-method research design has been adopted, combining qualitative and quantitative methods to offer a holistic understanding of the subject matter. ...
... Thus, the study needs to be objective, neutral, and reliable. Dawood and Butt (2018) suggest triangulation to achieve the objectivity of data sources. ...
Through globalization and cultural awareness, more focus has been set on gender-related issues and the treatment of women throughout the world. Particular research attention has focused on the achievements and setbacks of female leaders as a major aspect of global organizations’ success. The purpose of this qualitative comparative phenomenological study was to analyze the relationship between culture and gender in leadership, specifically with female leaders in Germany and Iran. The study aimed to get insights into the cultural challenges and opportunities women face in gaining access to leadership positions in these two countries. Cultural aspects and the symbiotic acceptance of gender-specific traits were analyzed in relation to effective leadership in order to describe and document the perceptions of female leaders in Germany and Iran. Female leaders from Germany and Iran were interviewed to share their experiences regarding challenges, opportunities, cultural perceptions of their roles, and, finally, their best practices of how to overcome the barriers. By clustering the participants’ responses into themes and sub-themes and with the application of thematic coding, the research obtained a reflection of female leaders’ experiences in Germany and Iran. Study participants agreed that leadership is difficult and had challenges for all women, even more for women in Iran where structural barriers are more apparent. Agreement was achieved regarding male dominance in both cultures and the support men receive in management positions. Women often have to work harder and are missing the feeling of belonging. Participants agreed that women who are naturally competitive may have fewer challenges in leadership positions. Women seek mentorship; however, while this exists in Germany, the concept is missing in Iran. German women incorporate their organization’s mission statement and ethical values into their own work, and Iranian women consider themselves more ethical. While legal and corporate structures in Germany are working toward incorporating women into the workforce, these structures do not exist in Iran. Germany prefers the sustainable leadership style in combination with transformational leadership. Iranian leaders are drawn toward servant leadership. The result of the study demonstrates that culture is related to the challenges women face in leadership positions. While opportunities have a cultural correlation, they differ based on the societal expectations of females. Last but not least, women in both countries are able to develop their best practices with different leadership styles.
Keywords:
gender, gender diversity, culture, cultural diversity, cultures, leadership, Iran, Germany, servant leadership, Sustainable leadership, virtual leadership, transformational leadership, female leaders
This research aims at clarifying the links which may exist between human resource management practices and economic performance of firms. To this end, a theoretical model of an exploratory nature is proposed, based on the hypothesis of the existence of cascading relationships between three categories of performance: social, organizational and economic.
The model is applied to a sample of almost 300 French small and mid-sized firms. The principal hypotheses put forth within the context of this study are to a large degree validated. This allows the formulation of interesting recommendations for managers and opens new ways for scholars pursuing this line of research.
This paper outlines important ideological, institutional, and cultural contexts that shape what strategic human resource management practices are possible in China. A detailed review of the main components of the high-performance work systems model suggests that when they are introduced into the Chinese socioeconomic and political context, the cost-benefit calculus for high-performance work system human resource management practices is different from that in the U.S. context. Yet, in our review of China-based
strategic human resource management research we find the expected positive relationship between high-performance work systems and organizational performance in companies operating in China. We conclude with a case example to illustrate how Chinese firms might be both adopting and adapting the high-performance work system model to better fit their current cultural and economic context.
Research design is a central element of empirical research, and thus, an important consideration for entrepreneurship researchers and anyone interested in entrepreneurship-related research findings. Yet, many years have past since the last thorough review of research design and construct measurement practices. Thus, it is unknown whether there is a gap between what is currently being done versus what needs to be done. In this article, authors use a two-study approach involving a content analysis of published empirical research and a survey of experts within the field to assess the current state of practices. Their findings indicate that, in general, research design and construct measurement practices continue to improve; however, there are some issues that still need to be resolved. Authors lay out key implications and provide several suggestions to help resolve these issues.
Although strategic human resource management began to emerge as a domain of study around 1980, many of the field's major theoretical and empirical strides have occurred during the last decade or so. By and large these have emanated from communities of scholars operating within specific countries or, in some cases, regions of the world. The next generation of contributions, however, is beginning to emerge on a global basis. This special issue fosters the broader development of our field by bringing together a set of papers written by a cadre of scholars from various spots around the world who recently gathered at Cornell University to share thoughts and perspectives. While viewpoints vary, overall the collection offers a wealth of specific insights and suggestions for moving the field forward on the inevitable path of globalization.
1012 articles appearing in 15 prominent journals over the period 1983–2002 were content analyzed in order to assess the state of published research in the domain of selling and sales management. The results provide a comprehensive, two-decade look at the key topical, theoretical, and methodological patterns prevalent at the aggregate level as well as within selected journals. Without question, the sales field has generated a considerable body of knowledge representing a range of issues, empirical approaches, and conceptual foundations. However, this review reveals several longer term trends that may challenge the sales community to consider new approaches to designing and executing sales research. Implications of these findings for researchers and industrial marketing practitioners are discussed.
Purpose - Attaining high response rates in survey-based supply chain management (SCM) research is becoming increasingly difficult, but small samples can limit the reliability and validity of empirical research findings. The purpose of this article is to analyze the status quo and provide a discussion of methodological issues related to the use of small samples in SCM research.
Design/methodology/approach - An in-depth review of 75 small sample survey studies published between 1998 and 2007 in three journals in the field that frequently publish survey-based research papers (TJ, IJPDLM, and JBL) was conducted, and key characteristics of these studies were compared with the characteristics from 44 small sample survey studies published in leading operations management (JOM) and management (AMJ) journals.
Findings - The review of papers published in TA IJPDLM and JBL shows that small samples are frequently used in SCM research. This study provides an overview of current practices, opportunities for improvement, and a number of specific recommendations that may help increase the analytical rigor of (future) survey-based studies that rely on small samples.
Originality/value - The recommendations provided in this article can greatly benefit researchers in the field of SCM. By following these proposals, the reliability and validity of research findings will be increased, researchers will be better equipped to investigate interesting questions where small samples are the norm rather than the exception (e.g., the study of dyadic supply chain relationships), and important and valid contributions to the theory and practice of SCM will be generated.
This study examines the response rates for surveys used in organizational research. We analyzed 1607 studies published in the years 2000 and 2005 in 17 refereed academic journals, and we identified 490 different studies that utilized surveys.We examined the response rates in these studies, which covered more than 100,000 organizations and 400,000 individual respondents. The average response rate for studies that utilized data collected from individuals was 52.7 percent with a standard deviation of 20.4, while the average response rate for studies that utilized data collected from organizations was 35.7 percent with a standard deviation of 18.8. Key insights from further analysis include relative stability in response rates in the past decade and higher response rates for journals published in the USA.The use of incentives was not found to be related to response rates and, for studies of organizations, the use of reminders was associated with lower response rates. Also, electronic data collection efforts (e.g. email, phone,web) resulted in response rates as high as or higher than traditional mail methodology. We discuss a number of implications and recommendations.
In this study, a content analysis was performed on 815 articles focused on new product development (NPD) published in 10 selected leading marketing, management, NPD, and research and development (R&D) journals from 1989 to 2004. Journals selected were a combination of leading journals in the discipline and publications that included NPD articles. NPD articles were classified by a series of key attributes including methodology employed, domains of knowledge utilized, and broad topics explored. The resulting data were then studied to discern trends over time or common characteristics within domains, methodologies, or journals. The study of NPD has grown since the Journal of Product Innovation Management (JPIM) was launched in 1984. This study shows strong growth in the number of articles on NPD in each category of journal selected. The research in the articles has changed: The early focus on a few selected success factors or a staged development process has evolved and broadened over the 16-year period. More variables and more sophisticated models are being studied in NPD articles. The study found a continuing evolution in research topics and increased sophistication in quantitative techniques over the 16-year period. Overall this review of the NPD literature uncovers encouraging signs of a maturing discipline. However, there are concerns about continuing issues in methodology, insufficient study of service innovation, and continued focus on process characteristics instead of other antecedents of NPD success. The service sector seems to be understudied, even as the reality of a service economy is generally acknowledged. The call in a recent meta-analysis to focus more on market and product characteristics and less on process characteristics has not yet been heeded, even by marketing researchers.
Past efforts to relate the management of human resources to a firm's business strategy have taken three approaches: matching managerial style or personnel activities with strategies, forecasting manpower requirements given certain strategic objectives or environmental conditions, and presenting means for integrating human resource management into the overall effort to match strategy and structure. In this article, the literature on each of these approaches is reviewed, and a typology is presented that posits a reciprocal interdependence between a firm's business strategy and its human resources strategy Implications for research and practice are discussed.
The use of field-based empirical methodologies in the production and operations management (POM) area has been steadily increasing over the past several years. One of the most prominent among these is the survey research methodology which has often been used to capture data from business organizations. However, to effectively contribute to theory development in the POM field, this methodology must be carefully implemented. Poorly designed and executed survey research is of little or no value. This paper attempts to provide a normative perspective on `good survey research practices'. In doing so, it attempts to bridge the gap between survey research and theory development. The paper liberally draws from work in other social science disciplines like psychology, marketing, organizational behavior, and other related fields that are more mature in the use of surveys, and applies it to the POM area. A set of ideal survey research attributes are identified, and existing POM survey work in four prestigious academic journals is evaluated with respect to these attributes. Results of assessing 25 survey-based articles published in these journals between 1990 and 1995 indicate that both exploratory as well as explanatory survey research is being conducted, with current emphasis being more on explanatory kind of research. In order to move the field forward, greater attention will need to be focused on employing multi-item constructs, assessing them for content validity, and purifying them through field-based pretesting. More sophisticated POM studies in the future would have to aim for testing theory with reliable and valid scales that are relatively free of measurement related errors. It is hoped that this work will act as a catalyst in compressing the learning curve with respect to survey research practices in POM, and also accelerate the use of greater methodological rigor in future empirical studies in the field.
One response to the possible outsourcing of the human resource (HR) function is to turn to ‘science’ and seek to demonstrate an empirical association between HR practices and increased organizational performance. This paper critically examines the shortcomings of the ‘scientific’ approach by first, reviewing the three distinctive versions of research on the Human Resources Management (HRM)-Performance link in an attempt to demonstrate their commitment to a common ‘scientific’ meta-theory. Second, we use critical realism to demonstrate: (1) that theoretical underdevelopment and lack of explanatory power are encouraged by the use of an inappropriate ‘scientific’ meta-theory; (2) the possibility of meta-theorizing the causal connection between HRM and performance without seeking statistical associations; and (3) how all this is in-keeping with Institutional theory. Finally, all of this is achieved by inserting evidence from interviews with HR professionals to demonstrate not only that they are sceptical of the ‘scientific’ approach, but also that they hold views of the world not dissimilar to the critical realist approach we advocate.
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to track the evolution of logistics research with a focus on the methods and orientation of the research from the past to the present. Specifically, this paper investigates the evolution of logistics research methodologies in an attempt to address previous calls for a paradigm discussion aimed at assessing the current direction and proposing a future direction for research in the logistics discipline.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors chose a previously established framework which describes and evaluates alternative research paradigms. A content analysis of articles in selected journals allows published research of the logistics discipline to be evaluated and categorized. The categorization process uses a two‐dimensional framework which then allows the authors to classify research into cells in a matrix which represent a variety of research paradigms.
Findings
The results illustrate that the methodologies employed in logistics have evolved during the period of analysis. The logistics discipline appears to focus on survey‐based research in an attempt to examine attitudinal and behavioral aspects of logistics interactions. Significant amounts of research are also conducted with simulation and mathematical modeling while case study and action research methods comprise a relatively small but growing portion of published logistics research. Nevertheless, the results of the research support the conclusion that the logistics discipline is diversifying its research efforts and expanding the array of issues addressed.
Research limitations/implications
The results are based on a thorough literature review along with the use of well established research frameworks and methodologies. Nevertheless, the research focuses on analyzing the content of logistics discipline research in specific outlets and during specific periods of time. Therefore, while the authors believe the results provide a useful guide for assessing the evolution of research in the discipline, it is not all‐inclusive in nature.
Practical implications
Based on our research results in general logistics, researchers appear to be responding to the evolution of the discipline by expanding their efforts to conduct applied research. It appears that common interests are being identified and in many cases, academicians and practitioners are working together to build an alliance designed to benefit the discipline by building on the strengths of each group.
Originality/value
Research plays an important role in furthering any discipline by enhancing our understanding of issues pertinent to those studying and practicing the discipline. This paper helps academicians and practitioners of the logistics discipline to better understand the direction of the profession and to assist us in shaping the future of the discipline.
The past 15 years have witnessed tremendous advancements in the research and practice of international human resource management JHRM). This paper describes several sub-themes in IHRM that have evolved during the past 15 years; introduces and expands upon one major sub-theme in IHRM, cross-border alliances; and suggests several topics for future research and investigation. First, while the review and update is based on the framework introduced by Schuler et al. (1993), the ideas of several other approaches that have been taken to in the field of IHRM (e.g. Sparrow and Brewster, 2006; Taylor et al., 1996) are incorporated to present a thematic framework of IHRM that organizes and updates the existing IHRM literature within five thematic areas: strategic MNE components; exogenous factors; endogenous factors; IHRM issues, functions, policies, and practices; and MNE effectiveness. Within each thematic area, several sub-themes are described that reflect important changes in and evolutions of IHRM issues. Second, the paper offers a major extension to the thematic framework by incorporating the cross-border alliance (CBA) theme. The article highlights one of the most complex forms of CBA, the international joint venture (UV), and develops a typology as a way of illustrating the complexity of IJVs and the challenge of crafting an effective set of IRRM activities for them and MNEs more generally. Third, 20 avenues or topics are suggested for future research and investigation that build on the work of the past 15 years in lHRM and reflect the realities of MNEs and their implications for IHRM. A brief summary concludes the authors' thoughts on the future of lHRM and its increased importance.
Over the past 20 years, there has been a considerable expansion in theory and research about human resource management and performance. This paper reviews progress by identifying a series of phases in the development of relevant theory and research. It then sets out a number of challenges for the future on issues of theory, management processes and research methodology. The main conclusion from the review is that after over two decades of extensive research, we are still unable to answer core questions about the relationship between human resource management and performance. This is largely attributed to the limited amount of research that is longitudinal and has been able to address the linkages between HRM and performance and to study the management of HR implementation.
This article discusses the contributions that field methods have made to the theory-development process in strategic management. Field studies drawn from the literature are classified according to their research goal (description, explanation, or prediction) and according to whether they built or tested theory. the overall conclusion is that field research methods will continue to be used heavily to develop strategy theory. However, certain conditions must be met to maximize the contribution of field methods to strategy research. These conditions include a balanced research agenda, multifaceted research approaches, innovative datagathering techniques, and an applied futuristic orientation.
This is an overview of what the authors believe to be every empirical research article into the linkages between HRM and performance published in pre-eminent international refereed journals between 1994 and 2003. The analysis covers the design of the study, including the primary level of analysis and the identity of the respondents; the dominant theoretical framework(s) informing the article; how HRM is conceived and operationalised; how performance is conceived and operationalised; and which control and/or contingency variables are incorporated. Finally, the article examines how each study depicts the so-called ‘black box’ stage between HRM and performance. It reports wide disparities in the treatment of these components, but also some welcome commonalities and indicative trends that point towards a gradual convergence on how future research into this complex relationship might usefully be conducted. The findings are compared with previous reviews of the literature. The analysis should illuminate the ongoing debate about the linkages between HRM and performance, and prove valuable for future research designs.
In light of the rapid growth of international marketing studies, we thought it timely to investigate recent patterns and developments in the literature. We performed a content analysis of nearly 600 articles published from 1990 to 2000 in the leading academic journals. It became clear that major progress has been made in terms of a broadened research agenda and greater technical rigor. However, opportunities were identified to address overlooked research topics, increase cross-national collaboration, strengthen the complexity and comprehensiveness of theories, as well as diversify research methods beyond surveys. Based on these findings, we outlined several directions for advancement of international marketing knowledge.