Human Resource Management: Strategies, Practices, and Challenges, Exams of Advanced Education

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HRM SELF TEST QUESTIONS 2024

K1: Outline the two competing defenitions og human resource management. - 1. The contemporary teem used tondescribe all activities associated with the management of people.

2. A novel approach to people management based on the view that people represent a key strategic asset to organizations and should be managed as such. K1: What are the characteristics of high-commitment HRM that differentiate it from traditional approaches to personnel management? - Also known as best practice HRM, the main concern is to design and operationalise integrated systems of HR policies and practices. K1: What are the differences between hard and soft variants of HRM? - Hard: Emphasizes the use of Human Resources in an instrumental manner and is often associated with low pay, low job security and poor terms and conditions of work Soft: Emphasizes the positive treatment of workers in order to develop employee commitment. K1: What changes in environmental context contributed to the emergence of HRM in the 1980s? - The patterns of innovative forms of people management began to emerge that held more strategic ambitions. Instead of being traditionally constituted as a support function with relatively low operational status. & ---> both the trade union and government regulation of the employment relationship in the country were declining. K1: What are the central issues concerning ethics in HRM? - Equality, equity and fairness of treatment, flexibility of employment and reward systems. K1: What are the causes and implications of the individualization of the employment relationship? - It represents the contemporary models of HRM and is the response of the declining involvement of trade unions in managing the collective workforce K1: What specific roles do HR professionals fulfill according to Ulrich and Brockbank's (2005) typology? - They are: Strategic partner, Functional expert, Employee advocate, Human capital developer and Leader K1: What trends have led some commentators to suggest increasing fragmentation of the HR function? - The outsourcing of the HR administrations and the personnel functions K2: What are the key dimensions of the employment relationship and how does each contribute to an understanding of the role of HRM in managing the relationship? - Economic: The wage-effort bargain. Socio-political: The power and authority - resides with the employer

Legal/contractual: Refers to the legal status of the employment contract as binding on both parties. Psychological contract/social exchange: implicit and unwritten set of beliefs and assumptions about what each party expects of the other and what they perceive their own obligations to be. K2: What do you understand by the term psychological contract? - A set of unwritten reciprocal expectations between an individual employee an the organisation. And the perceptions of the two parties, employee and employer, of what their mutual obligations are towards each other. K2: It has been argued that the psychological contract has changed over the recent years. How would you characterise these changes and why have they taken place? - It's a direct result of the need for organisational flexibility and adaptability - The traditional employment relationship based on an exchange of job security in return for loyalty and commitment is argued to have been replaced by 'new deals' in employment, whereby firms offer opportunity to enhance one's employability in return for a temporary provision of service. K2: Why have the principles of scientific management been criticised in respect of their impact on workers? - Taylorism acts as if money is workers sole motivator. Because of money the will act accordingly with no attention to quality, no pride in achievements, little loyalty or commitment to the employer and, ultimately gaining little fulfillments from work. K2: How does McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y of motivation relate to the historical evolution of people management? - The scientific management is founded upon an assumption that human conform to Theory X - Like in Taylorism. But over the past three decades Theory Y has dominated thinking in HR. K2: What approaches can a work organisation adopt to control its workforce? - There are several ways actually. Friedman defined two: Direct control and Responsible autonomy. Edwards had two as well: Technical control and Bureaucratic control And Handy had three: Coercive, Calculative and Cooperative K2: What are key differences between content and process theories of motivation? - Content theories focus on the factors that motivate people, f.e. the role of financial incentive, recognition, status, job satisfaction and achievement. Process theories focus on the process of motivation and the internal decision-making mechanism by which individuals decide upon the level of effort to exert in a given situation. K3: What are the dimensions along which the four contrasting perspectives on strategy formation differs? - They are control based strategy and commitment based strategy.

Soft approach involves predicting the qualitative characteristics of required labour, such as behavioral capabilities, attitudes and values required to fulfil a particular strategic objectives. K6: In what ways can a firm respond to labour supply and demand forecasting beyond recruiting new employees or downsizing their existing workforce? - Introduce new equipment or technology to replace or augment workforce skills Increase or change the focus of individual and organisational development to address competency requirements Attempt to change the culture of the firm to promote some required dimension of behavior or particular values. K6: How does the systematic approach to recruitment and selection seek to address the twin aims of effectiveness and fairness? - The systematic approach is based on the assumption that it is possible to predict future job performance of candidates through the rational assessment and comparison of personal characteristics, prior achievements and experience. K6: Why is it argued that the use of competencies to inform the recruitment and selection process is more appropriate than more traditional approaches? Why do you think some firms have moved to the use of strength based, rather than competency- based interviewing? - The extensive use of competencies in recruitment is perceived by some to result in 'cloning' where recruitment is tends towards similar types of people with similar behaviors and approaches to work. K6: What are the key considerations firms must account for when developing the use of social media as an element of their recruitment strategy? - Ensuring the accuracy of information available on social media Ensuring accessibility across a sufficiently wide pool of applicants Applicant privacy Implications for equality and diversity K6: What are the problems associated with the use of (a) interviewing and (b) testing in selection? How might these problems be overcome? - a) interviewers often make rapid judgements based on little information or are not adequately prepared or trained to conduct interviews effectively. b) faking it, gender and socio-economic background biased K6: Why is it important to evaluate and review the recruitment and selection process and what measures should be used to inform such a review? - To ensure that mistakes identified are not repeated or to identify and replicate good practice. - Cost, effectiveness and Fairness

• Worker side: personal characteristics, drive, ambition, experiences, personal relationship

Organisational site: job design, person-job fit, the appropriateness of reward and the state of psychological contract.