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HRM in practice : an application of actor-network theory to human resource management in retail
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López-Cotarelo Pérez, Juan Pablo (2012) HRM in practice : an application of actor-network theory to human resource management in retail. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b2689034~S1
Abstract
HRM practices have predominantly been seen as means put in place by top
management to achieve certain ends. This thesis argues that approaching the HRM
phenomenon in this way is limiting because it establishes a divide in HRM activities
between those aspects that conform to top management intentions, contribute to consistency
of HRM practices, and produce desired effects; and those that are not part of top
management design, are a source of variability in HRM practices, and are at best irrelevant,
at worst detrimental to the efficacy of HRM practices. Variability in HRM practices within
organisations has become an important focus for debate in the strategic human resource
management (SHRM) literature. This thesis argues that an alternative view of HRM is
required for the field to move forward.
Practice perspectives in organisation and management studies provide the basis for an
alternative approach to studying HRM. Actor-network theory is particularly well suited for
examining patterns of repetitive activity across time and space, and thus constitutes a useful
framework for understanding consistency and variability in HRM practices.
This thesis presents empirical research that applies actor-network theory to provide a
‘flat’ description of HRM activities in a large UK-based fashion retailer. Through an
innovative research design that uses participant narratives of HRM episodes (n=112), HRM
activity in the company is characterised as distributed, emergent and patterned. It is
distributed in the sense that employment outcomes were produced through assemblies of
heterogeneous –human and nonhuman– elements. It is emergent in the sense that the set of
associations that were made in order to produce an employment outcome was not
predictable, nor was the outcome itself. Both were the result of the associations that became
stabilised during the flow of activity. Finally HRM activities were patterned through the
standardising actions of central actors and their associated artefacts. In particular members
of the HR department found ways to retrieve information from the field, transform it into
standards, and deploy these standards back to the field in order to produce repetitive patterns.
This alternative view of HRM implies a novel understanding of the nature of HRM
practices, the role of variability and consistency, and the ways in which the effects of HRM
may be produced. Such understanding acknowledges that effects of HRM are produced as
much through variability as through consistency, and that these must not be understood as
opposite, mutually exclusive features of HRM systems.
The implications for research and practice are wide-ranging. This thesis strongly
advocates a case study research programme that provides rich descriptions of HRM activities
in diverse settings, as the best way to advance the field and produce practitioner relevant
knowledge and advice. Practitioners are advised to pay attention to the processes through
which HRM outcomes are produced in their organisation, and to the means by which they
themselves deploy their agency to create patterns in those processes.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Retail trade -- Personnel management -- Research, Actor-network theory | ||||
Official Date: | September 2012 | ||||
Dates: |
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Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
Theses Department: | Warwick Business School | ||||
Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Edwards, P. K. (Paul K.); Marginson, Paul | ||||
Sponsors: | Universidad de Navarra. Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE) | ||||
Extent: | 262 leaves. | ||||
Language: | eng |
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