ABSTRACT
In today’s highly competitive and global environment, the difference between being a market leader versus a failure is razor thin. Both academic researchers (e.g., Hatch & Dyer, 2004) and business leaders (e.g., Welsh, 2005) have submitted that the difference between organizational success and failure often comes down to how well organizations can attract, develop, align, and retain their human capital. Indeed, the resource-based view of firm performance argues that organizations have a competitive advantage to the extent that they can leverage valuable resources more readily than their competitors. This theory of organizations has been widely adopted by theorists and researchers in the area of strategic human resource management (SHRM). Whereas various models of SHRM exist, they share a common theme in that it is critical to align specific human resource management (HRM) facets (e.g., selection, training, performance management, and reward systems) with the strategic direction of the organization. In other words, the overall guiding strategic model of the organization sets the context within which the effectiveness of various human resources (HR) components can be gauged. This direction, then, filters down throughout the multiple levels of the firm and needs to be managed.
