J
Ö N K Ö P I N GI
N T E R N A T I O N A LB
U S I N E S SS
C H O O LJÖNKÖPING UNIVERSITY
Strategic Human Resource
Mana gement
A study of EWES Stålfjäder AB’s HR strategies alignment to corporate strategies
Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration
Authors: Sebastian Fagerholm Patrik Lorentzson Robin Moritz
Tutor: Jean-Charles Languilaire Jönköping Juni 2010
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank and acknowledge all the people that have helped, supported and given us inspiration throughout the process of writing this thesis.
Secondly, we would like to thank our tutor Jean-Charles Languilaire for all the wise and insightful comments, support and direction.
Thirdly, we would also like to thank EWES Stålfjäder AB and their employees for their cooperation. Without them it would have been impossible to collect our data.
Finally, we would like to thank our friends and fellow students for all the constructive feedback.
_________________ _______________ _______________ Sebastian Fagerholm Patrik Lorentzson Robin Moritz
Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration
Titel: Strategic Human Resource Management - A study of EWES Stålfjäder AB’s HR policies alignment to corporate strategies -
Författare: Sebastian Fagerholm, Patrik Lorentzson, and Robin Moritz Handledare: Jean-Charles Languilaire
Datum: 2010 June 03
Nyckelord: Strategic Human Resource Management, Corporate Strategies, HR Strategies
Abstract
Bakgrund: Det är viktigt att utveckla och verkställa HR aktiviteter som genererar kompetenser och beteenden i personalen som företaget behöver för att uppnå sina strategiska mål. Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) handlar om att synkronisera HR strategier med företagsstrategier, och implementerat på ett korrekt sätt så kan SHRM bli ett effektivt verktyg för att öka prestationen i ett företags organisation.
Syfte: Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att utvärdera synkroniseringen mellan EWES Stålfjäder ABs företagsstrategier och dess HR strategier.
Metod: För att studera detta så använde vi en kvalitativ metod. Den empiriska studien består av semistrukturerade intervjuer, men också skrivna dokument. Analys: Strukturen på analysen följer det teoretiska ramverket. Vi har främst använt
en model utvecklad av Dessler (2008, p. 95), ”How to align HR strategy and Actions with Business Strategy”.
Slutsats: Vår slutsats är att EWES stålfjäder AB behöver tydliggöra sina företagsstrategier genom hela organisationen. Detta kommer att hjälpa EWES att identifiera och implementera HR strategier som är i linje med företagets strategier. Genom att arbeta på det här sättet, så tror vi att det kommer att hjälpa EWES att utföra lämpliga förändringar som organisationen behöver för att uppnå deras företagsstrategier. Vi har också funnit att EWES HR aktiviteter har blivit mer liknande ”add-ons” än strategiska aktiviteter som är synkroniserade med företagets strategier.
Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration
Title: Strategic Human Resource Management - A study of EWES Stålfjäder AB’s HR policies alignment to corporate strategies -
Authors: Sebastian Fagerholm, Patrik Lorentzson, and Robin Moritz Tutor: Jean-Charles Languilaire
Date: 2010 June 03
Key words: Strategic Human Resource Management, Corporate Strategies, HR Strategies
Abstract
Background: It is important to develop and execute human resource practices that generate employee competencies and behaviours the company needs to achieve its strategic goals. SHRM is about how to align HR strategies with corporate strategies, and implemented in a correct way SHRM can be an efficient tool to use for enhancing organisational performance.
Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to evaluate the alignment between EWES Stålfjäder AB´s corporate strategies and its HR strategies.
Method: To study this we believe it was accurate to use a qualitative method approach. The empirical study consists of semi-structured interviews as well as written documents.
Analysis: The structure of the analysis follows the theoretical framework. We have used the model developed by Dessler (2008, p. 95), “How to Align HR Strategy and Actions with Business Strategy”.
Conclusions: We found that EWES Stålfjäder AB need to clarify their corporate strategies throughout the whole organisation. This will help them to identify and implement HR strategies that are in line with them. Working in this manner, we believe it will help EWES to conceptualize and execute accurate changes the organisation needs to accomplish their corporate strategies. Furthermore, we found that most of EWES’ HR practices become more like add-ons than strategic activities that are aligned with their corporate strategies.
Table of Contents
1
Introduction... 1
1.1 Background ... 1
1.2 The Problem Discussion... 2
1.3 Purpose ... 2
2
Theoretical Framework ... 3
2.1 How to align HR strategies and actions with corporate strategies... 3
2.1.1 Strategic Human Resource Management ... 4
2.1.2 Linking Company-Wide and HR strategies... 5
2.1.3 HR practices ... 6 2.1.4 HR system ... 8 2.1.4.1 Managerial Competencies ... 9 2.1.4.2 Input-based competencies... 9 2.1.4.3 Transformational Competencies... 10 2.1.4.4 Output-based competencies... 10
2.2 Challenges when working with SHRM... 11
2.2.1 Strategic human resource challenges ... 11
2.2.2 Challenges for becoming a strategic partner... 12
2.2.3 Two strategic roles ... 12
2.3 How to measure effectiveness of SHRM... 13
2.3.1 Different performance measures ... 13
2.3.2 HR Scorecard ... 14
3
Method ... 15
3.1 Choice of methodology... 15
3.1.1 Qualitative vs. Quantitative... 15
3.1.2 Deductive vs. Inductive Research ... 15
3.2 Data Collection ... 16
3.2.1 Primary data collection: interviews ... 16
3.2.2 Secondary data collection ... 17
3.3 Empirical findings and analysis ... 18
3.4 Reliability and Validity... 18
3.4.1 Representativeness of the information ... 18
3.4.2 Reliability ... 19
3.4.3 Validity ... 19
4
Empirical Data... 20
4.1 EWES’ Stålfjäder AB ... 20
4.2 EWES’ organisation... 21
4.3 EWES’ Strategic situation... 22
4.3.1 Threats ... 22
4.3.2 Opportunities ... 23
4.3.3 Strengths ... 23
4.3.4 Weaknesses ... 23
4.4 EWES’ strategic plan... 24
4.4.1 Corporate vision ... 24
4.4.2 Corporate strategy... 24
4.5.1 Team building ... 25
4.5.2 Employee involvement ... 25
4.5.3 Standardization and formalization of work tasks ... 25
4.5.4 Recruiting ... 25
4.5.5 Diversification ... 26
4.6 Organisational Performance... 26
5
Data Analysis ... 27
5.1 EWES’ business strategies ... 27
5.2 Identified workforce requirements ... 27
5.3 EWES’ strategic HR policies and activities... 28
5.4 Scorecard measures ... 31
5.5 Overall challenges ... 31
6
Conclusion, Discussion, Contributions and
Further Research ... 33
6.1 Conclusions and Recommendations ... 33
6.2 Discussion ... 35
6.3 Contributions ... 36
6.4 Further research ... 36
References... 37
Appendices... 40
Appendix 1 – Interview template ... 40
1 Introduction
This section introduces the subject of the thesis by presenting a short background to strategic human resource management. Furthermore, the introduction presents the problem discussion and the purpose of the thesis.
1.1 Background
Today companies have to operate in an intense competitive environment. To stay on top of competition organisations have to increase their performance continuously. The challenge for managers today is to go beyond mastering balance sheets, creating advanced budgets, marketing campaigns, new product processes and shaping positive customer relationships. They need to create organisations that changes, develops, learns and moves faster than its competitors. To be ahead of competition, it requires that they have organisational resources and capabilities that are rare and create value in a unique way so that they cannot be easily copied (Barney, 1986; 1991; 1995). This is called the resource-based view, which states that competitive advantage of a firm lies mainly in the use of the package of valuable resources used by an organisation (Conner, 1991; Wernerfeldt, 1984). Traditional sources of competitive advantage, like product technology and process, economies of scale and access to sources of capital, have declined in value since they are easy to imitate (Pfeffer, 1994). The resource-based view suggests that human resources can bring sustainable competitive advantage through the development of competencies that are firm specific. These competencies include; the development of complex social relationships, competencies embedded in the firm’s culture and history, and implicit organisational knowledge (Lado & Wilson, 1994).
An employment system is complex and can be difficult to imitate (Becker & Gerhart, 1996). Maital (1994) argues that the employees are the source and basis for utilization of other resources and therefore employees can become strategic assets through an efficient human resource system. Hence, there is a need for managers to invest in employees. If an organisation employs suitable human resource practices it can enhance its competitiveness, as well as its organisational performance. For example, Huselid (1993; 1995) and Arthur (1994) argue that HR practices can influence organisationally relevant outcomes such as productivity and profitability.
In order to use a firm’s capabilities in the best way, management must view their human resource practices as a source of competitive advantage. The leaders of a firm must be able to create organisational capabilities and to identify the capabilities critical for business success. They need to invent and carry out human resource management practices that can produce those capabilities (Ulrich, 1997).
Ulrich (1997) continues to argue about business challenges for HR as a profession. He claims that HR traditionally refers to two things: the organisational system and processes, and the HR function or department. Ulrich (1997) stresses that HR professionals need to pay attention to how they are championing competitiveness and that HR professionals need to develop how they deliver HR so that it can enhance a firms’ business results.
According to Ulrich (1997), a HR department should learn how to measure and follow up results connected to competitiveness rather than work as a consultant. Ulrich emphasizes that HR work is affected by old myths, old myths that ought to be reconsidered. Old myths are for example
that everyone can carry out HR activities and that HR concentrates on costs that have to be managed. The new reality should rather be that HR professionals ought to master both theory and practice and that these practices should create value by increasing intellectual capital within the firm (Ulrich, 1997). “HR professionals must add value, not reduce costs” (Ulrich, 1997, p. 18).
According to Delery and Doty (1996) many micro-level HR researchers suggest that some HR practices are better than others and that these best practices always ought to be implemented by all organisations. Some of these best practices are suggested by Pfeffer (1994) to be: participation and empowerment, incentive pay, promotion from within, and training and skill development. If implemented in the organisation, these practices can enhance business performance.
However, the last decade there has been a shift to a macro or strategic perspective of Human resource management that has been labelled strategic human resource management (Delery & Doty, 1996). Recent research suggests a contingency approach to strategic human resource management. According to Schuler and Jackson (1987) this means that an organisation’s HR policies must be consistent with other aspects of the organisation in order to be effective. Moreover, Dean, Lepak, Snell and Youndt (1996, p. 841) indicate that “the impact of HR practices on firm performance is conditioned by an organisation’s strategic posture”. Overall, the strategic human resource management attempts to explain how important human resource practices, i.e. employment systems, are for firm performance (Delery & Doty, 1996).
1.2 The Problem Discussion
As mentioned in the background there is a consensus among many researchers that there is a correlation between systems of HR practices and organisational performance. To study this we will explore the relationships between a company’s corporate strategies and its HR strategies. This will be done by studying a manufacturing company, EWES Stålfjäder AB.
At the moment, EWES is in the process of modifying their corporate vision, consequently their corporate strategies need to be revised (A. Schön, personal communication, 2010-02-26). According to Dessler (2008), it is important to develop and execute human resource practices that generate employee competencies and behaviours the company needs to achieve its strategic goals. This is called strategic human resource management (SHRM). Dessler (2008) argues that SHRM is about aligning HR strategies and actions with corporate strategies. Currently the top management manages HR strategies at EWES; consequently they do not have a clearly defined HR department. For these reasons it is important for EWES to understand how to align their HR work with their corporate strategies.
Ulrich (1997) argues that HR professionals need to become HR champions. Furthermore he indicate that HR champions need to pay attention to how they are developing and delivering HR so that it can bring competitiveness and enable organisations to reach their business goals. However, can EWES become champions without a dedicated HR department?
1.3 Purpose
The purpose of the thesis is to evaluate the alignment between EWES Stålfjäder AB’s corporate strategies and its HR strategies.
2 Theoretical Framework
This section presents previous research within the field of strategic human resource management. The theoretical framework is divided into three parts. The starting-point of the theoretical framework is a foundational model that explains how to align HR strategies with corporate strategies (see figure 1.). The first part also presents the HR Practices and Systems, which is fundamental for understanding of how the alignment process works. The second part presents the different challenges strategic human resource management face during the alignment process. The last part shows how to create a measurement system for evaluating the HR work.
2.1 How to align HR strategies and actions with corporate
strategies
Figure 1, How to Align HR Strategy and Actions with Business Strategy (Dessler, 2008 p. 95). Strategic human resource management means to develop and execute human resource practices that generate employee competencies and behaviours the company need in order to reach its strategic goals. Therefore, the human resource managers need a practical way to transform the corporate strategy into necessary behaviour and competencies of the workforce, and translate these competencies and behaviours into specific human resource practices and policies that will create them. The basic model of how to align HR strategy and actions with business strategy explains how this can be done. The management formulates a strategic plan that includes the strategic aims of the company. The plan implies specific workforce requirements; the HR must deliver employee competencies and behaviours that enable the firm to achieve its goals. When these workforce requirements are set, the HR managers need to formulate strategic policies and activities that they believe will create the employee competencies and behaviours that they have planned for. At the end HR managers creates scorecard measures that can help to measure the level of
which the newly created policies and practices are creating the desired workforce requirements, and thus help to achieve corporate strategic goals.
2.1.1 Strategic Human Resource Management
Strategic Human Resource Management defined by Dessler (2008, p. 86) as ”formulating and executing human resource policies and practices that produce the employee competencies and behaviours the company need to achieve its strategic aims”.
Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) can be defined in many ways. According to Huselid, Jackson and Schuler (1997) there is a broad agreement of what SHRM really is. They argue that SHRM is about designing and implementing a set of consistent policies and practices in the firm that ensures the human capital to contribute to the achievements of the firm’s business objectives. When Ulrich (1997) writes about SHRM he refers to HR professionals as strategic partners or how they can become strategic partners in a firm. HR professionals become strategic partners when they work with line managers to establish and manage a process that will change or create an organisation to meet business requirements.
Within this process of managing an organisation to meet business objectives there are according to Delery and Doty (1996) three different theoretical frameworks within SHRM namely universalistic perspective, contingency perspective and configurational approach. Their conclusion is that all three perspectives are viable as a theoretical framework within SHRM but they give different outcomes on the relationships between HR practices, strategy and organisational performance.
The universalistic perspective
The universalistic perspective refers to the best practices within HR. These practices are believed to be better than others and therefore they should always be implemented by all organisations in order to create a source of sustained competitive advantage (Huselid, 1993; Pfeffer 1994). According to Delery and Doty (1996), the universalistic arguments are the simplest form of theoretical statement in the SHRM literature. They argue that the relationships between independent and dependent variables are universal across organisations. In order to develop this universalistic approach in an organisation it takes two steps. First, one has to identify important strategic HR practices. Secondly, one needs to find arguments that relate these practices to organisational performance. These strategic HR practices are several. Pfeffer (1994) argues that there are 16 best practices to implement whilst Delery and Doty (1996) only identified 7. These best practices are presented in section 2.1.3.
The contingency perspective
In contrast to the universalistic arguments the contingency perspective are more complex due to that fact that contingency perspective implies interactions rather than plain linear relationships. In SHRM literature the primary contingency factor in a firm are considered to be its strategy. According to Delery and Doty (1996) using the contingency perspective researchers first need to select theories for a firm’s strategy. Then they need to specify how individual HR practices will interact with the strategy and together enhance business performance.
The configurational perspective
The third approach to SHRM is the configurational perspective. Delery and Doty (1996) argues that this approach is the most complex out of the three perspectives for several reasons. The configurational perspective does not focus exclusively on internal resources nor exclusively on a firm’s environment, but rather on the shared influence of a set of variables. It identifies configurations or unique patterns of factors that are assumed most effective for the organisation. (Delery & Doty, 1996). The configurational approach tries to model interrelationships.
2.1.2 Linking Company-Wide and HR strategies
In figure 2, Dessler (2007) explains the process and how HR strategies and corporate strategies go hand in hand. A company’s competitive environment and its internal strength and weaknesses bring the strategic situation from which the company develops its strategic plan. Developing the strategic plan brings many questions for the company. Such questions could include where to expand, how to lower cost in order to increase profit, and whether there is a need for diversification. The company’s HR strategy ought to be adopted in accordance with the overall corporate strategy. Recruitment, selection of employees, training, appraising of staff among others need to be synced to support the company’s strategic plan. How well the corporate strategies and HR strategies is aligned will affect the outcome of the organisational performance.
Figure 2, Linking Company-Wide and HR strategies (Dessler, 2008 p. 86).
The purpose of this study is solely to evaluate the alignment between the corporate strategies and HR strategies. The model above has two parts that are not included in the purpose; the strategic situation and organisational performance. However, we have chosen to include these parts
because they play a vital role when trying to understand the whole alignment process. The strategic situation determines the strategic plan this is why it is important to have knowledge about it. There is a possibility for the company to construct a plan that does not fit with the strategic situation, which in turn affects the HR strategies and in the end organisational performance in a negative way. Nevertheless, this will not be assessed in this study. It can however be interesting to keep in mind when drawing conclusions.
2.1.3 HR practices
Considering further explanation and use of functions or practices, Delery and Doty (1996) suggests 7 individual best practices; internal career opportunities, formal training systems, appraisal measures, profit sharing, employment security, voice mechanisms, and job definition (Osterman, 1987, Sonnenfeld & Peiperl, 1988, Kerr and Slocum, 1987, and Miles & Snow in Delery & Doty, 1996).
Internal career opportunities
Internal career opportunities deal with the issue of an internal labour market, which states that there is an internal recruiting process.
Formal training systems
Formal training systems are concerned with the degree of formal training given to staff. In this practice, the organisation can chose to rely on giving formal training or through recruitment and some socialisation obtain skills needed.
Appraisals measures
The third practice concerns appraisals measures, which can be based on behaviour or results. Appraisals based on behaviours focus on the individual performance needed to execute the job and if it is done in an efficient way, while appraisals based on results solely focus on the effects of the behaviours.
Profit-sharing plans
Fourthly are the profit-sharing plans, which ties salary to organisational performance that is argued being an integrated part of a strategic HR system.
Employment security
The fifth best practice mentioned is employment security, which concerns the extent to which employees have secure jobs. This practice gives many strategic benefits, however the employment security is no longer an obvious state in today’s economy.
Voice mechanisms
The sixth practice, voice mechanisms refers to formal complaint systems and participation in the decision making process. According to Pfeffer (1994), this practice also includes empowerment of the employees to control their own work.
Job definition
Lastly is the job definition which deals with a clear job description, ensuring that the desired duties are performed. The job becomes limited in scope, therefore the employees does not perform duties outside the job description (Delery & Doty, 1996).
Another collection of practices is the 16 best practices mentioned by Pfeffer (1994). These best practices are employment security, selectivity in recruiting, high wages, incentive pay, employee ownership, information sharing, participation and empowerment, teams and job redesign, training and skill development, cross-utilization and cross-training, symbolic egalitarianism, wage compression, promotion from within, long-term perspective, measurement of the practices, overarching philosophy.
These 16 best practices that Pfeffer (1994) mentions are in many ways similar to the 7 practices summarized by Delery and Doty (1996). Therefore, only 11 of Pfeffer’s 16 best practices will be mentioned since they add further explanations or value to the 7 practices summarized by Delery and Doty (1996).
Selectivity in recruiting
The first one is selectivity in recruiting, which stresses the importance of recruiting the right people in the right way, due to its imperative role in gaining and sustaining both competitive success and efficient operations.
High wages
Secondly, high wages is one practice that can increase the probability of keeping and attracting competitive staff.
Employee ownership
The third practice is the employee ownership, which describes the employees owning shares in the firm. The benefit of this practice is a long-term view of the employee aligning stockholders interest with the employees, since it increases the motivation for the employees.
Information sharing
This practice go hand in hand with information sharing which refers to the shared information within the company, which enables employees to do a better job as certain information is needed.
Teams and job redesign
Another practice is teams and job redesign, which concerns the monitoring and supervision of the employees where the formation of teams is argued to give excellent results, and is an alternative to the traditional hierarchical organisational structure.
Cross-utilization and cross-training
Cross-utilization and cross-training gives motivation to employees through moving employees between different departments with various assignments. The variation of job assignments together with a variation of co-workers makes the job more interesting and challenging. Another benefit of cross-utilizing personnel is the knowledge that is transferred between departments and the training of the employees, this increase in seamless boundaries within the organisation is argued to result in better efficiency and productivity.
Symbolic egalitarianism
When decentralizing the decision making process, decreasing the boundaries within an organisation, and using autonomous teams, one important measure is to remove symbols that alienate employees from management. This practice is called symbolic egalitarianism. They advocates actions such as having a common cafeteria, no booked parking spaces, everyone wears the same work cloth.
Wage compression
Yet another best practice is the wage compression, which states a horizontal similar wage level, as there is a risk of diminishing motivation within teams if the salaries differ to a large extent. This practice is a somewhat alternative to the negative effects of a gaming system of individual incentive pays, and can thus produce a higher organisational performance.
Long-term perspective
The long-term perspective is a practice handling the need for a long-term view upon the workforce, since the short-term profits of investing in the employees are comparably small compared to investing in for example new production facilities or production technology. However, the long-term benefits of recruiting and training employees are of great value and can greatly add to the competitive advantage of the firm.
Measurement of practices
Moreover, there is a practice called measurement of practices that deals with the measurement of practices or policies being implemented within the organisation. The reasons for using this practice are, firstly that it measures how good an organisation is implementing its practices or policies. The second reason is that what is measured will be in focus, thus stressing the importance not to measure solely financial performance but instead the consequences of human resource practices.
Overarching philosophy
Lastly is the practice of having an overarching philosophy or view upon management. This practice gives a connection of the different individual practices, as well as it provides the organisation with a framework for the personnel to experiment within but also as an aid when failure occurs.
According to Pfeffer (1994), theses practices are interrelated and give positive results when they are combined. Single practices standing alone might not give as much results as several practices combined in a system.
2.1.4 HR system
A human resource system is according to Lado and Wilson (1994, p 701) defined as “a set of distinct but interrelated activities, functions, and processes that are directed at attracting, developing, and maintaining (or disposing of) a firm’s human resources”.
According to Lado and Wilson (1994), the HR systems role is to make it possible to develop and use organizational competencies within an organisation. These competencies are according to their view; managerial, input-based, transformational, and output-based which all are assumed to create a sustained competitive advantage within a firm (Lado & Wilson, 1994).
2.1.4.1 Managerial Competencies
Managerial competencies firstly consist of the exclusive capabilities of the leaders of an organisation in articulating a strategic vision, communication of the vision throughout the organisation, and empowering the employees in the organisation to enable them to realize the vision (Westley & Mintzberg, 1989 in Lado & Wilson, 1994). Secondly is the exclusive capability to create a useful firm environment relationship (Hambrick & Mason, 1984; Tushman & Romanelli, 1985 in Lado & Wilson, 1994). Enacting this organisational environment gives the employees a way to interpret and act upon the vision that was stated and communicated. The managerial view is seen as a source of competitive advantage due to its decisive nature upon the organisations resources (Lado & Wilson, 1994).
One HR system that enhances this competence is development and creation of managerial competencies. This system is gaining a momentum by using both top and middle managers and other resources to create a strategic vision and letting the managerial competencies being used throughout the organisation (Lado & Wilson, 1994). Furthermore, Evens (1986, in Lado & Wilson, 1994) stress the importance of expansion of the traditional view of just communicating the vision, to facilitating the interpretation and understanding of the vision.
When it comes to undermining managerial competencies Dyer and Holder (1988, in Lado & Wilson, 1994) argues that there are three managerial HR philosophies: facilitation, accumulation, and utilization. The first two gives a long-term view in the organisation concerning HR management and insists on attracting, developing, and retaining employees with knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) that are important for the whole organisation. Utilization however can bring long-term losses to an organisation because it focuses on short-term benefits and efficiency in operations by using HR practices. Some of these practices are at-will employment, layoffs and turnover of personnel, individually based incentives, and the least amount of training and development of the employees as possible (Dyer and Holder 1988, in Lado & Wilson, 1994). Lado and Wilson (1994) further states that the utilization view can make managers fail in their overall company vision or objectives. This is due to disregard of the consequences it can bring to the development of core competencies in the firm, which is used for implementing the strategy of the organisation.
2.1.4.2 Input-based competencies
Input-based competencies describes the actual physical resources, capital resources within the organisation, human resources, skills, knowledge, and capabilities which allow an organisation’s transformation processes to produce and deliver goods and services that are of value to the customer. Concerning the importance of this view research states that in order to obtain continuous competitive advantage an organisation have to use and gain new resources in a better way than its competitors (Lado & Wilson, 1994). Within these competencies, Lado and Wilson (1994) argue that there are three certain opportunities that arise under the right circumstances. Firstly, the opportunity to exploit imperfections in the labour market that occur when firms within the same industry or market has different prospects into the future value of strategic resources. This gives an advantage to firms with personnel who have the accurate knowledge and skills to cease the opportunity to acquire undervalued resources for future economic benefits. Secondly, they mention the importance of creating an internal labour market that makes it easier to exchange and use human resources, which are specific to the firm (Lado & Wilson, 1994). Another
opportunity that arises due to the heterogeneous structure of human resource and the fact it is not freely mobile between firms is Investment in firm-specific human resource. This gives the firm a non-imitable resource that potentially could give them a competitive advantage over their competitors (Lado & Wilson, 1994).
Lado and Wilson (1994) argue that Acquisition and mobilization of input-based competencies is a HR system that can give organisations advantages through assisting with hiring company-wide. This can be done through exploiting opportunities in the external labour market, creating an efficient internal labour market, and developing a structure of a human capital that is specific to the firm. The opportunities in the external labour market are especially high in a downturn economy, as it tends to make firms underestimate the value of human capital (Lado & Wilson, 1994). Within input-based competencies there are two main dangers the HR-systems can create. The first one is the wrong recruitment of personnel that do not have the specific KSA’s needed in the firm. This is due to imperfect information in the market where the employer cannot readily know the exact KSA’s of the employee until after some time at the job, which demands a good HR system to handle this issue. The second danger is recruiting personnel that may have the right KSAs wanted by the firm, however they do not have the same values, beliefs, and norms that the organisation have. This will create a situation that will affect both employer and employee in a negative way, and it may result in distrust between the two (Lado & Wilson, 1994).
2.1.4.3 Transformational Competencies
Transformational Competencies explains the organisational capacities needed to transform inputs to outputs in an advantageous way. Capabilities within this area include entrepreneurship, innovation, organisational culture, and organisational learning (Lado & Wilson, 1994).
Development or utilization of transformational competencies is a HR system that plays an important role in exploiting innovation and entrepreneurship, managing organisational learning, and encouraging an organisation culture built on innovation (Lado & Wilson, 1994). Hazards facing the development of the transformational competencies are HR systems that implements standardization of operations in the organisation by using work routinization, task formalization, task specialization, written rules through promoting and reinforcing “defensive routines” in the organisation (Argyris, 1986, in Lado & Wilson, 1994). These defensive routines, which are behaviours for avoiding threats, surprises, or contradiction, are being reinforced when HR professionals and managers makes program which lacks clarity and consistency (Argyris, 1986, in Lado & Wilson, 1994). This together with an inability to discuss these defect programs could result in a decreased performance of employees instead of the opposite (Lado & Wilson, 1994). Furthermore, Martinko and Gardner (1982, in Lado & Wilson, 1994) argue how HR systems characteristics (as for example policies, rules, and procedures), reward systems and task structure, performance appraisal systems, and task difficulty may generate passiveness, apathy, and powerlessness in employees after experiencing a sequence of failures or frustrations. These kinds of manner might lead employees into concealing valuable information that could damage the organisational competencies (Lado & Wilson, 1994).
2.1.4.4 Output-based competencies
example goodwill, goods or service quality, and customer loyalty. These assets is created and managed over time, which could make it a good source of competitive advantage (Lado & Wilson, 1994).
Lado and Wilson (1994) label this competence specific HR system as developing and exploiting output-based competencies. HR systems might make it easier when developing and using these competencies by creating commitment and employee involvement towards the firm, creating sensitive exchanges between the organisation’s external and internal stakeholders, and creating a positive reputation of the organisation (Lado & Wilson, 1994). The output-based competencies face a threat by managers that insists on focusing on the quantification of HR related out-comes, as does researcher according to Lado and Wilson (1994). To be able to evaluate the employees’ performance in order to discover the costs and economic benefits connected to attracting, developing, and maintaining the human resources. Although these actions are important, the managers should not neglect other values, which are important to the personnel. If this however is neglected and the quantification measurements are overemphasized it can result in feelings of alienation, inequity, and resentment among personnel, which results in low commitment to the organisation and a high level of turnover of employees (Abelson & Baysinger, 1984, in Lado & Wilson, 1994). The second threat is that an organisation would adopt a control oriented HR system that stress the importance of routinization and simplification of work, standard operating procedures and rules, and hierarchical rule in order to achieve control and coordination of operations(Walton, 1985, in Lado & Wilson). There are benefits such as predictability, efficiency, and stability for this approach. Though the negative effects might results in core organisational inflexibilities, and demoralization and deskilling of the personnel (Kanter, 1986; Morgan, 1986, in Lado & Wilson, 1994; Lado & Wilson, 1994).
2.2 Challenges when working with SHRM
Section 2.2 presents challenges that occur when working with aligning HR strategies with corporate strategies.
2.2.1 Strategic human resource challenges
Human resource managers face three basic challenges according to Dessler (2008). Firstly, managers “need to support corporate productivity and performance improvement efforts” (Dessler, 2008, p 87). Enhanced globalization of the world market has lead to soared competition and with this a greater need of improvements of organisational performance. Secondly, “employees play an expanded role in employers’ performance improvement efforts” (Dessler, 2008, p 87). All the basics contents associated with high-performance organisation, such as high-technology team-based production, are rather futile without high levels of employee competence and commitment. The third challenge, derived from the first two, is that “employers see that their human resource units must be more involved in designing – not just executing – the company’s strategic plan” (Dessler, 2008, p 87). Traditionally the strategy is to be set by the company’s operating or line managers. However, this is, according to Dessler (2008) not good enough. The president of the company may set a plan to enter new markets, invest in new product lines, or embark a 3 years cost-cutting plan. When executing the plan the president has to trust the human resource manager to take correct actions for the plan to work. They might need to hire or fire employees, invest in educating the staff or other
Since the human resource team is charged with designing the workforce by recruiting, training, compensating the employees etc., Dessler (2008) stresses the importance of their involvement and input to the top managers when they are to design the company’s strategy. Therefore, it is significant that HR managers possess in-depth knowledge of the value-creating proposition of the firm, in other words how the firm makes money. For example, which activities or processes are most crucial for making money? Who executes this activities and processes in the firm successfully? HR managers need to have the basic understanding over strategic planning, basic financial and business functions, accounting, sales etc. in order to be valuable to the top management when they are designing the firm’s strategic plan.
2.2.2 Challenges for becoming a strategic partner
Ulrich (1997) argues about challenges of becoming a strategic partner. HR professional needs to work actively with strategy and theory regarding SHRM if they ought to be successful. Ulrich (1997) identifies 5 challenges to overcome.
First, HR professionals need to overcome Strategic Plans On Top of Shelf (SPOTS). This refers to the many written strategy plans that are never executed. Execution of strategy is the heart of SHRM. If strategy never becomes real, it fails to impact practices.
Secondly, they need to create a balanced scorecard. This will be explained more thoroughly in section 2.3.2. The purpose with at balanced scorecard is to serve several stakeholders within a firm and can become an index measuring executive performance. Using a scorecard HR professional is not only evaluated on their performance regarding employee satisfaction but rather on how they work with strategy in line with the overall strategy within the firm.
Third, HR plans and strategy often, according to Ulrich (1997) are add-ons to business plans. Therefore, HR issues become an afterthought or subsidiary to the business strategy. Moreover, it is given relatively little attention and becomes no more than an accessory to business strategy. The real business strategy does not include HR issues in how they ought to enhance organisational performance.
The fourth challenge HR professional face, as strategic partner, is reactive behaviour. Ulrich (1997) emphasises that there are no magic elixir to every problem in an organisation. HR professional needs to strive for proactive behaviour trying to understand theory, research and applications of ideas in order to relate them in a correct way in their business.
Finally, HR professionals need to create a capability focus within the firm. Every firm need a series of capabilities in order to accomplish their strategy. Therefore, focus on capabilities will clarify how strategy may be put into practice. Effective SHRM demands according to Ulrich (1997) that a firm’s capabilities and competences are identified and developed, both in order to implement strategy and to leverage new products.
2.2.3 Two strategic roles
Strategic Human resource managers have two different strategic roles, one is to execute the strategy and the other is to formulate or design it. Traditionally the executing part has been the
heart of the SHRM’s strategic job. The top operating or line managers formulates and set the company’s corporate and competitive strategies then the SHRM designs strategies, policies and practices in line with this formulation. The SHRM’s part is thereby to support the strategy execution (Dessler, 2008).
In recent years, there has been a trend shift and researches have now identified SHRM to take an active role with the top managers in the firm to formulate the company’s strategic plans. The soared competitive environment due to a globalized economy has lead to that many employers are pursuing improved performance by improvement of commitment and competence level of their employees. This makes the SHRM’s proficiency and expertise crucial for the strategic planning and formulation process (Dessler, 2008).
2.3 How to measure effectiveness of SHRM
Section 2.3 briefly presents how SHRM can affect organisational performance and how execution of HR can be measured.
According to Colakoglu et al. (2006), the area of SHRM research has made great progress. However, researcher differ in the way they define the outcome construct of interest i.e. performance. The dependent variable in measuring organisational outcomes is, in general, simply labelled ‘firm performance’. However, performance can be measured in many different ways. “Performance varies by how proximal it is to the intended impact of HR practices, the level at which it is aggregated, and by the stakeholder groups whose interests are met” (Colakoglu et al., 2006, p. 216). The key point made by Colakoglu et al. (2006) is that companies should not rely on a single performance measure to calculate the benefits HRM because there are different types of companies that operate in different contexts.
2.3.1 Different performance measures
Colakoglu et al. (2006) argue that there are Proximal and distal HR measures. Closeness of the measures to the HR practices makes a distinction between these two (Dyer & Reeves, 2005). The organisational performance measures are divided into four categories.
Dyer and Reeves (1995) argue that individual level outcomes such as employee turnover, absenteeism, job satisfaction (Seibert, Silver, & Randolph, 2004), commitment, and motivation (Bloom, 1999) are proximal since they are very closely linked to HR practices. Dyer and Reeves (1995) argue that since HR practices are designed for attaining results within these areas they also have the highest effect on these outcomes.
The second category of organisational performance is more distal to HR practices than the previous ones. These outcomes are on a macro level and include aggregates of individual efforts, such as indicators of productivity, quality of products and customer service (Dyer & Reeves, 1995). For instance, Huselid (1995) states that corporate financial performance is affected by High performance work practices due to their influence on employee turnover and productivity. Financial and accounting outcomes include measures like return on assets, return on investments, return on equity and profitability. These measures have been investigated by for example Delery and Doty (1996). The study made by Delery and Doty (1996) focused on the banking industry
and investigated ROE and ROA as performance measures to HR practises. They analysed the universalistic, contingency and configurational approach and found, respectively, an 11, 10, 6 percent variation in financial performance.
Stock price, growth and returns are capital market measures to HR practices. According to Colakoglu et al. (2006) these are the most distal performance measures. Rogers and Wright (1998) state that, “the more proximal outcomes serve as means for achieving those higher-level outcomes.”
2.3.2 HR Scorecard Why HR Scorecard?
Managers in a firm need a way to evaluate the HR functions based on whether it can bring value to the company. Dessler (2008) argues that “value creation” is commonly defined as a measurable contribution to the company’s strategic goals. The value created by human resource managers is the activities they perform that shapes employee behaviour in accordance with the company’s strategic goal. The HR scorecard enables top managers to formally outline and attach measure performance standards to each activity HR managers perform.
How to create HR Scorecard
Gary Dessler (2008) is cross-referring to Becker, Huselid, and Ulrich book The HR Scorecard from 2001 when describing the HR Scorecard. According to Dessler (2008, p. 102) the HR Scorecard “measures the HR function’s effectiveness and efficiency in producing employee behaviours needed to achieve the company’s strategic goals”. To create the scorecard the manager need three different types of information; the company’s strategy, to understand the causal links between HR activities, and metrics to measure all activities and results involved. The strategy decides which the important employee behaviours and organisational outcomes are, and how the firm can measure the organisational performance. The HR managers further need to understand the causal link between HR activities, employee behaviours, the organisational outcomes, and organisational performance. Lastly, the HR manager need metrics in order to measure all the HR activities and results involved, especially the HR activities, behaviours of employees, relevant outcomes of the organisation connected to strategy, and organisational performance.
The most potent action an HR manager can perform in order to ensure that they contribute to the fulfilment of the firms’ strategy is to develop this HR Scorecard. It allows the HR managers’ to show their impact on the business performance. The scorecard enlightens HR managers’ central role as they implement the strategy in the firm (Dessler, 2008).
3 Method
This section will give a thorough description of the chosen methods and techniques used for collecting the data. In order for the reader to gain a deeper understanding of chosen research methods, this section will argue and justify for why specific methods are used. It will also present problems encountered in the research process.
3.1 Choice of methodology
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009, p. 5) define research as, “something that people undertake in order to find out things in a systematic way, thereby increasing their knowledge”. To increase knowledge one has to have a clear purpose and data must be collected and interpreted systematically. Methodology is a tool for the researcher to help fulfil the purpose of his or her study. According to Holme and Solvang (1997) there are two methodological approaches; the qualitative and the quantitative.
3.1.1 Qualitative vs. Quantitative
Qualitative research examines more intangible things like values attitudes and perceptions. It is often used to gain understanding of social and human activities. The Qualitative method is more subjective in its nature (Collis & Hussey, 2003). Criticism to this approach involves that it is easy to challenge and that it might be difficult to interpret and present findings (Collis & Hussey, 2003).
Quantitative research is about collecting and analyzing numerical data statistically. This method has an objective nature and it is very detailed and structured, even though it might be more difficult to design to begin with. It is easy to collate results and present data with this method. (Collis & Hussey, 2003)
We have chosen to use the qualitative approach for our study. To fully understand how EWES is aligning HR strategies with corporate strategies we need to understand the companies´ perceptions values and attitudes towards it. SHRM also requires an understanding of social and human activities. Therefore, we believe that the qualitative approach is the most accurate method to use in order to fulfil the purpose of this study.
3.1.2 Deductive vs. Inductive Research
The deductive approach is quite exceptional as the findings can change and or strengthen the theory on which the research builds upon. It is about testing existing theories (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, (2009). Collis and Hussey (2003) refer to deductive approach as moving from the general ideas to particular situations, the particular is hence deduced from the general idea or the broad theory.
The inductive approach on the other hand is quite the opposite. By analysing collected data the inductive approach strives for theory building. It develops a theory based upon the results from the analysis of the data that has been obtained (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2009). This approach moves from a particular situation to create or infer general ideas or theories (Collis and Hussey, 2003).
The deductive approach was used in this thesis, as the research was based upon previous research concerning strategic human resource management. General theories regarding strategic human resource management were studied and tied to the particular case of study: EWES Stålfjäder AB. The research approach is thereby in line with Collis and Hussey (2003) definition of the deductive approach: moving from the general to the particular.
3.2 Data Collection
Data can be collected from two sources; a primary and a secondary source (Collis & Hussey, 2003)
Primary data is a firsthand insight to an examined phenomenon produced for a purpose (Jacobssen, 2002). Primary data is original data that has been collected at the source by conducting interviews or surveys for example (Collis & Hussey, 2003). The collection of primary data is explained in section 3.2.1. Secondary data, on the other hand, is information previously produced for another purpose. However it can be used in different contexts. Most secondary data has originally been primary data (Björklund & Paulsson, 2003). For example, Secondary data can be collected from films, books, articles and documents (Collis & Hussey, 2003).
3.2.1 Primary data collection: interviews
Holme and Solvang state (1997) that one strength with the qualitative interview is that it is very much like the daily life conversation, where the person being interviewed has an effect in where the conversation is going. In this form it is important to have an interview manual, though not standardized, directing the conversation, one should also be prepared to change the direction of the conversation along the way as leads are given (Holme & Solvang, 1997). Another benefit Holme and Solvang (1997) argues for is that this kind of qualitative interviews is flexible which makes it easy to reconnect if additional information is needed or answers are not understood.
Structure of interview
There are three different ways of conducting an interviews; unstructured, semi structured, and structured. Where unstructured consists of having an interview with a clear plan in your head, while leaving a great freedom when it comes to respondents answers. Semi structured is based on the liberties given to the respondent in an unstructured interview. However it is additionally based on an Interview guide, where the topics and questions are written down and in which order they are to be handled. The semi structured also makes it possible to compare different interviews. The structured interview is a fully controlled one with questions and the order these are going to be handled (Bernard, 2002; Patton, 1984).
In our research, we have decided to conduct semi-structured interviews in order to give us guidance during the interview and freedom for the respondents when answering. The questions used can be found in appendix 1.
Process of selecting respondents
The process of selecting who, and how many participants that should participate in the research, is an important part in the empirical research process. The choice will be important when it comes to the quality of the collected empirical material. There are many methods to choose
participants for a study. The choice of method will be determined by the purpose of the study (Lekvall & Wahlbin, 1993).
Since we have chosen to study the HR strategies and corporate strategies at EWES we have decided to choose people that have firsthand knowledge within these areas and that can provide a clear picture of these two aspects.
To identify interviewees we asked Anton Schön to tell us who he thinks is the most appropriate to talk to regarding these matters. We have asked Anton Schön specifically because he knows the organisation best and will soon be taking over the CEO position from Kjell Svensson. The names, positions, date and length of interview can be found in the table below.
Administration of interviews
We have chosen to conduct our interviews by having one of the authors of the thesis to lead the interview while the other two has focused on listening and taking notes. We have also recorded our interviews digitally so that we can go back and listen to the interviews if we have missed something in our notes. All our interviews were conducted in Swedish since all the interviewees’ mother tongues was Swedish. The interviews were designed to last approximately 45 min. All interviewees were informed about the purpose of the thesis before the interviews.
3.2.2 Secondary data collection
The theoretical framework in this study is based on secondary data in form of literature and peer reviewed academic articles. We have searched for well-known and respected authors within the field of Strategic Human Resource Management. The databases used for collecting published materials were ABI/INFORM, Google Scholar, Business Source premier and JULIA. When searching for articles and literature we have chosen keywords such as: “strategic human resource management”, “Human resource management and organisational performance”, “SHRM”, “HR practices”. We have identified journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal and Human Resource Management as relevant journals within the field of Strategic Human Resource Management.
In addition when conducting a qualitative study of a company, secondary sources can help to triangulate findings based on the primary data collected (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2003). If two or more sources explain a phenomenon in the same way one can conclude that the information is reliable (Jacobssen, 2002). According to Jacobssen (2002), the result can be controlled and supported by using both primary and secondary data. That is why we have chosen to use secondary material in form of written internal documents to obtain a better picture of
Interviewee Position Date Length of interview
Anton Schön Deputy CEO 26/4 2010 60 min
Anders Cederquist Product Manager 26/4 2010 50 min
Åsa Cederquist HR Assistant 26/4 2010 45 min
EWES’ corporate strategies and HR Strategies. The document consists of meeting protocols from meetings with the board of directors and EWES’ corporate website. Material from and interview 2006-09-26 with CEO Kjell Svensson and an interview 2010-02-26 with Anton Schön has also been used.
3.3 Empirical findings and analysis
In a qualitative study, the strength is dependent on the quality of the analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994). The analysis should be separated into three parts; reduction of the data collected, presentation of relevant data, and conclusions that can be drawn from the data presented.
In the first phase of the analysis the data that has been collected is shortened, simplified and changed (Miles & Huberman, 1994). After completing the interviews we have brought together all the notes to get a good picture of the material. Thereafter, we revised the interview material and put it into our empirical chapter. The revised interview material has then been translated to English.
The foundation of the analysis is the empirical material (Miles & Huberman, 1994). In the second phase of the analysis process the researcher summarizes the empirical material and presents it in an organized form. We will structure our empirical chapter according to the main areas of our theoretical framework. We will present EWES’ corporate strategies and how EWES works with HRM so that we can easily assess the alignment between these two areas in our analysis part. In the last phase of the analysis process the revised material is analyzed so that conclusions can be drawn (Miles & Huberman, 1994). In the analysis part we will compare the theories in the theoretical framework with our empirical findings so that a good evaluation can be made on our purpose.
3.4 Reliability and Validity
We have chosen to perform a qualitative study, which Holme and Solvang (1997) argue is less dependent upon representativeness of the information, reliability, and validity compared to quantitative studies. However, they are still relevant to take in consideration when conducting a qualitative study.
3.4.1 Representativeness of the information
Representativeness of the information is according to Holme and Solvang (1997) concerned with if the selected sample is representative for the entire population and that it is especially important for quantitative studies. If this concept is adapted on our qualitative study, we believe our sample is representative for the entire population of EWES’ managers that are handling both corporate strategic issues as well as HR strategic issues. The deputy CEO, Anton Schön, selected the respondents. We are, however, aware of the risk of biases when having someone else choosing the interviewees. In this case we believe that the interviewees are representative for the population mentioned above since the respondents were all involved in working with HR strategies and corporate strategies at EWES. Therefore they also have extensive knowledge in these matters.
3.4.2 Reliability
Bell (2000) states that reliability measures to what degree an instrument or line of action would give the same results at different occasions if duplicated under similar circumstances. According to Holme and Solvang (1997), there are two problems when it comes to qualitative measures. Firstly, the researcher’s experience of the interview situation can be false, where interpretation and misunderstanding of the situation can lead to false conclusions. The second problem is the communication between the interviewer and the interviewee, where nearness between the two can give an abnormal behaviour or reply from the person who is interviewed.
We have attempted to provide as thorough explanations as possible for our chosen methods, this to enable the readers to evaluate the reliability of this study. In order to attend to the possible biases in the researcher’s experience of the interview situation, we have all chosen to attend during the interviews. This enables us to compare our different experiences and thus minimizing the biased and false impressions and interpretations of the situation. The comparison between the different experiences, but also the discussion of the interview questions before execution is intended to raise the reliability.
3.4.3 Validity
According to Bell (2000), validity is concerned with if a certain question measures or describes what it was intended to measure or describe. Even though a question has a high reliability it does not necessarily have a high validity, however if the question has a low reliability then it will also lack validity (Bell, 2000). Considering trustworthiness of a study Andersen (1998) states that it is important to gain a high validity. Trustworthiness can further be described in two terms; relevance and validity (Andersen, 1998). Where relevance covers how relevant the theoretical framework and empirical findings are concerning the purpose and problem of the paper. The Validity however deals with the general agreement between the theoretical concepts and empirical concepts.
To strengthen the validity of our research we used interviews and written documents. In collecting the empirical data we used semi-structured interviews, which make it a more open discussion giving us cooperation with the respondent (Bernard, 2002). This makes it possible to clear possible misunderstandings along the way, which will be of importance when connecting the theoretical framework with the empirical findings. The semi-structured interviews also give the respondent an opportunity to speak in a free way about the pre-determined topics (Bernard, 2002). This enables us to find out more profound answers and thus increasing our validity. Concerning the written documents, they are assumed to be reliable, since the potential customers are to rely on this information. The written document used is the firm’s website for gathering background information concerning EWES Stålfjäder AB. We have also confirmed this information with EWES, so we assume this information has a high validity.
4 Empirical Data
This section presents the empirical data gathered through in-depth interviews with the management team of EWES. In order for the reader to get a comprehensive picture of this section, EWES Stålfjäder AB is described briefly with focus on their Corporate and HR strategy, which is the focus of this study.
4.1 EWES’ Stålfjäder AB
EWES is a well established medium sized company within the manufacturing industry. The company was started in Bredaryd 1935, where they still have their biggest production facilities and head office (EWES, 2010). As a family enterprise, they started out producing steel springs for mattresses, which they during the 1960’s left due to changes in the industry. Instead they started to produce springs for the mechanical industry. The former clients were replaced by companies such as; Asea Skandia, EKS, SAAB and Electrolux. At this important change of customer base EWES had 17-18 employees. The first generational change took place in 1970 when Kjell, the son of the founder, took over the post as CEO. This started a new era where EWES’ production was automated which led to increased efficiency and reduced costs. During this new era EWES won new ground as they made the first computer based calculation program for springs together with a researcher within the field, and received one year exclusivity on this program. This more or less revolutionized the industry, and gave EWES a greater international clientele. This has resulted in a revenue increase of about 25 times from 1970 until 2006 (K. Svensson, personal communication, 2006-09-26).
EWES is today one of the leading producers of steel springs in Scandinavia with a yearly revenue of 100 million SEK and about 90 Employees (A. Schön, personal communication, 2010-02-26). Their aspiration is to be the most obvious partner in production of springs, wire material and environmental products used to cleanse combustion gases in plants and use the latest technology along with modern machinery within their business segments (EWES, 2010b). Today, EWES have production within two business areas springs and environmental products. Which are divided into six product areas; automotive, electronics, standard, environmental, industry and gas struts (EWES, 2010a).
4.2 EWES’ organisation
EWES’ HR organisation is quite small if you compare it to the size of the organisation. Today there are only two employees that work with HR at EWES, Åsa Cederquist and Agneta Petersson. Agneta is “HR Manager” but she is also the financial manager, she works about 50% with each area of responsibility. Åsa is working under Agneta as HR Administrator. She works only part time about 20 hours per week and does solely what Agneta delegates her to do. Agneta is also part of the board of directors.
The two other interviewees Anders Cederquist and Anton Schön do not have written HR titles but they still have responsibilities as HR Managers. Anton as the deputy CEO has an important role when it comes to formulating both companywide strategies and HR strategies. Anders is the production Manager and is therefore an important person when it comes to executing HR and corporate strategies. In figure 3 below you can see a simplified version of EWES organizational structure.
4.3 EWES’ Strategic situation
The empirical material in this section is structured according to the model “Linking Company-Wide and HR Strategies” by Dessler (2008), to get a clear picture of the company’s HR and corporate strategies. The original model can be found in section 2.1.2.
Figure 4, EWES’ strategic plan inserted in Dessler’s (2008) model “Linking Company-Wide and HR Strategies”.
4.3.1 Threats
“The service level is a great threat, where lack of material among other things can result in a loss of customers for EWES” – Anders Cederquist
“We have seen aggressive acquisitions within the industry by competitors backed up by venture capitalists” – Anton Schön
