Understanding the institutional action of human resource management

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Management and Accounting, University of Tehran, College of Farabi, Qom, Iran

2 Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Islamic Studies and Management, University of Imam Sadiq, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to understand the institutional action of human resource management. Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted based on purposive sampling and theoretical saturation, and through thematic analysis, 68 basic themes, 14 organizing themes, and four global themes were selected after recoding. The global themes are the institutional context, actions, conflicts, and practices; Organizing themes of the institutional context of HRM include institutional complexity, institutional change, and HRM actors. HRM actors conceptualize conceptualize the dimensions of the institutional context through institutional intelligence and give meaning to their actions with HRM logic through two categories of proactive and reactive actions. In other words, the implementation of practices is based on the way of giving meaning to the institutional logic in HRM logic. Proactive actions include institutional work and institutional entrepreneurship, customization, bricolage, combination, leveraging, updating, recreating, and integrating institutional logic in HRM logic logic in HRM logic, and structural actions include action-oriented organizing, networking, and making agile. Reactive actions include the legitimization of HRM logic in the context, loose coupling, prioritization, standardization, and proportionate logicinstitutional logic in HRM logic, and downsizing and outsourcing the structure. These actions are in response to three categories of conflicts, including the conflict of HRM logic with institutional logic, the conflict of HRM logic with contradictory institutional logic, as well as the conflicts of HRM logic (including the conflict of HRM logic with the organization logic, the conflict between the logic of HRM practices and the conflict within the HRM practices logic). Based on the findings, the conceptual model of the research was presented.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

Almandoz, J. (2012). Arriving at the starting line: The impact of community and financial logics on new banking ventures. Academy of management Journal, 55(6), 1381-1406.‏
Arman, R., Kadefors, R., & Wikström, E. (2021). ‘We don't talk about age’: a study of human resources retirement narratives. Ageing & Society, 1-27.‏
Aust, I., Brandl, J., Keegan, A., & Lensges, M. (2017). Tensions in managing human resources. The oxford handbook of organizational paradox, 413.‏
Battilana, J. (2006). Agency and institutions: The enabling role of individuals’ social position. Organization, 13(5), 653-676.‏
Battilana, J. & Dorado, S. (2010). Building sustainable hybrid organizations: The case of commercial microfinance organizations. Academy of management Journal, 53(6), 1419-1440.‏
Battilana, J., Leca, B., & Boxenbaum, E. (2009). 2 how actors change institutions: towards a theory of institutional entrepreneurship. Academy of Management Annals, 3(1), 65-107.‏
Beer, M., Boselie, P., & Brewster, C. (2015). Back to the future: Implications for the field of HRM of the multistakeholder perspective proposed 30 years ago. Human Resource Management, 54(3), 427-438.‏
Bévort, F. & Poulfelt, F. (2015). Human resource management in professional services firms: Too good to be true? Transcending conflicting institutional logics. German Journal of Human Resource Management, 29(2), 102-130.‏
Bjerregaard, T. & Jonasson, C. (2014). Managing unstable institutional contradictions: The work of becoming. Organization Studies, 35(10), 1507-1536.‏
Blaikie, N. (2007). Approaches to social enquiry: Advancing knowledge. Polity.‏
Boon, C., Paauwe, J., Boselie, P., & Den Hartog, D. (2009). Institutional pressures and HRM: developing institutional fit. Personnel Review.‏
Borghouts-van de Pas, I. & Freese, C. (2021). Offering jobs to persons with disabilities: A Dutch employers’ perspective. Alter, 15(1), 89-98.‏
Boselie, P., Dietz, G., & Boon, C. (2005). Commonalities and contradictions in HRM and performance research. Human resource management journal, 15(3), 67-94.
Boussebaa, M. (2009). Struggling to organize across national borders: The case of global resource management in professional service firms. Human Relations, 62(6), 829-850.‏
Boxall, P. & Purcell, J. (2003). Strategic HRM: ‘best fit’or ‘best practice’. Strategy and human resource management, 1, 47-70.
Braun, V. & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative research in psychology, 3(2), 77-101.‏
Bunduchi, R., Tursunbayeva, A., & Pagliari, C. (2019). Coping with institutional complexity: Intersecting logics and dissonant visions in a nation-wide healthcare IT implementation project. Information Technology & People.‏
Chapman, E. F., Sisk, F. A., Schatten, J., & Miles, E. W. (2018). Human resource development and human resource management levers for sustained competitive advantage: Combining isomorphism and differentiation. Journal of Management & Organization, 24(4), 533-550.‏
Chaudhry, S. & Rubery, J. (2019). Why do established practices deinstitutionalize? An actor‐centred approach. British Journal of Management, 30(3), 538-557.‏
Chowdhury, S. D. & Mahmood, M. H. (2012). Societal institutions and HRM practices: an analysis of four European multinational subsidiaries in Bangladesh., 23(9), 1808-1831.‏
Claus, L. & Kroezen, J. (2016). How Do Institutional Paradoxes Evolve? The Gender Equality Paradox in Professional Tennis. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2016, No. 1, p. 14026). Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management.‏
Cleveland, J. N., Byrne, Z. S., & Cavanagh, T. M. (2015). The future of HR is RH: Respect for humanity at work. Human Resource Management Review, 25(2), 146-161.‏
Dachner, A. M., Ellingson, J. E., Noe, R. A., & Saxton, B. M. (2021). The future of employee development. Human Resource Management Review, 31(2), 100732.‏
D'Aunno, T., Sutton, R. I., & Price, R. H. (1991). Isomorphism and external support in conflicting institutional environments: A study of drug abuse treatment units. Academy of management journal, 34(3), 636-661.‏
Decramer, A., Smolders, C., Vanderstraeten, A., & Christiaens, J. (2012). The impact of institutional pressures on employee performance management systems in higher education in the low countries. British Journal of Management, 23, S88-S103.
Delbridge, R. & Edwards, T. (2013). Inhabiting institutions: Critical realist refinements to understanding institutional complexity and change. Organization Studies, 34(7), 927–947.
Di Pietro, F., Monaghan, S., & O'Hagan‐Luff, M. (2022). Entrepreneurial finance and HRM practices in small firms. British Journal of Management, 33(1), 327-345.‏
DiMaggio, P. J. & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American sociological review, 147-160.‏
Edwards, T., Sanchez-Mangas, R., Jalette, P., Lavelle, J., & Minbaeva, D. (2016). Global standardization or national differentiation of HRM practices in multinational companies? A comparison of multinationals in five countries. Journal of International Business Studies, 47(8), 997-1021.‏
Friedland, R. (1991). Bringing society back in: Symbols, practices, and institutional contradictions. The new institutionalism in organizational analysis, 232-263.‏
Greenwood, R. & Suddaby, R. (2006). Institutional entrepreneurship in mature fields: The big five accounting firms. Academy of Management journal, 49(1), 27-48.‏
Greenwood, R., Hinings, C. R., & Whetten, D. (2014). Rethinking institutions and organizations. Journal of management studies, 51(7), 1206-1220.‏
Greenwood, R., Raynard, M., Kodeih, F., Micelotta, E. R., & Lounsbury, M. (2011). Institutional complexity and organizational responses. Academy of Management annals, 5(1), 317-371.‏
Greenwood, R., Suddaby, R., & Hinings, C. R. (2002). Theorizing change: The role of professional associations in the transformation of institutionalized fields. Academy of management journal, 45(1), 58-80.‏
Harrell-Cook, G. & Ferris, G. R. (1997). Competing pressures for human resource investment. Human Resource Management Review, 7(3), 317-340.‏
Hatch, M. J. & Cunliffe, A. L. (2013). Organization theory: modern, symbolic and postmodern perspectives. Kindle Version. Retrieved from Amazon. com.‏
Héliot, Y., Gleibs, I. H., Coyle, A., Rousseau, D. M., & Rojon, C. (2020). Religious identity in the workplace: A systematic review, research agenda, and practical implications. Human Resource Managemnt, 59(2), 153-173.‏
Hillebrink, C., Schippers, J., van Doorne‐Huiskes, A., & Peters, P. (2008). Offering choice in benefits: a new Dutch HRM arrangement. International Journal of Manpower.‏
Hodgson, D., Paton, S., & Muzio, D. (2015). Something old, something new?: Competing logics and the hybrid nature of new corporate professions. British Journal of Management, 26(4), 745-759.‏
Holm, P. (1995). The dynamics of institutionalization: Transformation processes in Norwegian fisheries. Administrative science quarterly, 398-422.‏
Hotho, J., Minbaeva, D., Muratbekova-Touron, M., & Rabbiosi, L. (2020). Coping with favoritism in recruitment and selection: a communal perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 165(4), 659-679.‏
Huang, W. (2016). Responsible pay: managing compliance, organizational efficiency and fairness in the choice of pay systems in China’s automotive companies. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 27(18), 2161-2181.‏
Ierodiakonou, C. & Stavrou, E. (2017). Flexitime and employee turnover: the polycontextuality of regulation as cross-national institutional contingency. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 28(21), 3003-3026.‏
Jackson, S., Schuler, R., & Jiang, K. (2014). An aspirational framework for strategic human resource management. Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 1–56.
Jancsary, D., Meyer, R. E., Höllerer, M. A., & Barberio, V. (2017). Toward a structural model of organizational-level institutional pluralism and logic interconnectedness. Organization Science, 28(6), 1150-1167.‏
Jarzabkowski, P., Smets, M., Bednarek, R., Burke, G., & Spee, P. (2013). Institutional ambidexterity: Leveraging institutional complexity in practice. In Institutional logics in action, part B. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.‏
Kaiser, U., Kongsted, H. C., Laursen, K., & Ejsing, A. K. (2018). Experience matters: The role of academic scientist mobility for industrial innovation. Strategic Management Journal, 39(7), 1935-1958.‏
Kaufman, B. (2015). Evolution of strategic HRM as seen through two founding books: A 30th anniversary perspective on development of the field. Human Resource Management, 54(3), 389–407.
Keegan, A., Bitterling, I., Sylva, H., & Hoeksema, L. (2018). Organizing the HRM function: Responses to paradoxes, variety, and dynamism. Human Resource Management, 57(5), 1111-1126.‏
Kim, S. & Chung, S. (2016). Explaining organizational responsiveness to emerging regulatory pressure: the case of illegal overtime in China. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 27(18), 2097-2118.‏
Kitchener, M. (2002). Mobilizing the logic of managerialism in professional fields: The case of academic health centre mergers. Organization studies, 23(3), 391-420.‏
Knardal, P. S. (2020). Orchestrating institutional complexity and performance management in the performing arts. Financial Accountability & Management, 36(3), 300-318.‏
Kodeih, F. & Greenwood, R. (2014). Responding to institutional complexity: The role of identity. Organization Studies, 35(1), 7-39.‏
Konrad, A. M., Yang, Y., & Maurer, C. C. (2016). Antecedents and outcomes of diversity and equality management systems: An integrated institutional agency and strategic human resource management approach. Human Resource Management, 55(1), 83-107.‏
Lawrence, T. B. & Suddaby, R. (2006). 1.6 institutions and institutional work. The Sage handbook of organization studies, 215-254.‏
Lawrence, T., Suddaby, R., & Leca, B. (2011). Institutional work: Refocusing institutional studies of organization. Journal of management inquiry, 20(1), 52-58.‏
Legge, K. (1995). Human Resource Management: Rhetorics and Realities in Macmillan. Basingstoke, Hants.‏
Legge, K. (2005) Human resource management: Rhetorics and realities. Anniversary Edition. London: Palgrave MacMilan.
Lewis, A. C., Cardy, R. L., & Huang, L. S. (2019). Institutional theory and HRM: A new look. Human resource management review, 29(3), 316-335.‏
López-Fernández, M. & Pasamar, S. (2019). Coercive pressures for the implementation of health and safety practices: are they enough?. Employee Relations: The International Journal.‏
Lu, W., Saka-Helmhout, A., & Piekkari, R. (2019). Adaptation of compensation practice in China: The role of sub-national institutions. Management and Organization Review, 15(2), 235-267.‏
Luo, J., Chen, J., & Chen, D. (2021). Coming back and giving back: transposition, institutional actors, and the paradox of peripheral influence. Administrative Science Quarterly, 66(1), 133-176.‏
Luo, X. R., Wang, D., & Zhang, J. (2017). Whose call to answer: Institutional complexity and firms’ CSR reporting. Academy of management journal, 60(1), 321-344.‏
Maguire, S., Hardy, C., & Lawrence, T. B. (2004). Institutional entrepreneurship in emerging fields: HIV/AIDS treatment advocacy in Canada. Academy of Management Journal, 47(5), 657-679.‏
Marano, V. & Kostova, T. (2016). Unpacking the institutional complexity in adoption of CSR practices in multinational enterprises. Journal of Management Studies, 53(1), 28-54.‏
Martin, G., Farndale, E., Paauwe, J., & Stiles, P. G. (2016). Corporate governance and strategic human resource management: Four archetypes and proposals for a new approach to corporate sustainability. European Management Journal, 34(1), 22-35.‏
Martin, G., Siebert, S., & Robson, I. (2018). Conformist innovation: An institutional logics perspective on how HR executives construct business school reputations. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 29(13), 2027-2053.‏
Martin-Alcazar, F., Romero-Fernandez, P. M., & Sanchez-Gardey, G. (2005). Strategic human resource management: integrating the universalistic, contingent, configurational and contextual perspectives. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 16(5), 633-659.‏
Meijerink, J., Bondarouk, T., & Maatman, M. (2013). Exploring and comparing HR shared services in subsidiaries of multinational corporations and indigenous organisations in the Netherlands: A strategic response analysis. European Journal of International Management, 7(4), 469-492.‏
Meijerink, J., Keegan, A., & Bondarouk, T. (2021). Having their cake and eating it too? Online labor platforms and human resource management as a case of institutional complexity. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 32(19), 4016-4052.‏
Meyer, J. W. & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American journal of sociology, 83(2), 340-363.‏
Meyer, R. E. & Höllerer, M. A. (2016). Laying a smoke screen: Ambiguity and neutralization as strategic responses to intra-institutional complexity. Strategic Organization, 14(4), 373-406.‏
Moore, G. & Grandy, G. (2017). Bringing morality back in: Institutional theory and MacIntyre. Journal of Management Inquiry, 26(2), 146-164.‏
Moses, A. & Sharma, A. (2020). What drives human resource acquisition and retention in social enterprises? An empirical investigation in the healthcare industry in an emerging market. Journal of Business Research, 107, 76-88.‏
Murphy, C., Klotz, A. C., & Kreiner, G. E. (2017). Blue skies and black boxes: The promise (and practice) of grounded theory in human resource management research. Human Resource Management Review, 27(2), 291-305.‏
Nolan, C. T., Garavan, T. N., & Lynch, P. (2020). Multidimensionality of HRD in small tourism firms: A case study of the Republic of Ireland. Tourism Management, 79, 104029.‏
Nolan, J. (2011). Good guanxi and bad guanxi: Western bankers and the role of network practices in institutional change in China. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 22(16), 3357-3372.‏
Nwagbara, U. (2020). Exploring how institutions shape managerialist employment relations and work-life balance (WLB) challenges in Nigeria. Employee Relations: The International Journal.‏
Orton, J. D. & Weick, K. E. (1990). Loosely coupled systems: A reconceptualization. Academy of Management Review, 15(2), 203-223.‏
Paauwe, J. (2004). HRM and performance: Achieving long-term viability. Oxford University Press on Demand.‏
------------. (2009). HRM and performance: Achievements, methodological issues and prospects. Journal of Management studies, 46(1), 129–142.
Pache, A. C. & Santos, F. (2010). When worlds collide: The internal dynamics of organizational responses to conflicting institutional demands. Academy of management review, 35(3), 455-476.‏
----------------------------. (2013). Inside the hybrid organization: Selective coupling as a response to competing institutional logics. Academy of management journal, 56(4), 972-1001.‏
Powell, W. W. (1998). “Institutional theory”, in Cooper, C.L. and Argyris, C. (Eds), Encyclopedia of Management, Blackwell, Oxford.
Priem, R. L. & Butler, J. E. (2001). Is the resource-based “view” a useful perspective for strategic management research?. Academy of management review, 26(1), 22-40.‏
Raaijmakers, A. G., Vermeulen, P. A., Meeus, M. T., & Zietsma, C. (2015). I need time! Exploring pathways to compliance under institutional complexity. Academy of Management Journal, 58(1), 85-110.‏
Ren, S. & Jackson, S. E. (2020). HRM institutional entrepreneurship for sustainable business organizations. Human Resource Management Review, 30(3), 100691.‏
Sandholtz, K. W. & Burrows, T. N. (2016). Compliance police or business partner? Institutional complexity and occupational tensions in human resource management. In The structuring of work in organizations. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.‏
Saqib, S. I., Allen, M. M., & Wood, G. (2022). Lordly Management and its Discontents:‘Human Resource Management’in Pakistan. Work, Employment and Society, 36(3), 465-484.‏
Scheibmayr, I. & Reichel, A. (2021). Beating the advertising drum for the employer: How legal context translates into good HRM practice. Human Resource Management Journal.‏
Scott, W. R. (2013). Institutions and organizations: Ideas, interests, and identities. Sage publications.‏
Seet, P. S., Jones, J., Acker, T., & Jogulu, U. (2021). Meaningful careers in social enterprises in remote Australia: employment decisions among Australian Indigenous art centre workers. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 32(8), 1643-1684.‏
Smets, M., Burke, G. T., Jarzabkowski, P., & Spee, P. (2012). Reinsurance Trading in Lloyd's of London: Balancing Conflicting-yet-complementary logics in practice: Best Paper Proceedings Academy of Management. In 72nd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, AOM 2012.
Smets, M., Jarzabkowski, P., Burke, G. T., & Spee, P. (2015). Reinsurance trading in Lloyd's of London: Balancing conflicting-yet-complementary logics in practice. Academy of Management Journal, 58(3), 932-970.
Smith, W. K. & Lewis, M. W. (2011). Toward a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. Academy of management Review, 36(2), 381-403.‏
Suddaby, R. & Viale, T. (2011). Professionals and field-level change: Institutional work and the professional project. Current Sociology, 59(4), 423-442.‏
Thornton, P. H. & Ocasio, W. (1999). Institutional logics and the historical contingency of power in organizations: Executive succession in the higher education publishing industry, 1958–1990. American journal of Sociology, 105(3), 801-843.‏
Thornton, P. H., Ocasio, W., & Lounsbury, M. (2012). The institutional logics perspective: A new approach to culture, structure, and process. Oxford University Press on Demand.‏
Tina Dacin, M., Goodstein, J., & Richard Scott, W. (2002). Institutional theory and institutional change: Introduction to the special research forum. Academy of management journal, 45(1), 45-56.‏
Tracey, P., Creed, W. D., Smith, W. K., Lewis, M. W., Jarzabkowski, P., & Langley, A. (2017). Beyond managerial dilemmas. The Oxford handbook of organizational paradox, 162.‏
Ulrich, D. & Dulebohn, J. H. (2015). Are we there yet? What's next for HR?. Human Resource Management Review, 25(2), 188-204.‏
Voronov, M. & Yorks, L. (2015). “Did you notice that?” Theorizing differences in the capacity to apprehend institutional contradictions. Academy of Management Review, 40(4), 563-586.‏
Westermann-Behaylo, M., Berman, S. L., & Van Buren III, H. J. (2014). The influence of institutional logics on corporate responsibility toward employees. Business & Society, 53(5), 714-746.‏
Wulaningrum, P. D., Akbar, R., & Sari, M. R. (2020). Isomorphism, Human Resource Capability and Its Role in Performance Measurement and Accountability. The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics, and Business, 7(12), 1099-1110.‏
Xavier, B. (2014). Shaping the future research agenda for compensation and benefits management: Some thoughts based on a stakeholder inquiry. Human Resource Management Review, 24(1), 31-40.‏
Yin, R. K. (2009). Case study research: Design and methods (Vol. 5). sage.‏
Zhang, M. (2020). Rational actions or institutional actions: A study on the rationality in academic librarians' decision-making processes when purchasing e-book products. Library & Information Science Research, 42(2), 101018.‏
Organizational Culture Management
Volume 22, Issue 2
July 2024
Pages 121-140

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics