Human Resource Management in the Knowledge Economy: New Challenges, New Roles, New Capabilities - Softcover

Lengnick-Hall, Mark L.; Lengnick-Hall, Cynthia A.

 
9781576751596: Human Resource Management in the Knowledge Economy: New Challenges, New Roles, New Capabilities
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1576751597 ISBN 13: 9781576751596
Verlag: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

Synthesizes current thinking on knowledge management and intellectual capital and identifies how human resource management can make a value-added contribution
As more organizations recognize the importance of intellectual capital and knowledge management to competitive success, you would expect human resources (HR) to move to the forefront of organizational leadership. Yet, to the contrary, HR continues to be criticized for its operational and bureaucratic focus and its inability to keep up with changes in the environment.
Human Resource Management in the Knowledge Economy examines how human resource management must change if it is to remain a vital part of the organization. The Lengnick-Halls show how HR departments can move beyond a simple operational focus on attracting, selecting, developing, retaining, and using employees to a more strategic focus on managing human capital and managing knowledge.
The book identifies the most important features of the knowledge economy and details four new roles HR must adopt in order to help organizations succeed in this new environment: human capital steward, knowledge facilitator, relationship builder, and rapid deployment specialist. Each of these roles is defined and described in detail using examples from leading-edge businesses. Human Resource Management in the Knowledge Economy describes how human resource management has evolved and continues to evolve to meet the increasing demands of organizations for sources of competitive advantage.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mark L. Lengnick-Hall, Ph.D., is a Professor of Management in the College of Business at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He has human resource management experience in both private industry and state government. Dr. Lengnick-Hall has also consulted with and provided training for numerous organizations.
His articles have been published in journals such as the Academy of Management Review, Human Resource Management Review, Human Resource Management, Personnel Psychology, Personnel, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Organization Development Journal, HR Magazine, Training and Development, Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, Health Progress, Public Personnel Management, and the Journal of Management Education. He has co-authored two books: Compensation Decision Making: A Computer-Based Approach, published by Dryden in 1994, and Interactive Human Re- source Management and Strategic Planning, published by Quorum in 1990. Dr. Lengnick-Hall has also contributed chapters to other books.
Cynthia A. Lengnick-Hall, Ph.D., is a Professor of Management in the College of Business at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She has consulting and management experience in both private industry and higher education administration. Dr. Lengnick-Hall has consulted with and provided executive education for a number of organizations.

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A New Imperative for Human Resource Management
“The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows.”
—Aristotle Onassis
“In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.”
—Eric Hoffer
Pick up almost any business book or magazine and one is sure to see claims that a firm’s people are its most important resource. Unfortunately for most organizations, the ability to capitalize on this resource is limited by human resource management (HRM) programs, practices, and policies that have a simple operational focus on attracting, selecting, developing, retaining, and utilizing employees to accomplish specified tasks and jobs. Unless HRM is able to reinvent itself to embrace the challenges of the knowledge economy, it will become a constraining factor that undermines a firm’s competitiveness rather than a crucial source of competitive advantage.
The competitive demands of today’s marketplace require a reorientation of strategic human resource management emphasis that concentrates on building human capital and managing knowledge rather than focusing on primarily matching particular job skills to selected strategies. For example, similar to the ways that firms engage in mass customization of their products, they need to develop corresponding means to accomplish mass customization of the ways in which they manage individual differences within the workforce. Likewise, as firms develop business-to-business partnerships with suppliers and customers, human resource managers must find ways to develop partial employee relationships with those beyond the firm’s borders.
It appears that the HRM function in many organizations has become myopic and has directed its attention to efforts to do familiar things better and more efficiently rather than redefining both its role and its contribution to the twenty-first-century organization. The demands of a global, information-based, technology-rich, and quickly changing competitive field require human resource managers to ensure that people truly matter.
Human resource management faces a new imperative in the twenty-first century. It must
• Build strategic capability
• Expand its boundaries
• Manage new roles
It is no longer enough for HRM to maintain a narrow operational focus, view its activities as confined to the boundaries of its own organization, or limit itself only to traditional human resource (HR) responsibilities. To continue as it has in the past will relegate HRM to increasing irrelevance (and likely outsourcing) in the corporation of the future. Although many familiar HRM activities are necessary, they are increasingly distant from a firm’s direct value-creating processes. By taking a new perspective on how HRM can create strategic capability and provide value for customers, HR can increase its importance in the twenty-first-century organization.
Build Strategic Capability
Organizations in the emerging knowledge economy will need to build strategic capability: the capacity to create value based on the intangible assets of the firm. [Note: This entire section draws largely on the work of Hubert Saint-Onge (see http://www.knowinc.com/saint-onge/library/strategic.htm). The tangible assets of the firm are well understood: They are readily visible and rigorously quantified; they form an integral part of the balance sheet; they can be easily duplicated; and they depreciate with use. Examples of tangible assets include manufacturing plants, equipment, buildings, and other elements of physical infrastructure. In contrast, intangible assets of the firm are less well understood. Intangible assets are invisible, difficult to quantify, not tracked through accounting, must be developed in a path-dependent way over time—they cannot be instantaneously obtained, bought, or imitated—and they appreciate with purposeful use. Examples of intangible assets include technological know-how, customer loyalty, branding, and business processes. Tangible assets are necessary but not sufficient for gaining a competitive advantage in the knowledge economy, because most tangible assets can be imitated or obtained through the market. It is the intangible assets that will make the difference in which firms succeed and which fail.
How can you identify whether a firm has strategic capability? Look for these characteristics: a high level of business competency; a superior ability to detect, understand, and direct what’s going on in the marketplace (where preferences are shifting rapidly); the ability to transfer skills quickly and accurately across the organization; the ability to scale-up production to meet explosive demand and quickly expand market reach; and the ability to generate new opportunities for the organization before the marketplace has discovered they are required. Strategic capability is a readiness for the present and an ability to adapt in the future.
Strategic capability is obtained through relationships in which the creation, exchange, and harvesting of knowledge build the individual and organizational capabilities required to provide superior value for customers. Strategic capability consists of three components directly related to HR (http://intellectualcapital.org/evolution/main.html, 6/2/01): human capital, structural capital, and relationship capital. Human capital is the know-how, skills, and capabilities of individuals in an organization. Human capital reflects the competencies people bring to their work. Some examples of human capital include technical skills, innovativeness, and leadership competencies. Structural capital is the organizational architecture and managerial processes that enable human capital to create market value. Some examples of structural capital include modular and/or cellular structures, information systems, organizational culture, and decision-making processes. Relationship capital is the interpersonal connections across members of the firm and relationships with suppliers, customers, and other firms that provide the basis for cooperation and collaborative action. Some examples of relationship capital include trust, consumer loyalty, co-production activities, and licensing agreements (see Table 1.1). The interaction of these three components—human capital, structural capital, and relationship capital—creates value. Human resource management can increase its contribution to a firm’s competitiveness by playing a central role in the creation and maintenance of all three components of strategic capability. This can be done through programs, practices, policies, and setting an example in terms of the way the HR unit develops its people, designs itself, and establishes relationships across the organization and beyond its doors.
Expand Boundaries
When most people think about HRM, they think about hiring, firing, promoting, training, and so forth (the traditional operational focus), and they think about it within the context of a single organization. That is, HRM is thought of as an internal business function. Rarely would anyone think of one company using its HRM programs, practices, and policies on, for example, its suppliers or distributors. Even fewer people would consider the possibility of using a firm’s HRM programs, practices, and policies on its customers. Yet, all of these possibilities are a reality in some firms today and will become an imperative for many firms in the growing knowledge economy. Furthermore, by expanding its boundaries beyond the firm to suppliers, distributors, and...

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Verlag
Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Erscheinungsdatum
2002
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1576751597
ISBN 13 
9781576751596
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
224
Kontakt zum Hersteller
eucomply
hello@eucompliancepartner.com

Pärnu mnt 139b-14
Tallinn
11317
Estland

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