Institutional approaches to examining the influence of context on human resource management

Abstract

This chapter reviews three related, but distinctive, institutional approaches to human resource management (HRM) policies within organizations. The approaches view institutions, organizations, and their HRM policies as conceptually separate, but ontologically connected. In other words, they view context and HRM as intertwined, meaning that institutions play a key role in constituting what firms are and what HRM is in different contexts. The chapter reviews work on HRM within (1) the “varieties” approaches of the varieties of capitalism and business systems frameworks, (2) historical institutionalism, and (3) the regulationist framework. The chapter highlights the similarities among, as well as the differences between, these frameworks. In contrast to some other research perspectives, these institutional approaches add value to HRM analyses by explaining key variation among the nature of firms and how that variation influences important outcomes, such as HRM policies and practices, employees’ skill development, job tenure patterns, and social inequality. They also provide frameworks to address (1) how and why HRM changes and (2) how national and international institutions influence the types of HRM that firms adopt and their ability to achieve different objectives in contrasting locations. Individually and collectively, they demonstrate the importance of context on the nature of organizations, what HRM is, and the links between HRM and organizational outcomes.