“…However, in the specific case of human resources, the reality shown by websites reveals that this is not seen as just another department, but as an essential one. In fact, some of those sites literally say that it represents a 'differential factor' for corporations, or expressed differently, a competitive advantage factor (Den Hartog and Verburg, 2004;Bhattacharya and Wright, 2005;Hiltrop, 2006;Clardy, 2008). Thus, 22 companies explicitly stated the guidelines of the human resource policy in 2007 (as opposed to 24 in 2017), to which must be added that eight firms identified human resource development as a key corporate strategy in 2007 (a number which increased to 17 in 2017).…”