The role of strategic groups in understanding strategic human resource management

Abstract

Management AbstractPurpose -This article explores how understanding the challenges faced by companies' attempts to create competitive advantage through their human resources and HRM practices can be enhanced by insights into the concept of strategic groups within industries. Based within the international hotel industry this study identifies how strategic groups emerge in the analysis of HRM practices and approaches. It sheds light on the value of strategic groups as a way of readdressing the focus on firm and industry level analyses.Design Methodology/Approach -Senior human resource executives and their teams across eight international hotel companies (IHCs) were interviewed in corporate and regional headquarters, with observations and the collection of company documentation complementing the interviews.Findings -The findings demonstrate that strategic groups emerge from analysis of the HRM practices and strategies used to develop hotel general managers (HGMs) as strategic human resources in the international hotel industry. The value of understanding industry structures, dynamics and intermediary levels of analysis are apparent where specific industries place occupational constraints on their managerial resources and limit the range of strategies and expansion modes companies can adopt.Research limitations/implications -This study indicates that further research on strategic groups will enhance the theoretical understanding of strategic human resource management (SHRM) and specifically the forces that act to constrain the achievement of competitive advantage through human resources. A limitation of this study is the dependence on the human resource divisions' perspectives of realising international expansion ambitions in the hotel industry.Practical implications -This study has implications for companies' engagement with their executives' perceptions of opportunities and threats, and suggests companies will struggle to achieve competitive advantage where such perceptions are consistent with their competitors.Originality/value -Developments in strategic human resource management have relied upon the conceptual and theoretical developments in strategic management, however, an understanding of the impact of strategic groups and their shaping of SHRM has not been previously explored.

Innovation in public services: The case of Spanish local government

“…Furthermore, these managers not only have an overall vision of the organizations where they work but also a good knowledge of the organizational strategy (Cepeda-Carrión, Cegarra-Navarro, and Leal-Millan, 2012;Gannon, Doherty, and Roper, 2012;Koonmee, Singhapakdi, Virakul, and Lee, 2010;Kulik and Perry, 2008), explaining the belief that they could be good candidates to answer the questionnaire.…”

International Hotel Strategy and Institutional Distance: A Conceptual Framework

“…However, given the difficulties hotels face in separating downstream and upstream activities, a centralised approach seems much harder to achieve than in the manufacturing sector (Contractor et al, 2003). In particular, even hotel wide staff development schemes and other HR related issues might have to be significantly adapted to local standards (Gannon et al, 2012) and hence might diminish FSA's transferred into countries at a larger informal institutional distance.…”

“…This might have led to an underestimation of the behaviour shaping influence institutions can have on economic actors. That resulted in a continued focus on industrial organisation economics frameworks to explain the majority of empirical findings in international hotel strategy papers such as in Pine and Qi (2004), Whitla et al (2007) or Gannon et al (2012).…”

“…The international location of activities across the entire value chain Bouncken, 2002;Whitla et al, 2007;Gannon et al, 2012;Brookes and Roper, 2012 Marketing…”

“…The decision to standardise services to varying degrees across the international operations Bouncken, 2002;Pine andQi, 2004, Chen andDimou, 2005;Baum, 2006;Groschl and Doherty, 2006;Whitla et al, 2007;Hsieh and Tsai, 2009;Gannon et al, 2012 Location of activities…”