Analysis of Human Resource and Resource Based View of the Firm Article - Assignment Example

1. Synopsis and Introduction This essay is a critical review of the article “Human Resource and Resource Based View of the Firm”. The paper covers different theories of Resource based view and Strategic Human resource management. The basic aim of this paper is to see how theories of RBV have affected strategic HRM literature. The paper suggests that although the fields have been defined separately by many authors, it can’t be denied that they have started merging as one field in many aspects. The paper in question critically examines many other papers that have come out recently on this topic. This essay will critically examine the journal paper about RBV and HR. the essay will present a summary of the paper and then goes on to analyse it, the strengths and weaknesses are presented to critically evaluate the paper. 2. Discussion of the papers results: what are the key claims or findings? What does it add to the body of knowledge? This is likely to make up the major part of your essay. The results of this paper suggest some new findings and emphasis on previous literature findings regarding convergence of both fields. The paper delivers that future will see emergence of a new field that will include both concepts. The paper also goes on to say that the development of RBV literature in SHRM has not been predicted by researcher and it happened in the past 10 years. The emergence of and mixing of such literature has helped convergence of both fields. And researchers realized that both fields have much more to share in literature. The implications of RBV are very much part of Strategic HR as RBV is focused on using firm’s resources to gain competitive advantage. The paper also discusses in detail the papers that have come out criticizing strategic human resource or human resource role in making company’s strategy. One part of researcher’s feels that HR has no or very little role in forming a company’s strategy. The paper also presents papers that have come out saying that Human resource tools have a very significant part in forming the company’s strategy. Those papers suggest that company’s most important assets are human/people and if given the right tools to HR, it can help forming company’s strategy and give it a competitive advantage. The paper also discusses the empirical researches that have been carried out in the academia as well as many papers that discuss HR has any role in gaining competitive advantage. The paper tries to link that tools presented in these papers to resource based view of the firm. The researches that have focused on RBV and a link between strategy and skills have also been discussed and resulted in a perception that RBV works best when mixed and run side by side the overall strategy. The literature on empirical findings conclude that although there have been researches and conclusions that RBV does not generate testable hypothesis, the author of the paper claim that RBV fundamentals have been tested carefully while concluding such results. After discussing countless papers on strategic human resource management and RBV, the paper basically concludes that many concepts of the two fields overlap each other. And it will benefit the researchers and academics in future to do inter disciplinary studies on both fields. The results present the findings that RBV has very significant contributions in strategic HR literature, as academics have realized over the years that human capital is the main source of shaping strategy and can’t be ignored, the importance of RBV and its convergence in the SHRM field has increased. 3. The relation between the papers findings/ claims and the literature discussed in the module. This does not have to be a separate paragraph but you are asked to include the relevant references as discussed during the module. The findings in the paper are very much similar to complications and criticism of RBV that we studies during the module. The findings and results of this paper correspond with the ideas that we discussed during the modules and discussions. It also shows that RBV has more critics at this stage then its fans. And it is becoming increasingly difficult for researchers to justify its importance or any place in strategic human resource literature. 4. If relevant when the paper discusses empirical findings, an assessment of the methods used by the papers authors The method use in this paper has been mainly summarising and comparing literature. This paper is based on literature review and is not a qualitative/quantitative research paper. Empirical research is carried out in terms of searching the relevant theories and then linking them to each other. It can be said that this empirical research and findings are result of focused literature review at the start. After the point becomes clear to the reader, the author has gone to refined literature on the topic and came up with papers that are linked to each other. The empirical findings also come out as a result of knowledge that has been gathered throughout the paper, and eventually future recommendations for further research are made. It is also notable that all the papers that are referred in literature review have been published in well known journals and hold a good place in the body of knowledge. It is also important to mention that the literature does not focus only on the papers that agree with its basis question but also brings out other papers that are critical of basic concept. Overall method of literature review in this paper is critical and well evaluated on all the concepts that contradict and correspond with the basic concept. 5. Identification of the researchs practical implications (if any) Personally I do not see any practical implication of the research. The reason being that strategic HRM and RBV are very much similar concepts. RBV seem to emerge as a small part of SHRM and that’s why it can be said that its already part of it. I do not see any practical implication in future to say that RBV will emerge as a separate field. Rather I think that it will remain under the umbrella of SHRM as it is a part of it. 6. An assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the paper (give reasons for your views) The paper overall conveys a very strong impact as it summarized many articles on separate concepts and also the articles that analyse both concepts. In future any research on either field can truly benefit from this paper because it summarises a huge literature on both fields. The paper does not discuss completely new field. Rather the resource based view of the firm and its important in the strategic management has been discussed in detail by other authors as well. (Foss, 1997) (Hart, 1995)However the paper defiantly combines more paper than any of the previous researches have. Having said that I feel that this paper delivers a weakness when trying to merge both fields in some papers. As some papers that are summarized are not about RBV at all or at least not focused on RBV concept, but this paper by force tries to convince that concept of RBV is discussed with SHRM. I feel this is a weakness in this paper that while summarizing a personal view has been forced into them. The other paper by the same writer do provide some guidance on future research that will be beneficial for the research on convergence of both fields. (Barney et al., 2001) (Russo and Fouts, 1997) However in this paper lot of papers have been discussed and some of them are not related to the field of RBV, rather they are part of SHRM. Since many researches convey that these two are separate fields, it’s quite unfair to derive such results from those papers. It can be said that the weakness in the paper comes from the personal view that has been part of the paper as a whole. This personal view delivers the idea that RBV is surely a part of SHRM and human capital plays a very important role in forming of the overall strategy. However paper fails to convey more researcher on the view that HR has little part in forming company’s strategy and it does not contribute to it. 7. Conclusion The paper on Human Resource and Resource Based View of Firm has been an important milestone in the field of RBV as well as strategic HRM. It provides number of papers as evidence that how RBV and SHRM are converging as one field. It also discusses some papers that think against the idea and believe that HR or RBV has any role to play in forming of overall strategy of HR. the paper proposes number of implication of the convergence that is taking place due to both fields overlapping. However as discussed earlier that many of those implications seem to be a personal view rather than completely based on empirical research. The paper is no doubt an excellent effort to combine both fields and present their convergence, but more research will be required to prove the reality of RBV and SHRM convergence. 9. References BARNEY, J., WRIGHT, M. & KETCHEN, D. 2001. The resource-based view of the firm: Ten years after 1991. Journal of management, 27, 625-642. FOSS, N. 1997. Resources, firms, and strategies: a reader in the resource-based perspective, Oxford University Press Oxford. HART, S. 1995. A natural-resource-based view of the firm. Academy of management review, 986-1014. RUSSO, M. & FOUTS, P. 1997. A resource-based perspective on corporate environmental performance and profitability. Academy of Management Journal, 40, 534-559. Read More