Analyse and critically discuss the statement below - Essay Example

ch as GE, Apple and others use these terms and their associated theoretical underpinnings to gain competitive advantages and their example becomes important while we try to understand the connection between theory and practice. For instance, when it comes to creating a purpose or strategy for an organization, GE uses the vision of the company to guide itself in where it wants to be over a given period of time. No company in the world across any industry in any location is as well respected as GE (Demos, 2006).

Throughout its existence, and more recently in the last few years, analysts from the fields of management, human resources and organisational studies have all given their respects to GE (Fisher, 2006). A large part of this respect comes from the way GE handles its human resources of which examples have been given by those who have been a part of GE as well as those who have observed it from afar. In essence, the handling of human resources at GE is deeply linked with their idea of the mission and vision of the company.

In theory, the functionalist paradigm of human resource management connects greatly with the idea of rationality and thus rewards as well as punishments become a rational method for ensuring continual behaviour of one type or another. Consequentially, these are an intrinsic part of the management system at GE (Kerr, 1996). Welch (2005) reports that, “We publicly rewarded people who drove the mission and let go of people who couldn’t deal with it for whatever reason (Welch, 2005, Pg. 16)”.

The idea of publicly rewarding top performers ensures that those who see it happen know why some individuals are being rewarded more than others. On a simpler level, the individuals who were rewarded would have a harder time in leaving the company and their strategic relationship with the company would evolve and be strengthened (Henry, 2006). Therefore, rationality and rewards go hand in hand with the theory and strategy behind human resource